Ideas to lower electricity usage in our tanks.

My tank is in a lean-on greenhouse attached to my living room, so there is 1 t8 of 36 Watt for vieuwing at night. rest is natural sunlight and no this does not produce more algae
I have an internal sump witha a nanostream as a return this uses less than ten Watts.
at night the tank is covered so there is less heat lost due to evaporation.
the tank is 300 g and only uses 270 € of electricity a year and we have to pay over 10 ct for kWatt/h
 
The Seaward said:
I don't think I've seen anyone mention leaving the lights off for a day here and there. We have all had blackouts and hopefully most of our tank inhabitants and us have survived. There are overcast and rainy days on the reef as well. Every now and then when we are out for the day, working hard to afford these aquariums, we should turn some or all of the lights off for a day.
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Great Idea! I'm not sure where I read it, but I've seen something somewhere that indicated that periodic "rainy days" were actually very helpful to health of corals. Now I just need a new controller to set that up...

kvosstra said:
But, to truly maximize the efficiency, we probably need a "smart" program to allow the temperature to creep up just a bit at the end of the evening, so as to "save" some heat for the night.
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That certainly sounds like a good idea on the surface, but I'm not sure that warming the water up at the end of the day will save on much night time heating. I've got a FW 180g that in the summer peaks a few degrees warmer than I have the heaters set for. And when the MH lights go out, the temperature plummets down to the proper temp quickly. It loses 2-3 degrees in 30-45 minutes. Granted, it's an open top, so a hood would help hold in more heat. But it's an acrylic, which retains heat much better than glass. So, sounds like a good idea, but my in my experience it's not going to gain as much as one might hope.
 
I see using a controller on your tank to be an easy way to make it more energy efficient. The unit itself uses very little energy while the systems it controls use large amounts.

Like a progreammable thermostat for your house which reduces the temperature of your house while you are gone. This system would work by trying to gain energy efficiency. On random days during the week while you are away it would turn off all of your halides to simulate a cloudy day on the reef and save you energy. Random powerheads could be turned off at random intervals to conserve power and add variability to currents in the tank. By logging the tanks water temperature and the outside air temperature the system would turn on and turn off heaters at the very most efficient time.
 
i was able to cut a substantial amount from my bill by offsetting the lights. I currently have 2 400W Iwasaki's over a 120 but only one side is ever on at a time, and for only a total of 5 hours per day. You'd be surprise how much a little amount of quality light can sustain. Cutting back from 8 to 5 hours per day and only having one light on at a time took more than $50 off our monthly bill.

Luis
 
In my 11x12ft office with one 200 gal system (sump, refugium, display) and soon to add another 100 gallon system, I installed a samsung ductless heat pump which is the most energy efficient cooling/ heating heat pump type system available (19 SEER for a so-called split system/ductless). Maintaining the room temperature is more efficient than maintaining tank temperature, in a small room. A big plus is that this system has a dry mode to exhaust humidity from the open topped tank, sump, and refugium.
 
I just have one mj mod for flow in my 55 gallon tank
and t5 lights for 4 hours a day
I only have several soft corals so they are still doing great
This helped reduce algae growth and my tank looks bright and healthy
I have a large amount of life in my tank including neon green sponges and red feather dusters on nearly every rock in the tank. This setup is supporting my tank very well.
 
on my 29g BC I cut back the daytime lights and the actinics to 5 and 6 hrs respectively. On my 110g I plan on going as energy efficient as possible. Putting the skimmer on a timer is a great idea, that way it doesn't skim all the food and nutrients out of the water all the time. leaving the lights off for a day or having them on for only 2-3hrs every few days should help too. i think my biggest problem is going to be cooling the tank in the summer. I've thought about using geothermal cooling but don't know how to implement it. Plus my sump is underneath my tank and not in the basement. If I put my sump in the basement I would need a high pressure pump to get the water back to the DT. So whatever money I would save on cooling the tank or room that the tank is in would get lost in the higher power hungry pump.
 
I have a 40G and this is what I've done to conserve electricity:

1. T5's (6x39w) and LEDs(18w for dusk/dawn effects) are on 5 hrs and 4 hrs, respectively- LEDs only use abt 1/3 of elect to produce the same amount of lights as compared to my T5s, all corals including SPS/LPS/zoas are doing great
2. Mag 7 return pump has T-offs to feed phosban reactor, carbon and calcium reactor.
3. Fan across tank in summer to cool off
4. Temp set on my AC Jr controller - winter 76F and summer 78F so heater doesn't turn on as often in winter, corals are doing fine
5. a Vortech MP10 provides random water movement as compared to 2 Tunze 6025 or Koralias

But I believe the future of electricity conservation is in LED lights. DIY LEDs fixtures are popping up everywhere, and there are many threads of great success too. With better LEDs and careful planning, you'll only use 1/4 or 1/3 of the wattage to produce same amount of light as compared to T5 or even MH.
 
one more option: switch an Ehiem 1260 pump to a 1262 pump with a $9 part increases flow rate by 35% at a lower wattage. I will eliminate a pump from my system this way.
 
i use natural light in my nanocube and 2.5 gal, i wish i had a par meter but its way brighter than the regular lights
 
I want to try LED's on my next tank upgrade. by then they'll be on the market long enough to have all the kinks worked out.
 
We are planning a smaller energy efficient tank - downsizing from a 90 gallon that I feel is an energy hog. We are looking to set up a 30 gallon tank. I like many of your ideas. We are planning for rock, fish and mushrooms, and would like to use a non sump filtration system, and led lights. Has anyone had experience with this?

Do you have a recomendation for a flitration pump? Would you recomend using a small protien skimmer? Do you think we can get by without a chiller? (we keep the house at about 80 degrees).
 
One way to save electricy it turn light on at evening or night. That what I am using for my tank, I turn on at 4pm and shut off on midnight.
 
Low electricity consumption was top of my list during my construction. I did the calculation recently. My 125 gallon uses only 9.472 kWh a day and therefore approximately 284.16kWH a month. At 2.9 cents per kWh of energy used in my area it only costs me $8.26 a month to run my tank. I think this is pretty darn good on a 6 ft long mixed reef.

Some ways I conserve energy:
-I only use two halides for eight hours a day. The middle portion of my tank is relatively unlit and has no corals.
-I don't use a chiller. Just a fan in the summer.
-My heater is almost never on. My tank is in an enclosed room with controllable ventilation.
-Energy efficient powerheads instead of a closed loop.

Just thought I'd share as I think this is a great topic and something to strive for, both for financial and environmental reasons.
 
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