# Hydro Bill went up.....need some tips or let go of some of my system.



## Jay2x (Jul 20, 2010)

So it went up by 100.00 with the systems I have, I'm deciding to let go of some of my systems....obviously sell it here..or craigslist. I have a

*Salt-water aquarium*: 46 gallon tank, t5ho light 36" (timer from 4PM to 8AM), RT pump mag 18, 150 heater, marineland in-sump skimmer.

*Freshwater:* 150 gallon tank, two XP3 filters, the lights freshwater (not even on the whole time), 300 watt heater jager.
25gallon tank 150 watt heater, and bubbler pump .
50 gallon, 200 watt heater, and 350 marinland canister filter.

Which one should I give up? Need tips or tricks


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## TomC (Apr 21, 2010)

If you select fish that like room temperature, that could save a lot on heating the freshwater. Lots of fish we think of as tropical can easily take 60 degree water.


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## Jay2x (Jul 20, 2010)

I could definitely try lowering the heat down...


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## shady280 (Oct 17, 2011)

You most likely just got a smart meter. That'll up your bill by about 100 bux without changing anything. I'd go lower heat and led lighting. Or have smaller heaters that will do the job without the power and smaller pumps along the same lines.


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## Rastapus (Apr 21, 2010)

I recently lowered my personal hydro bill by $40 a month by changing fixtures in my house to LED.


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## Jay2x (Jul 20, 2010)

shady280 said:


> You most likely just got a smart meter. That'll up your bill by about 100 bux without changing anything. I'd go lower heat and led lighting. Or have smaller heaters that will do the job without the power and smaller pumps along the same lines.


I'm not sure if they installed a smart meter on my neighbor hood...noone from hydro came...sneaky??


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## arash53 (Aug 13, 2011)

LED is the way to go.


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## Scherb (Feb 10, 2011)

Hello. go look at your meeter if it is digital then it's a dumb meeter, i mean smart meeter. also those dumb meeters have had lots of problems, one guy's bill went up 1000 bucks cause the meeter was faulty. led is good, but obviously the heater is by far the biggest power user. most lights are around 60 to 100 watts, most filters around 20 watts. and your heaters 150 to 300 watts. Cheers


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Jay2x said:


> So it went up by 100.00 with the systems I have, I'm deciding to let go of some of my systems....obviously sell it here..or craigslist. I have a
> 
> *Salt-water aquarium*: 46 gallon tank, t5ho light 36" (timer from 4PM to 8AM), RT pump mag 18, 150 heater, marineland in-sump skimmer.
> 
> ...


A sw tank will almost always use more electricity than a fw. The main powerhog on your sw is the Mag18 return pump (go with something much, much smaller and add a HydorKoralia powerhead for in-tank flow instead. For instance, I have a HK Mag8 for flow in my 165g reef & a Rio2500 return pump (replaced my Sedra9000) which is lower flow from sump to display, but only uses 55 watts/hr. Your Mag18 uses 145 watts/hr. My tank is almost 4 times the volume (probably total volume is a lot more since I have a 90w sump), but uses almost a third of the electricity of your return pump. My HK Mag8 produces 2200 gph flow and only uses 10 watts/hour. So my HK Mag8 and Rio2500 combined only uses 65 watts/hr 24/7 compared to your 145w. Total is less than half and besides the reef lights, this is your biggest user of electricity.

Also, cut back on the time your lights are on. You have them on for 16 hours so go to 10 or 8 hours instead. These two changes will drop your hydro bill on the sw tank by half. Skimmer pumps are usually quite efficient and your heater won't be on too much during the summer.

I also switched out my reef lights from 3x150w metal halides, 4x96w PC actinics to 280 watts total LED, but never at full power so either 80 watts of blue LEDs or under 200 watts of lights total, compared to 450w of halides on my old lights.


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

go to dhgate.com, search through the lighting, select "Free shipping" and you'll find a ton of sources for LED lights direct from factory, $4-5 each, the more you buy, the cheaper.


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## Jay2x (Jul 20, 2010)

SeaHorse_Fanatic said:


> A sw tank will almost always use more electricity than a fw. The main powerhog on your sw is the Mag18 return pump (go with something much, much smaller and add a HydorKoralia powerhead for in-tank flow instead. For instance, I have a HK Mag8 for flow in my 165g reef & a Rio2500 return pump (replaced my Sedra9000) which is lower flow from sump to display, but only uses 55 watts/hr. Your Mag18 uses 145 watts/hr. My tank is almost 4 times the volume (probably total volume is a lot more since I have a 90w sump), but uses almost a third of the electricity of your return pump. My HK Mag8 produces 2200 gph flow and only uses 10 watts/hour. So my HK Mag8 and Rio2500 combined only uses 65 watts/hr 24/7 compared to your 145w. Total is less than half and besides the reef lights, this is your biggest user of electricity.
> 
> Also, cut back on the time your lights are on. You have them on for 16 hours so go to 10 or 8 hours instead. These two changes will drop your hydro bill on the sw tank by half. Skimmer pumps are usually quite efficient and your heater won't be on too much during the summer.
> 
> I also switched out my reef lights from 3x150w metal halides, 4x96w PC actinics to 280 watts total LED, but never at full power so either 80 watts of blue LEDs or under 200 watts of lights total, compared to 450w of halides on my old lights.


Thank you so much for pointing it out! I just switch right now to a quiet one 600GPH it's still pretty good and less noise...I also lowered my heaters down for the freshwater... and I will be heading to Canadian tire to switch lightning fixtures to LED.


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## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

Jay2x said:


> Thank you so much for pointing it out! I just switch right now to a quiet one 600GPH it's still pretty good and less noise...I also lowered my heaters down for the freshwater... and I will be heading to Canadian tire to switch lightning fixtures to LED.


You're welcome. Just answering your question and if you ask a good question, hopefully you get some helpful answers

That's the thing about big return pumps. For all those reefers who want a lot of flow through their sump, they really pay for it with the high hydro bill because ALL big pumps use more electricity 24/7 compared to much smaller, lower flow return pumps.


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## Jay2x (Jul 20, 2010)

Yeah maybe I got too excited with overkilling the flow in my tank :bigsmile:


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## Lamplighter (Aug 3, 2012)

I'm heating close to 500 gallons of water in 15 tanks. They all have lights! If a few tanks will give an increase of a 100 bucks I'm wondering what kind of a bill I'll get. I'm thinking of insulating the sides and back of the tanks and/or heat the rooms to 75*F plus.

They are freshwater tanks.


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## neven (May 15, 2010)

if you are heating that many tanks, better to use your homes heating. if you set your heaters 1C higher, then you will find your tanks maintain a nice stability from drafts in the home and what not without harming your energy bill


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## tony1928 (Apr 22, 2010)

Ah, I'd heat the room as well. Heating tanks using tank heaters would be nowhere near as efficient as household heat. If you can keep that room at or near your desired water temperature, your tank heaters won't need to come on too often. Keeping tank lids closed will also reduce heat loss.


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## Lamplighter (Aug 3, 2012)

Thanks for the input!


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## waterbox (Nov 26, 2011)

*Cost of heating aquarium should be deducted from Home heating bill in Winter*

Just a quick comment on your electricity consumption problem:

If your house or apartment is heated with electricity, heating your aquarium (or for that matter, lighting it) should not add to your hydro bill--at least in winter. Your aquarium heater will heat your aquarium, which in turn will radiate that heat into the room in which the aquarium resides.

In effect, if you have a 300-watt aquarium heater, that's 300 watts the heat registers in that room won't have to put out. So your electrical bill shouldn't really be affected. If your home is heated with oil or natural gas, you will see an increase in your electrical bill, but that should be compensated for by a slight drop in your furnace fuel bill. Same with the electricity that goes to lighting your tank. Most of it will also end up as heat that goes to warming up whatever room your aquarium is in. Same with the electricity driving your filters and air pumps.

Of course, in summer, when you're probably _not_ heating your home, the heat radiating from your aquarium will continue to make the room warmer. So during the summer, heating an aquarium will indeed make your Hydro bill worse. But as the air in your house may well be in the low or mid seventies in the heat of the summer, presumably your aquarium heater won't have to work very hard to raise the water temperature that extra four or five degrees.

If you're actually _cooling _the room in which you have your aquarium during the summer months the air conditioner will have to work even harder to remove the heat radiated by the aquarium, and then you're really going to pay: You'll be paying once to warm up the aquarium, and then again to remove the extra heat it radiates into the room!


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