Monthly Energy Costs For a Discus Tank

[CammieTime]

As I am thinking about setting up another discus tank, I have to beg the question, how much will my electricity bill go up for adding that one tank? I live in Minnesota, USA.

What is the average electricy usage in terms of $$value a month for a 55 gallson discus tank?

[marnold]

Good question!I dont know but would guess its less than most major appliances like a fridge.It would depend also on how hard the heater has to work to reach its set point.I would think the heater would draw the most electric and if not properly sized it would run more to reach temp than a properly sized heater.

[Dutch dude]

In my experience the heater and the pumps take most of the energy. A pump of only 40 Watt doesn't seem a lot compared to a 200 Watt heater but the pump is going on for 24 hours a day with is 350 KWH a year! Thats only one pump! Most of the energy needed can be calculated roughly and the only hard thing would be the heather.

Example

Light:
2 tubes of each 30 Watt= 60Watt= 0.06KWatt x 8 hours on x 365 day's=175KW a year (depending on efficiency of the transformer additional +/- 20% coused by heat los = 210 KW)

Pump:
30 Watt= 0.03KWatt x 24 hours on x 365 = 262KW a year

Heater:
200 Watt = 0.2KWatt x (on for 1/5 of the time and depends on climate) 0.2 x 24 hours a day x 365 = 350 KW a year

Total = 210 + 265 + 350 = 875 KW a year

For the Dutch climate this would be a realistic calculation. You could save on a high efficient pump that has a large output but still a small energy consumption, only one tube light with a mirror on top, but this depends on if you want plants or not. And you can decrease heath lost of the tank by isolation and placing it in a heated room. A low room temperature will couse higher heat losses. In the abouve sample this would save approximately 250 KW

You can check your current electricity use, calculate the cost for 1 KW and calculate the expected/estimated electricity cost for a 55 gallon Discus tank.

[Ed13]

Just find out your kWh from your electrci company, the watts used by the equipment and the time the equipment will be running. Enter the digits on this calculator and be ready to be amazed, lol
http://www.reefcentral.com/calc/tank_elec_calc.php

You'll find out the tank consumes way more than you thought, however, what you pay will depend on what the Elec Co charges you. Mine charges as if diamonds were coming through the wires:mad:

[lauris]

There was a recent thread that touched on utility costs:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?t=67333

I am in Minnesota, in Minneapolis. My rough response to your query would be based on my estimated additional utility expense of $370 a month to run a fish room of about 1300 gallons. That's 28 cents a gallon. Your 55 will thus, according to these precise calculations, cost you an additional $15.40 per month.

[captain morgan]

Hmmm. How to figure out the price of more happiness, lets not forget the initial cost of the additional equipment to even start- tank,pumps, heater, decorations, fish etc.. and the more work [water changes] on 2 tanks instead of 1. Why not just go bigger it should cost less per month to run also then having 2 tanks. Having a- say 110 gallon will keep you happier then having 2- 55's yes? At least for a while anyways until it starts to look small. O.K thats just me.

[moik]

Keeping discus as a hobby. First--- it begins with a thought of a nicely sized tank for starters ,with cost and time to be devoted. Secondly ---you get some nice discus in the size range of 2.3-4 inches big and everything is good. Third--- your discus grow up and mature then you start to get some pairs. Fourth--- you have to start to seperate the pairs into their own tanks (more tanks). Fifth--- you look at your first nicely sized tank with less fish in it, because you removed the pairs to their own tanks. Sixth ---you go on the interent and see a good sponsor here with a new and beautiful shipment just in . Seventh--- upon you seeing that new shipment and can not get CONTROL of yourself to not buy those beautiful discus you just got to have. So the cycle revolves and continues all over again. Discus a hobby? For most people that get involved with discus, it automatically turns into an obsession or an addiction. As soon as you know it, the discus bug GOT YOU!!!!!!!!!!

[kirkp]

I always love these kind of posts. My advice is to forget it as you don't really want to know. Remember when at one time I set up a 180 gal discus tank with a trickle filter. I never would have guessed how much heat is lost with that kind of filter. If I remember correctly, I had about 1000W of heater going (tank was in the basement) until I insulated every exposed surface except for the front of the tank. Remember when my wife asked if my tanks could have increased the electrical bill that much. My loving reply was "Oh, no way honey". Then I sat down and figured it out and believe me I about crapped. Never checked electrical consumption again.

Bottom line, you don't want to know.

Kirk

[Discus-Hans]

hmmmmmmm what was the saying????

If you've to ask for the price it's to expensive for you????

Hans

Got it:

"If you've to ask for the price you can't afford it" hayy I was close lol

[Eddie]

As I am thinking about setting up another discus tank, I have to beg the question, how much will my electricity bill go up for adding that one tank? I live in Minnesota, USA.

What is the average electricy usage in terms of $$value a month for a 55 gallson discus tank?

Well, one air pump powering 2 sponge filters and maybe just a single 250Watt Jager. Shouldn't cost you much at all each month if you have it barebones. ;)
Just don't use lights LOL

[captain morgan]

Found this post on another website and thought I would include it here:


Tank Electrical Costs – Especially Heaters
Note – If you don’t want to read through all of this, just skip down to the second last paragraph.

I have seen posts where people want to know the cost of running their tanks for a month. Lighting is easy because the wattage is listed on the lamps and we can estimate the hours per day that the lamps are on. Filters are on continually so it is just a matter of checking the specs for the filter wattage.

The trickier part is the heater because it goes off and on. I tried watching my heater in my 45 gallon tank while I worked at the computer. I tried to record the time it went off and on for two hours. Sometimes I’d miss it though and would have to estimate. I came up with ON 22% of the time.

I have 5 tanks so I needed a better idea. Over two weeks I randomly walked by the tanks and checked off on a piece of paper if the heater was on or off. I tried to do it randomly, not every 10 minutes in case a heater was running say, an 8 min. off, 2 min. on cycle. I did this about a 100 times over many days but it took less time than sitting watching a tank for two hours. The 45 gallon tank was on 20.3% of the time so I feel my method was fairly accurate. The chart below shows my results.

180 gal. – 250 W heater = 1.4 W/gal. On 31.4% Cost per month is $5.21
90 gal. – 250 W heater = 2.8 W/gal. On 35.6% Cost per month is $5.91
45 gal. – 200 W heater = 4.4 W/gal. On 20.3% Cost per month is $2.70
33 gal. – 150 W heater = 4.5 W/gal. On 36.4% Cost per month is $3.63
23 gal. – 50 W heater = 2.2 W/gal. On 100% Cost per month is $3.32

All heaters were set for 77-78 F and room temperature in all rooms was 70-71 F so we are looking at 7 degrees heating (about 4 degrees C) above room temperature. All heaters but one were Ebo-Jagers (the other a Visi-Therm). All were installed in the upright position.

What amazed me was how efficient large tanks are at conserving heat. The watts/gallon figures are not used in calculating dollar costs but make for interesting comparisons. You would think that the more watts per gallon you have, the less the heater would be on. Surprisingly, that is not always the case. I was worried about heating a 180 gallon tank with a 250 W heater (would it be enough heat output?) but it is on less often than the same size and brand heater on my 90 gallon. I surmise that this is due to the larger volume of water retaining heat better and the fact that the glass is thicker. Also my 180 gallon is my only tank with foam insulation underneath so maybe that makes a difference. Other factors that could affect your heating are: the location of the tank (by a window, wall, open door), the type water movement in the tank, location of heat vents in the home, and the type and amount of covering for the tank. [So tell the spouse you need a bigger tank and it won’t cost any more to run it!!! (At least the electricity part)].

In case you wonder how to calculate the cost of the heater, I will give you an example. My 200 W heater is on 20.3% of the time so that is 20.3% out of 24 hours so .203 x 24 x 30.4 days in a month = 148.1 hours a month. 148.1 x 200 Watts = 29,620. I am paying 9.1 cents per kilowatt hour so that is 29,620/1000 x .091 = $2.70 per month. You can calculate your lights and filters the same way. I am calculating in Canadian dollars.

I don’t have live plants so I have single bulb lighting and the lights are only on an average of 6 hours per day (so for me I multiply watts of lighting by .25).

Examples of filter energy use are: AquaClear 110 – 14 Watts, AquaClear 70 – 6 W, AquaClear 50 – 6 W, and Eheim 2217 – 20 W. Amongst my five tanks I have 9 filters.

I calculated that the cost total for electricity for the 5 tanks I have, to be $29.91 per month, which averages out to $6 a month per tank. 70% of that electrical cost is for heaters, 22% for filters, and 8% for lights. If you live in an area where your home is above 70 degrees F much of the time because of the warm weather, your heating costs would be less. If you are heavily into lighting, that portion will be more.

Other costs would be costs of the water (I am on a flat rate at the moment, not a meter), and the cost of heating the water as you do water changes – most people would not be adding it cold from the tap but trying for tank temperature around tank temperature. That calculation is for another day.

So there you have it. If you are too lazy to do all this math and recordkeeping, you can use the $6 a month per tank average for light, filter, and heater expenses if your electricity rate is around 9 cents per kilowatt hour. A 12 cent/kwh rate would be $8 a month per tank; 18 cents works out to $12 a month.

I have been back into fish keeping for the past five years. I have put off doing these calculations because I really did not want to know the answers. The costs were not as expensive as I had thought. You might think I’m crazy to go to all the trouble math-wise, but I must confess to being a math teacher. Say, I think I might use this as a bonus question on next week’s quiz!!

[KDodds]

If you're looking solely at electrical usage it's simple:

Wattage of Equipment / 1000 * minutes in use per hour / 60 = kW/h

kW/h * rate * number of hours in time period (i.e. a 30 day month is 720 hours) will give you the total cost of running for that piece of equipment in that time frame.

All electric companies that I know of charge you based on kiloWatt/hour. You'd really have to look at your electric bill to see what that charge is, but a guessable average nowadays is around 10.5¢ per kW/h. Most tanks have negligible running costs. But, when you get into marine/reef or high tech planted tanks, then you start to see a lot of $$$ flying out the window. For instance, a 4x400W MH fixture running 12 hours per days costs about $60/month at the above 10.5¢ rate.

[Jhhnn]

I'm new to the forum, and am just learning about modern discus keeping methods- they've changed a lot since I last kept fish at all, which was over 15 years ago. I'm still debating if I really want to devote the time and effort required.

But I can offer that there's newer inexpensive technology to answer the question of electrical power consumption, like this-

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001&nm_mc=OTC-Froogle&cm_mmc=OTC-Froogle-_-Electronic+Gadgets-_-P3+International-_-82715001

Very handy. Just don't over-amp it, it has a current handling capacity of 15A, 1875W. You may have to run separate time/power measurements on the different components in very large tanks.

Once you know the price/KWH, the math is easy.