Power usage, holy crap!

[Sebastiancrab]

Haha... i should have taken into account my water bill. I'm too lazy to make salt water so I drive 56 mile round trip once a week to buy salt and RO water. At £15 for 50 liters of salt and £3.75 for 25 liters RO water. On top of that i always get fast food on the way home thats around £12 and taking into account the fuel...... i hate it when someone reminds me of how expensive this hobby is.

And fuel is so much more expensive in Europe than the U.S. An RO DI system would pay for itself...

 

[peffy03]

I'm in Southern California. My middle tier (first tier is very small), with all taxes, fees, payoffs, and bribes is $0.27/kWh.

Where in CA is @peffy03 ?

Central coast. San Luis Obispo.

 

[adobo]

$0.41 per kw/h? How is that possibly justified? Straight up theft is what it is. Blows my mind! And here I thought the $0.0829 charged by BC hydro was steep.

It's not. That is a rate that people pay when they are a high usage household. The base rate is considerably cheaper than that (if you use roughly the same amount as average people).

 

[rcillig]

im at .08 Cents per KWh

 

[SixtyFeetUnder]

12 amps during the day, and about 3 at night. But I’ve never added to up to see how much that costs...

 

[robbyg]

This reminds me of a thread about a week ago suggesting that we all switch back to MH lighting because it grows coral better. Yes I would love MH lighting if electricity was free but it's not!
My Aquarium is designed around low energy and it still makes a serious impact on my electric bill.

 

[Mark Gray]

I think mine for both tanks went up about 30 dollars a month.

 

[Shaun Sweeney]

I use evacuated tubes to collect solar energy which is stored in my reservoir. Then I use a home made stainless pipe (couldn't get titanium) heat exchange unit to heat my 400 gallon system. My Apex system turns a small circulating pump on. Works great. My electric tank heaters are strictly backup and don't often come on.

 

[peffy03]

It's not. That is a rate that people pay when they are a high usage household. The base rate is considerably cheaper than that (if you use roughly the same amount as average people).

Haha. My base rate is currently a reasonable .29943

In the winter it drops to around .24. That’s the best it is all year.

 

[peffy03]

Following up on this, I made a few changes this week

I swapped my return pump and my uv secondary pump for new dc units. Will cut about 20$ a month from my bill and pay for the pumps in a few months. Same flow, way less power.

 

[dtruitt]

It's like wasting power to save money to say you are green and save power.

Power walls and the like "waste" power that wouldn't be used otherwise. Power companies only have so much control over how much power they can produce at any given time. Total usage during off hours makes up a smaller percentage of capacity than during peak hours. Energy storage saves this capacity which would otherwise be wasted.

Its like buying dodgy apples and "wasting" 1/5th of them when they would all get tossed if you didn't buy the box.

 

[Ferrell]

My apex says my usage is about $27-30/ month depending on season

 

[a4edwin]

I think that energy report is garbage. But my light Bill is about 200-250 a month

 

[Vette67]

I think that energy report is garbage. But my light Bill is about 200-250 a month

Only 60%? You have some catching up to do...

 

[Lylelovett]

When I started this hobby just a couple of years ago (had freshwater long before) I was very conscientious of electricity. In hindsight after the sunk costs of gear and continuing cost of everything else, it's all just a drop in the bucket. It's a line item that I just don't even think about anymore.

 

[Vwluv10338]

This reminds me of a thread about a week ago suggesting that we all switch back to MH lighting because it grows coral better. Yes I would love MH lighting if electricity was free but it's not!
My Aquarium is designed around low energy and it still makes a serious impact on my electric bill.

I have a XR15 over my 29G and am thinking of going back to MH for my 120g build. I will probably end up with a chiller but I ran the numbers and having two 250w HQI halide lights on for 6 hours a day (plan on t5 supplement not added into the equation) at my current rate of 0.10/kWh works out to $10 a month for the lights

 

[reefruss]

currently i pay .41 per kwh. the issue is california, not the USA

That assuming you don't slip into the upper tier. If you do it's really .82/kwh as they hide a "conservation incentive" fee in the energy charges. By the way I'm in AG.

 

[peffy03]

That assuming you don't slip into the upper tier. If you do it's really .82/kwh as they hide a "conservation incentive" fee in the energy charges. By the way I'm in AG.

Nice. I’m actually in Nipomo. Nobody knows where that is tho. I’m probably paying that too. It’s just another bill on a pile of high bills. I just got a bill for 400$ for water.. 600tds into my house. I use 7.5 lbs of resin in my RODI in about 60 days too.

 

[robbyg]

When I started this hobby just a couple of years ago (had freshwater long before) I was very conscientious of electricity. In hindsight after the sunk costs of gear and continuing cost of everything else, it's all just a drop in the bucket. It's a line item that I just don't even think about anymore.

Just some friendly advice, you should start to think about it.
There are some aquarium expenses you cannot get around but you can manage some of them and electricity is one of those items. Simple things like if your primary problem is heating the water then submerged pumps are the way to go. If your in a hot area then it's much better use to external pumps. Bottom line is that we are often spending a big chunk of money on heating or cooling and many of us could save a significant amount of money every year by using the right gear for our particular home conditions. Of course if your loaded to the hilt with cash then it does not matter except for the environmental side of things.

 

[highest_tides]

My first upgrade for the upgrade was having solar installed.

@MJ in Boise might say that's a bad thing, that's great though, what size system did you install for your usage?