WOW just got the electricity bill!

[dwarfgourami7]

Usulay our elecricity is about £110-£130. Since the fish its £180. MY dad is not happy. Hes taking some of my pocket money to help pay, but my pocket money is the only way to pay for things for my fish! dechlor, food etc.
Thats annoying

 

[Malbri]

my dad told me I was gonna pay some of last months electricity bill, but I never did

Although that would have been totally fair cause im the energy guzzler in teh house....but I have stopped turning up the heater cause if the bill doestn go down then I cant add onto my fish tanks

 

[Rbishop]

Sorry for both your situations, but I would argue that with some simple research, two or three tanks, will not greatly affect your electricity bill.

About equivalent to two 60 watt bulbs on a continuous basis for a 55 gal.

I think your tanks are the scapegoat for other real issues. Now if you had a chiller for coldwater, then it probably comes into play a bit more.

 

[nickmcmechan]

Might beworthwhile proving how much electricity you are using. I see you mention £'s and not $'s.

Im in UK too, Electricity and Gas prices have sky rocketed recently, my bills have doubled but my consumption only went up 10-20%, mostly due to winter conditions.

Try eBay, but B&Q sell a plug in electricity monitor that tells you exactly how much electricity and cost is coming out of one socket...you might be able to prove its not all down to the fish tanks.

What size is your tank, what power of units are you using, i.e. what is the total wattage of

your filtration
any air pumps
heater
lighting
anything else plugged in

Look up the electricity website, you can find out pence per kW/h.

If you need a hand working out, post here and I'll give you a hand to work out your actual running cost.....

And your Dad might lay off if you can help the Hobby pay for itself - do you have an LFS that will exchange fish for goods. If so, you could easily breed Guppys, Danios, some Cichlids in exchange for the goods you need?

 

[Malbri]

my dad got an average for fishh tanks, he said about 7 bucks a month, but thats average, didnt specify in size, I can see if I can use our killawatt measurer to see how much my ten gal uses.....
and I can try the 40 gal if I end up getting it

 

[Ulan]

Sorry for both your situations, but I would argue that with some simple research, two or three tanks, will not greatly affect your electricity bill.

I agree. The tank temperature is usually only marginally higher than the room temperature, which makes a 100W heater only frightening on the first glimpse. Just don't place the tank at the outer wall in a cold climate (here I could actually do away with a heater, except for the rams). If you don't have plants, a 15W light that is on for 12 hours doesn't really cost that much, either. A power filter uses something like 6W. That's all relatively harmless.

 

[saphphx]

Try eBay, but B&Q sell a plug in electricity monitor that tells you exactly how much electricity and cost is coming out of one socket...you might be able to prove its not all down to the fish tanks.

I'm thinking of getting one of those and useing it for 24hrs on each socket and see if I can work out what does what lol

our bill hasn't gone up though, and at any time we have 30 tanks going, though most have no lights as the tops are clear and use the room light.

 

[swany]

I noticed a similar jump in my electric bill when I first set up my 180 gallon. but in the month after that, it was not nearly as high. I think it was due to the fact that the heaters were on a lot more due to initial warm up of the water. The same could be the case for you too.

 

[Star_Rider]

I have 9 tanks and after the teenage kids moved out my bill went down considerably.

rbishop is correct..they don't use much more electricity than a few light bulbs.

 

[quadpants]

I have the kill-a-watt device so I just plugged two of my tank's power strips onto it to see what the load was.

With the lights on, it was 380 watts. My heater probably never turns on as we keep it around 78 inside. With lights off, it was 47 watts.

This included:
1x96w bulb
4x65w bulb
1x40w bulb (actually only drawing 30w)
Fluval 305
XP3

I used this calculator because I'm lazy - http://www.visitthiefriverfalls.com/testing/costs_calculator.htm and 380 watts for 24 hours a day @ 8 cents/KWh for me. So if I ran my lights 24/7 my monthly aquarium power charge would be $22.

I will leave it plugged in for a few days to find out my average but I would guess that total is less than $15/month. During the summer I'm sure the AC will be on constantly due to the heat so that may have to be taken into consideration.