General Cost of running a tank

Fry Lover · #1 05-26-2008, 04:52 PM

I know some peeps would rather not know, but i've always been curious, and i now need to really be more proactive my finances (every penny counts kind of thing). I remember doing a similar thread on the old AC, but the problem was always trying to work out the heating costs of a tank.

This can work for coldwater and marine too

Anyway, from another forum i have come across a formula that helps work out how long an aquarium heater is on each day (it's still not an exact way of knowing as there will always be variables, namely room temperature).

Anyway, if you'd like to know the electrical cost of each of your tanks per week, post the following and i will work it out for you.

- full tank dimensions
- Temperature you like to run the tank at
- amount of heaters and what wattage (although suprisingly this isnt that relevant)
- wattage of all lighting (tubes and starter units)
- average daily amount of hours lights are on
- wattage of all pumps, filters, skimmers etc (if you dont know the wattage of your filter or pump just post the model and i'll find out for you)

This all assumes the following

1. your filters, pumps, skimmers are on all the time

2. average room temp in your home is about 20 C (for people whose home is occupied nearly all the time or use a lot of central heating let me know as the average room temp might be slightly higher). This is over a 24 hr period not just cosy evenings watching TV!

3. you are on a half-decent electricity tariff, although this is not going to make a huge difference if you only have 1 tank really

leave the rest to me and i'll give you a pretty decent estimate

oh, and if it freaks you out that much, you dont have to give me the figure's, you can just jog on

Fry Lover · #2 05-26-2008, 07:52 PM

Or in someone's case, how much it's costing their employer

telboy · #3 05-26-2008, 07:56 PM

ssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh you know who?

Fry Lover · #4 05-26-2008, 08:12 PM

Yes Tel, there is a forum member tapping his employer's for atleast 75% of his fish keeping hobby costs (in terms of electricity)

curviceps · #5 05-26-2008, 09:45 PM

I remember working out my 6x2x2 a while back that I was using just over 3kW units per day to keep it running, can't remember the exact figure off the top of my head. I used to sell gas and electric some time back so had an idea of what I was doing in getting myself the best deal. Biggest tip, never use your local provider for electricity, always gonnae be more expensive.

Fry Lover · #6 05-26-2008, 09:52 PM

3 KW per day, i make that about 30-36p (ish)

sounds about right (considering now it would be more as eleccy seems to be going up 10% all the time!)

Fry Lover · #7 05-26-2008, 10:01 PM

Well after lots of calculations (and i also realised now i need to change my eleccy supplier), these are what my tanks are costing me approx (assuming i make the eleccy switch)

Odd-Ball Tank, 5x2x2, x3 externals and x1 internal, lighting only 6 hrs a day £4.03 weekly

Malawi, Rio 300, x2 externals and x1 internal, lighting only 6rs a day
£3.05 weekly

Community Planted,48x18x24, x2 small externals, x1 internal, lots of lighting, 11 hrs daily
£3.50 weekly

Tiny, 10 litre Fry Tank £0.42 weeky

total is £11 weekly

That's more than i thought, i am hoping i over-estimated the cost, as that works out at almost £600 per year.

curviceps · #8 05-26-2008, 10:04 PM

Go to Uswitch.com or similar, you'll get a fair idea of what the differences in costs are, and you'll be pleasantly surprised, esp if you're with local supplier.

Fry Lover · #9 05-26-2008, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by curviceps

Go to Uswitch.com or similar, you'll get a fair idea of what the differences in costs are, and you'll be pleasantly surprised, esp if you're with local supplier.

Yep been checking Uswitch out today (or something like that), useful sites, over the course of a year there can be big savings to be had by switching

curviceps · #10 05-26-2008, 10:12 PM

The important thing as I said earlier is, your local supplier will always be more expensive. This is simply down to buying power, you can't buy from EDF as cheaply as say EON or RWE (just to use probably the 2 bigger companies as examples) in the same way that the corner shop doesn't have the buying power as the supermarkets.