FYI - aquarium hydro costs

[manytanks]

Was checking out appliance costs per kWh on the Hydro One Networks website using their "appliance calculator", and they have an entry for 'aquariums'.  There's no more detail given than that but presumably this catch-all description includes the electricity costs for a heater, filter and probably enough lighting to see whether there's any water in the tank but not enough to grow a java fern.

According to this calculator, running one (1) tank for 24/7 for 30 days/month at $0.047/kWh will cost you $2.10 per month.

The appliance calculator URL is: www.hydroonenetworks.com/en/efficiency/appliance_calculator/default.asp

There are separate lines for calculating the usage of various compact flourescents (only 11-18 watts, though), halogen and incandescent spots, plus the standard 4' and 8'  T12 flourescent fixtures. Nothing for metal halides or the larger compact flourescents, etc.

If anyone's interested further, I could ask a friend who works at NRCan to give me a hand in calculating specific costs for various devices according to their actual rated power consumption...and I'll post it here.

[saltydog]

Does Hydro One say for what tank size this average cost is applicable? Some folks have !0G tanks & others have 160G tanks. Costs are considerably different! Maybe if one assumes this cost is for a 25G tank then one could say that, for example, a 90G tank would cost about 4 times as much to operate.

I would think, in the case of tropical fish, that heating costs are the largest single cost. This heating cost varies considerably based on such factors as tank size, temperature outside, tank location (basement, near window, outside of the house?), heater thermostat setting, whether aquarist uses a top (which reduces cooling from evaporation) or uses foam insulation (on bottom & back of tank) to retain heat inside.

Anyway, it may not be that useful to focus on costs of various types of lights since less efficient lights produce more heat which, for most months of the year in Ottawa, our tanks need anyway. If this heat is not supplied by the lights it needs to be supplied by the heater.  

Ever think of the following? At night during the winter in an electrically-heated house one could theoretically leave all of  the lights on all night & waste very little $. Much of the energy consumed in lighting goes into the by-product of heat & the light portion is converted to heat at every surface from which the light is not totally reflected. As compared to a baseboard heater, the only actual 'energy wasted' is the amount of light which is emitted through the windows to the exterior & this could be reduced to negligible by closing all blinds & curtains. Just a thought.

Hydro One now charges 2 different rates for electricity usage. A cheaper rate for initial X number of Kwh & higher rate for usage above that. Cost, therefor. is also dependent on whether your total usage regularly goes above this base-line amount.

[Aiglos]

Many Tanks> Thanks for the excellent site and post.  

Very informative ( Salty Dog aswell)

[Anubias]

Totally useless. My three aquariums cost me more than $1000 per year in electricity usage. There are a million considerations not factored in.

Regards,

[james]

Hi
I have been preparing for the increase of hydro consumption. Three years ago I switched all my power filters ( whisper and Aquaclears) with  sponge filters (hydro sponge) and air filters. At that time I had over 30 tanks running. So, instead of having 30 power filters  I had to only power  6 air pumps.
Even now I am runnig all my tanks (6) with only 2 air pumps.

James

[Marx]

Anubias, its your metal halides that are killing you..

and thats about it.. I work for a Electrical Engineering firm.. and know a aqaurium costs at most 8-10 dollars a month with non metal halide lighting..

not sure about saltwater tho.. with all those pumps and VHOs and stuff lol..

[manytanks]

Just for clarification, I thought to provide the info in the first post above as a minimal baseline only. As Salty correctly points out in his second paragraph, actual costs will be influenced by a considerable number of variables.

Will consider doing a more detailed workup of our costs when I have more time...although the last thing we need is hard info on how much more thi$ hobby is really costing us! <rueful smile>