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electricity bills and fishkeepin?


benno

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Well after havin not kept any tanks whatsoever for the last 4 years, me and the mrs have decided to start looking for a place together once her contract on her little unit has run out in a few months. Anyways i know shes wanted a fish tank for ages(no influence from me either funnily enough) which is cool with me coz im dead keen to get back into it anyways just havent had the space. Anyways ive told her ill be gettin a 8x2x2 when it does eventually happen( dont think she quite understands the size of this tank but shes keen as haha) and was wondering with the cost of e;ectricity rising over last few years just how much a tank this size costs to run per quarter these days?. Ideally id be wanting to run 3x large cannister filters or possibly even a sump set up if i could find someone to build it for me, 2 or 3 large heaters, air pump and light. So yeah i was wonderin if anyone here had an idea of approx running costs of a tank this size with all these accessories per quarter? it would be much appreciated. Thanx in advance

Ben

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Expect a bit of a rise in your bill, especially with those heaters. The large cannisters should not be too bad. Just check the wattage rating for each one.

The lighting could be an issue if you're going to have a marine setup, however, if it's for a freshwater tank, a couple of good quality T5 fluros should not be too bad....better output and efficiency compared to the normal larger tubes of a T8 fluro.

An airpump would not use too much power. They are fairly good in terms of power usage and a lot of people just use air powered filters in their fish rooms to filter numerous tanks due to their economy and low power requirements.

Your two or three large heaters, probably of 200w or more will be your real killer. It's better to keep the tank in a well insulated room away from large glass windows to regulate the temperature more evenly throughout the year, therefore dropping the necessity for the constant use of those LARGE heaters.

In summer, spring and early autumn i switch off all my heaters as my tanks stay fairly constant throughout.

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would not bother me payin a bit extra on the power bills. Its expected and just a Small price too pay for this great hobby. Just as long as it wasnt ridiculously expensive to run a big tank these days. Thats all im really tryin to find out really. Thanks for the reply Kimo

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Running one 8 foot tank won't be too bad if you have it inside the house as opposed to in the garage which is normally a lot hotter or colder than inside the house.

The little bit extra you'll have to pay won't even matter once you have it running anyway....you'll wonder why you didn't get it any sooner! hehe

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I would say you would be looking at atleast $90 a month for power. Mabe more in winter and maybe less in summer.

We used to work on $1=1w per year, but power cost would be probably twice that now.

So @ $2/1w

Approx 600w of heating running half the time = $600

Three canisters @ approx 50w = $300

a decent airp pump would be Approx 40w = $80

Lighting is a real unknown, wayyyyy to many choices but say 4 x 39w globes ( probably more ) on for 12 hours a day = $160

Thats about $110 a year.

This is just a guess, but I doubt it would be to far of the mark.

Josh.

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I am running in excess of 25 heaters ranging from 25-300w plus air, canisters, HOB's and lights (T8s and T5s). Since i stopped using the MH lights my bill basically halved to around $600 a quater. Hope that helps a bit.

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Cheers for that guys. It really isnt too bad considering what alot of other hobbies cost, but obviously not the case if you get the disease badly and end up with 20-30 tanks haha.

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when i set my tanks up , i put my biggest tanks in the lounge room ... they are at the far end away from the wood fire.... but without the heaters they sit on about 20C during the coldest months...

so the heaters dont have to work as hard...

thats just a luxury i have...

but over all , my 4 tanks barely use any electricity....so far

touch wood.

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G'Day benno, i used to get away with thinking it was not putting much on the power bill because I was living with my floks, i'd just tell them it was the heating or cooling of the home it self BUT I knew exactly what caused the spike in costs. I had a 3.5ft x 14 x 20 and a 6 x 20" x 20", running 3 heaters and 3 cannister filters and not much lighting. My parents said the difference was around $100-$150+ a quarter. I know even on a teachers salary and my fionce's salary it would make our lives with a home, car loans and an up coming wedding very hard. If you do get a tank like the one you plan you have to be prepaired to go without other things. Not that I know your finantual situation, but i know that mine is stable and an extra cost of this kind would make it hard.

My oppinion, start smaller (4ft) and spend the cash making it look good (hood, cabinet, or built in etc) and get the fish you wan't rather than the ones you can afford. Running costs will still be less in the long run and you will still get your nice aquarium.

Hope this helps

Ant

PS: Just my 2c, this was also 5 years ago and prices have gone up since then.

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My last quarterly bill was $1700, the one before that was $900 (warmer months)

So yes next winter I will have the fishroom insulated and heated, the power bill is my largest overhead with my tanks (16 of them).

Thinking of putting a slow combustion heater in the garage.

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Yea the costs wont be much of an issue, somehow fell into a pretty killa job at the start of the year earnin twice the amount of money what im used too and it keeps gettin better fingers crossed. Thats the only reason im plannin to go for a monster of a tank for the first one back from exile lol.

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Cool, as long as you don't go stupid on car loans like I did then you should be right...lol. And I only have a mazda 3 and Swift to show for it..lol...should have spent less and got a VX commodore....lol.

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lol I bought a Vt, even cheaper mate lol. No need for a loan. You back in Adealaide Ant?

Lol the way its goin everyone will be hookin there tanks up to solar panels if the prices and taxes keep increasing.

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Yea I live in Aldinga. I will definately look into solar one day. My folks are getting solar power for their home, I think it is an excelent idea and worth while nowadays. If you have the money for the initial cost layout. Where abouts are you now?

Ant

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I am going to look into solar to see if my house is suitable. It might not be a massive return as I can't really affors a high end system but i should be enough to cover my fish room bills.

cheers

rosco

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Plus you get the rebate for them atm. Apparently Australia is suppose to give

the highest returns also for those who use solar (this is through a their

current pay-back scheme for however much electricity is gained through your

solar panel). These rates are scheduled to be lower in about 5-10 years

though as it is primarily an initiative to get people using solar.

Cheers,

John

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Fish Keeping and Power think its bad now ....

Yup... I decided I'd had enough of $800/quarter electrickery bills, about three quarters of which was due to the fishroom and decided that rather than fight 'em I'd join 'em

IPB Image

At present it's generating a little more than double my electricity bill which I'm pretty happy with considering the miserable (even for a Canberra winter) weather we've been having.

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Back in Gawler durin the week and kapunda on the weekends(mrs lives there). But will be movin out to Kapunda in a couple of months time once we finish up workin on the nthn expressway as alot of our work will be up north from then on. Got a couple of mates and some family that live in Aldinga hey. That looks awesome Chorrylan, whats a set up like that worth? if ya dont mind me askin?

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Chorrylan, whats a set up like that worth?

it's a 10kw system and cost $43k out of pocket. I neded fairly efficient panels to squeeze 10kw onto my available roof so it cost a bit. You can do it more cheaply if you have plenty of roof space (I've seen prices down around $37k) or more expensive if you have even less roof space (I've seen prices up nearly to $50k)

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I've got a (modest compared to Laurie) 1kw system on my roof. I got it under the old government rebate scheme so the out of pocket cost was $250. Since it came on line at the end of April its been producing an average of 4kw per day with the feed in tariff at 50c per kw that's around $2 per day credit that I've been getting through winter, I'm expecting it to produce twice as much per day during summer.

I've seen some 1.5kw systems advertised lately for under $2k installed.

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If I can ever buy in Sydney the solar scheme seems great.

Only other thing I can suggest is using styrofoam around tanks and maybe on lids. At night put styrofoam on the from of tanks as well.I reckon that would radically reduce heat loss.

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