# aquarium light bill on your fish tank.



## nikonD70s (Apr 6, 2008)

i wonder if all the light/filter/heater for your fish tank cost a lot on your electricty bill? im lucky to not have to pay for it in my house but i wonder does it make a big impact on your electrity bill. i would assume out of everything the light would cost the most. anyone notice a increase in your monthly bill since you got your fish tank setup.


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## fshfanatic (Apr 20, 2006)

I am sure it does considering how many tanks I have set up. I dont pay much attention to it. I just pay the bill.


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## Gar (Mar 3, 2008)

Check the wattage and voltage, really. Incandescent bulbs take up quite a bit of electricity in their own right, so a few fluorescents over a fish tank in place of a few normal bulbs should actually save money. ;p A 50 watt aquarium heater uses less electricity than a normal incandescent. I just light my rooms with the tank lights these days.


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## BiscuitSlayer (Apr 1, 2005)

I saw a calculator on a reefer forum a while ago. I'll see if I can find it. It basically adds up the combined kilowatt hours of your devices based on individual consumption and then estimates what your electric bill is.

Pretty cool actually.


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## BiscuitSlayer (Apr 1, 2005)

Found the formula, but there is a better calculator out there (that basically does the same thing):

Watts x hours x kWh cost x 30 = monthly electrical cost of the aquarium

http://www.algone.com/energy_consumption.php


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## reddragon1977 (May 30, 2007)

im sure that helps but i fall in the catergory of people who really dont want to know 
Great source of info though!


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## AndrewH (Dec 24, 2007)

Here you go. It's an excel calculator I came up with a while back. Enjoy


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## EdTheEdge (Jan 25, 2007)

With all my tanks (I also have two Turtle tanks) my bill varies from month to month depending upon how cold it gets in the house. But on average my tanks run about $40 - $55 a month.


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## Jerseyfish (May 7, 2008)

Heh, this was a question on my science student's last test. Gave them my 10gallon tank with 28W of light 11 hrs a day, 50W of heat 8 hours a day, and 6W of filtering all day. Came out to about $30 a year, as my electric costs about $0.10/kWh.

On their practice test, I found out my 72 gallon non-planted runs me $100 a year.


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## nikonD70s (Apr 6, 2008)

Jerseyfish said:


> Heh, this was a question on my science student's last test. Gave them my 10gallon tank with 28W of light 11 hrs a day, 50W of heat 8 hours a day, and 6W of filtering all day. Came out to about $30 a year, as my electric costs about $0.10/kWh.
> 
> On their practice test, I found out my 72 gallon non-planted runs me $100 a year.


very good info, im okay to get another fish tank without my parents going crazy now haha


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## macclellan (Dec 22, 2006)

My 7 tanks cost about $15 a month. That's gone down since I stopped using heaters in most tanks.


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## LS6 Tommy (May 13, 2006)

The heater on my 2126 rarely runs during the photocyle & for quite some time after the lights shut off. The lighting keeps the tank at my desired temp most of the time. I'm sure the heat runs at night to some extent, but I'm figuring my total wattage on the 58 is roughly 400w running _everything,_ so if you knock 180w out for 14 hrs, & knock out the wattage of the CO2 solenoid & reactor pump for 14 hrs, figure roughly 200w spread typical usage makes 200w/24hrs. I really don't even think about that type of power usage. My TV runs more & sure as heck uses a _lot_ more wattage. :icon_lol: 

Tommy


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## Bk828 (Mar 11, 2008)

The thing with heaters is that they arnt always on so it could be a 50w heater thats plugged in all the time but if your room temperature is at the same setting as the heater theres almost no wattage used for the day. 

Here I saw a $30-40 jump in the bill. But thats with 2 planted tanks + 1 african with crazy over filtration.


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## steven (Jul 7, 2004)

BiscuitSlayer said:


> Found the formula, but there is a better calculator out there (that basically does the same thing):
> 
> Watts x hours x kWh cost x 30 = monthly electrical cost of the aquarium


You left out an important part on that formula. After multiplying watts by hours (which results in watt hours), you need to divide by 1000 (to get kilowatt hours) before multiplying by 30 for the monthly cost.

In other words, if your light fixture uses 330 watts, and you run it 10 hours per day, and your electricity cost is $.08/kwH, you would do the following:
330watts x 10 hours / 1000 x $0.08 x 30 = $7.92 per month.

Incidentally, it is the case that a fairly descent size aquarium can add up to a fair amount of electrical cost. Consider the following 125 gallon scenario that I'm currently setting up:

lighting: 330 watts (10 hours)
heater: 500 watts (12 hours if it runs 50% of the time)
2 canister filters: 40 watts (24 hours)
kWh cost in my area: $0.0725 (average of $0.0905 in the six "summer" months and $0.055 in the six "winter" months)

the lights use 3.3 kWh per day
the heater uses 6 kWh per day
the filters use .96 kWh per day

So, daily use of 10.26 kWh, multiplied by 30.5 days (average for a month) = 312.93 kWh per month, which will cost $22.69 per month, or $272.28 annually.


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