The cost of keeping fish?

grokefish · Post by **grokefish** » 29 Nov 2006, 00:51

some of you may know that I asked a question of how many people would be interested in alternative power sources to generate electricity to offset the cost of keeping fish.
On a similar note,
I was approximating how much it cost me in (electrikery) to run my tanks for a year.
I came to Â£660 (about).
This is for appx. 2600l of water.
Or Â£4 per litre 'o' water.
Or Â£1.80 per day (appx.)
This led to a domestic.
Does anyone else see this as exessive?
Are other peoples bills this high?
This isn't to settle the domestic but that i am wondering if there is some way I could cut that energy consumtion down in the first place before i get into alternative power.
For instance I do alot of water changes therefore my heaters must be using more energy, which led me to look into solar heating pannels which can easliy achieve the sort of temperatures that our little friends require.
What are your experiences?
If you don't mind me asking.

fish fodder · Post by **fish fodder** » 29 Nov 2006, 01:18

too bloody much

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 29 Nov 2006, 11:12

I did some calculations, and I came up with around 200 pounds per year for about 500 liters of tanks. Price per liter goes up from 33 to 50 when I calculate it on 400 vs 27 liter tank, so smaller tanks would be more expensive to run - but I'm guestimating the amount of time the heater is on, and I'm not sure if that's the correct ratio - in my calculation, the heater is on 30% of the time.

I based my pricing on a 97 pounds per year for 1000kwh as that's the price you get if you enter 1000kwh from an Electricity Pricing web-site. That's probably not quite right, but it's not a million miles off.

Bear in mind also that you can probably reduce the heating bill by 50% of your electricity consumption for the aquarium, as the aquarium acts as a radiator. (Now, paying for electricity instead of gas, and the fact that you probably have to heat other parts of the house isn't really working right, but still, it's helping).

--
Mats

bronzefry · Post by **bronzefry** » 29 Nov 2006, 13:30

It's a good question. How do I go about figuring this out?
Amanda

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 29 Nov 2006, 13:56

Amanda, which part do you wnat explained.

I based my calculations on a price per kWh, and then did the following list in Excel:

Heater 300 30%
Lights 72 50%
Pumps 30 100%

Then a formula to calculate:
percentage * watts * 24 * 365 / 1000
That's the number of kwh that the equipment uses for a year.

Then multiply by the price per kWh to get the yearly cost, and add up the three components.

How to calculate how much percentage the lights are on is pretty easy - number of hours / 24 - if you're on a timer that's a constant value. If you switch the lights on manually, then you'll have a bit more "asking yourself" what the time per day is on average.

I run my pumps 24/7, so it's 100%. The heater is just a "stick finger in the air and guess" type number - it may be lower or higher than that [depends on many factors, such as the difference between tank and room temps].

--
Mats

PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn · Post by **PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn** » 29 Nov 2006, 16:10

http://www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/kil ... tor_review

i'm going to get one of these (their on offer at curries or similar(got to find the leaflet) for Â£14) then i can find out what the consumption on a heater is.

On a side note. any1 here on a water metre, just curious how much they charge you for a cubic metre(1000l) i found a small thing in 1 of the papers which said it was about 35p/pCM.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 29 Nov 2006, 16:30

35p per cubic meter consumed water is probably not far off the mark. I did a quick calculation based on these facts:
Some news article said that the daily water consumption is around 180 liter per day.
A web-site says that the average water rate is around Â£100 per year.

Assuming there's an average 3 people per household, that makes the price per cubic meter around 50 p. But that includes the fixed charge as well as the variable, but not the Sewerage charge...

--
Mats

Post by **Shane** » 29 Nov 2006, 18:28

I think that this is a fascinating topic, albeit one where the answers will vary greatly depending on where you live. If, for example, you are on a well then water has almost no cost. Electricity prices also vary greatly from country to country. That said, the cost of the electricity to run pumps and lights is just one small part of the equation. Bulbs, water conditioner, medicines, etc add up as do the plants, gravel, driftwood, plant food and even the fish themselves! We also have not mentioned books, yearly subscriptions to magazines, and fish club dues.

Heater 300 30%
Lights 72 50%
Pumps 30 100%

This will also greatly depend on the set up. Due to the 240V and strange plug ins here, I am using many transformers. I have been actually amazed to do the math and figure just how little watts of power aquariums need. A single 1,000 watt transformer can certainly run a medium sized fishroom. Compare that to my computer which needs its own 1,000 watt transformer! So, by comparison, running a computer (per hour) is the same cost as running a mid-sized fishroom.

Here are the stats for my recent 55 gallon set up:

Heater 100 watts
2 295 gph pump 2 X 8 watts (16)
Lights 2 X 65 watts (130)

We also have to look at how often they are in use
Heater 20% (20 watts per 24 hours)
Pumps 100% (16 watts per 24 hours)
Lights 25% (40 watts per 24 hours)

Heater use will vary greatly. I actually only need one to counteract the air conditioning (probably not Mats' problem in the UK). Lights too. A heavily planted tank may use 12 hours per day of light while a fishroom catfish tank may use a low watt bulb 3-4 hours per day.

To go back to the 55 gal vs the PC:
55 gallon tank per 24 hours = 76 watts total

PC
PCU 600 watts
19" flat screen monitor 50 watts
Speakers 3 watts
modem 3 watts

PC per hour on: 656 watts. That means that for every hour my PC is on, I could run a 55 gallon tank approx 9 days. Since most of us have our computers on 8-12 hours a day, every day of PC use equals running a large tank for 3 months!
-Shane

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 29 Nov 2006, 18:42

Shane,

Many good points - running the Oven or Cooker (assuming it's electric), as well as washing machine or dishwasher are very good ways of using a lot of electricity... [Pumping the water is easy, but heating it costs a lot, just like the fish-tanks - and of course the washing machine or dishwasher heats to 50 or 60'C, rather than the 25-30 that we use in the fish-tanks].

Doesn't your PC have a switch at the back for 240 vs 110V? Most of them do (and others automatically switch depending on the input voltage - but don't EXPECT that unless it specifically says that the input is 100-240V or some such). In which case you just need to replace the actual cable, rather than running through a transformer - if you notice that the transformer does get warm, you'll realize that this is actually USING electricity to warm itself up....

Also don't assume that because your computer has a 600W power-supply that it ACTUALLY uses 600W at all times - modern machines are able to power-save whilst still running using a "slower speed on the processor". Never mind the fact that the PSU is probably oversized for the computer [to allow for having four hard-disks, two graphics cards, a faster processor and full amount of memory that you could possibly fit in the machine]. (And also, if your computer isn't actually calculating "hard", it's not going to use the full power in the CPU itself - and this is most likely the case most of the time if you're browsing the web or typing e-mails or such).

Sorry for the long post... Now we can go back to talking aquariums...

Post by **Shane** » 29 Nov 2006, 19:00

Mats,
The PC could be changed, via the PCU, to 240, but the other components can not. This might make no sense, but running the various components on differing voltages scares me. We are also careful to keep all items in one room on the same voltage to protect them. The wife already blew the coffee pot last week. Thank God it was not me.

And also, if your computer isn't actually calculating "hard", it's not going to use the full power in the CPU itself

You should hear those Nvidia 7900 GTXs and Raptor hard drive sing when I boot Oblivion!
Your point is well taken though and it would be interesting to look at the power consumption of household appliances for comparison purposes.
-Shane

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 29 Nov 2006, 19:27

Grokefish, you are lucky living in South Wales. You must be able to have a much nice soft low nitrate tapwater as you like.

It makes me sick.

I have pangs of guilt every time I turn the RO on.

Post by **Marc van Arc** » 29 Nov 2006, 21:19

Sorry guys, but there are things that I don't want to know. It would only spoil the hobby imo. And like they say overhere: a hobby may cost money (litteral translation).

PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn · Post by **PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn** » 29 Nov 2006, 22:54

racoll wrote:Grokefish, you are lucky living in South Wales. You must be able to have a much nice soft low nitrate tapwater as you like.

It makes me sick.

I have pangs of guilt every time I turn the RO on.

nitrate around 1ppm
KH 4ppm
Gh 9ppm
pH 7.2 (cant get ti acid through yeast CO2 or bogwood (water went slightly yellow for 1 week then nothing) gonna try peat though)

saying that i do buffer the water up to get the KH to 50ppm to keep the water stable.

grokefish · Post by **grokefish** » 29 Nov 2006, 23:16

pH 7.2 (cant get ti acid through yeast CO2 or bogwood (water went slightly yellow for 1 week then nothing) gonna try peat though)

My water starts at about that pH but it drops.
I don't understand this maybe someone else can explain this.
I left a glass o water on the kitchen surface for a couple of days and then tested it and it had dropped.
What is that all about?

Grokefish, you are lucky living in South Wales. You must be able to have a much nice soft low nitrate tapwater as you like.

It makes me sick.

I have pangs of guilt every time I turn the RO on.

I think that is why may cichlids breed like crazy.

On a side note. any1 here on a water metre, just curious how much they charge you for a cubic metre(1000l) i found a small thing in 1 of the papers which said it was about 35p/pCM.

i think this is going to become more of a problem in the future, I'm gonna start collecting rain water.

back to the origoinal quetion should I move all my tanks into one room and heat the room instead?
It's not so much the money(for me anyway) it's the "carbon cost" to the environment and not to mention the oxygen.
Here's a small fact for you A turbine (Quite a big one but not the biggest) sucks up and combusts appx 1000000cubic feet of air a minute.

think about that for one minute

and how much air has has been burnt in that minute.

Post by **Shane** » 30 Nov 2006, 06:24

should I move all my tanks into one room and heat the room instead?

This is what I have been doing for years and I like it far better than using 20 individual heaters (it also saves me 19 electrical outlets). One thing you really should do however is add a ceiling fan. This helps to keep the temp stable throughout the room by pushing warm air down. Otherwise, your tanks close to the ground can be at 75-76F while the tanks on the third shelf can be at 80-82F. I am using a ceiling fan now and my lower tanks stay at 77-78 and upper tanks 79-80. That is a temperature difference that I can live with.
-Shane

grokefish · Post by **grokefish** » 30 Nov 2006, 23:57

That is what i shall do imediately when I get home!
Huzzah!

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 01 Dec 2006, 15:15

My water starts at about that pH but it drops.
I don't understand this maybe someone else can explain this.
I left a glass o water on the kitchen surface for a couple of days and then tested it and it had dropped.
What is that all about?

What I think is happening here is that your water is naturally very soft and acidic.

However acid water corrodes pipes and dissolves heavy metals, so the water company add just enough alkalinity to counteract this.

This treatment must be fairly short lived, as you have reported.

Best to aerate all water for 24h before using it in the aquarium perhaps?

PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn · Post by **PsYcHoTiC_MaDmAn** » 01 Dec 2006, 17:49

for all of you looking at space heating

http://www.yourwelcome.co.uk/acatalog/Heat_Pumps.html

turn every 1Kw of electric into 3Kw heat

also supposed to work as a cooler in summer.

grokefish · Post by **grokefish** » 01 Dec 2006, 23:32

Best to aerate all water for 24h before using it in the aquarium perhaps?

Why?

Fish Soup · Post by **Fish Soup** » 03 Dec 2006, 00:12

"The wife already blew the coffee pot last week. Thank God it was not me."

Shane, you might want to edit that! Or use it as a signature. Your call.

Don

racoll · Post by **racoll** » 03 Dec 2006, 02:34

Quote:
Best to aerate all water for 24h before using it in the aquarium perhaps?

Why?

To let the pH settle and avoid it bouncing around when you do a big water change.

But if you haven't had any problems yet I doubt it is much of a issue.

MatsP · Post by **MatsP** » 04 Dec 2006, 11:24

grokefish wrote:
Best to aerate all water for 24h before using it in the aquarium perhaps?
Why?

If the water company adds something to raise the pH that dissipates after some hours of standing around, you're affecting the fish with every water change by raising the pH and then lowering it as the additive dissipates in the tank. Better to let it dissipate before it hits the tank.

--
Mats