Power saving tips and ways to save money!?

[ckmullin]

I've always found this sort of product provides interesting info. It'll tell ya exactly what is used and not used!

[mohammadali]

how much would be the bill for 300w high power LEDs in 2 months ?

[Baldy]

300w x number of hours = kwh
kwh x price of electricity = cost.

it depends on how long theyre run for and how much power costs. if you ran them for 12h and electricity is 8.5c per kwh like it is here then:
300 x 12 = 3600wh or 3.6kwh. 3.6kwh x 60 days = 216kwh
216kwh x 0.085$ = $18.36 this doesnt include transmission charges and other fees.

[mike31154]

Put up some solar panels, get a wind generator, bank of batteries, grid tie inverter.... if you can stomach the upfront cost. If you have a creek in your back yard, get a micro hydro generator. Then, with your newly installed smart meter, you can sell the excess power back to the Hydro company. If you don't have excess with all your tank goodies, you'll at least cut down your hydro bill.

EDIT... and you'll have back up power if there's an outage with the big guys.

[sphelps]

Ok besides debating whether LEDs save money or not let's maybe focus on some real ways of cutting back that power bill. I'll suggest a few things that don't have huge upfront costs.

• Reduce light schedule, simply cut back lighting duty cycle to a minimum.
• Use DC controllable power-heads or alternate AC power-heads provided they can handle the cycling. Alternating pumps can essentially result in half the power compared to always on.
• Reduce flow at night, common practice for many to reduce tank flow at night. Whether it's actually simulating natural effects or not it does reduce power tremendously. For example closed loop pumps or power-heads could shut it off completely at night, DC power-heads could be dialed down.
• Those of us who do use a fair bit of power heating our tanks could use acrylic sumps for better insulation or work on insulating our tanks/sumps to hold heat better.

[Baldy]

The light schedule would work, but the powerhead idea would make an almost immeasurable difference. In not sure about vortechs but the koralia powerheads use somewhere around 6-10w each. The effects would be miniscule

[reefwars]

Originally Posted by Baldy

The effects would be miniscule

its the little things that count , same as saying me throwing one coffee cup out my car window isnt gonna make a difference to such a large world, i think were passed the point in this world where we assume the little things dont make a diifference. the little things arnt so little when you multiply it by the number of people who honor them

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Baldy

The light schedule would work, but the powerhead idea would make an almost immeasurable difference. In not sure about vortechs but the koralia powerheads use somewhere around 6-10w each. The effects would be miniscule

Well it obviously depends what you use but for example I basically run four Tunze 6105s. If I just ran these full power all the time it would be 35W x 4 x 24 = 3.36 kWh per day. If I alternated flow it would cut it down by half and then if I also just reduced flow to 20% or so at night the savings would be even better at approximately 35W x 0.5 x 4 x 12 + 35W x 0.2 x 4 x 12 = 1.176 kWh per day. Savings of 2.184 kWh per day. This will add up to power savings and while yes not substantial if combined with a few other "miniscule" ideas it could add all add up to something substantial.