Power saving tips and ways to save money!?

[lastlight]

I would think the only difference with heater count is how gradual or rapid your recovery to target temp is. More heaters gives you backup in case one fails but fewer heaters would make the tep swing back up more gradual.

I'm saying this using a ranco which kicks on at 77 and off at 78. With fancier controllers this prob isn't a concern with ramp up time since the controller keepers a tighter range i think.

As for power draw... some with halides likely underestimate their draw. My 250W each ran at 330W. Ballasts and bulbs both determine what that number will be.

Another way to save money (unrelated to power though) is to take good care of your ro membrane. flush it before and after use and then bypass the di resin for a minute or so until membrane output is as low as it's reasonably going to get. mine has been outputting 1 TDS after less than a minute of bypass since I got it and after running a while it drops to zero. This practice saves you a ton of DI resin.

[asylumdown]

yah the Apex kicks the heaters on at 26.1 and turns them off at 26.6 or 26.7 I think, which I think is the difference between 78.9 and 80.06, so it's a pretty tight range. I just takes a good long while to swing the temp even that small amount with 600 watts of heater, but on the plus side, it takes hours for the temp to fall enough to trigger the heaters. I thought that maybe added heaters would be more efficient, but I guess it probably all comes out in the wash, your'e still heating X volume X degrees.

[kien]

my suggestion would be to ditch filter socks. Or at a minimum reduce their use. In my opinion they do not fall under the "must have" category of reefing. Using them means you have to wash them which means you are either rising them out by hand or throwing them into the washing machine or both. There is an opportunity to conserve on water and electricity here.

[Reef Pilot]

How efficient are in-sump pumps for heating water? For example, if I have a 100 watt pump running in my sump vs a 100 watt heater in my tank. Will both heat my tank equally? I assume not, but for sure the pump does produce a fair bit of heat as well.

In my specific case, I have 2 sumps, each with 2 pumps. One tank needs to be supplemented with a heater, while the other has bigger pumps and needs to be cooled with a chiller. And yes, I know some of the heating comes from the lights.

But just curious, what is the difference in heating efficiency between pumps and heaters?

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

How efficient are in-sump pumps for heating water? For example, if I have a 100 watt pump running in my sump vs a 100 watt heater in my tank. Will both heat my tank equally? I assume not, but for sure the pump does produce a fair bit of heat as well.

In my specific case, I have 2 sumps, each with 2 pumps. One tank needs to be supplemented with a heater, while the other has bigger pumps and needs to be cooled with a chiller. And yes, I know some of the heating comes from the lights.

But just curious, what is the difference in heating efficiency between pumps and heaters?

Depends on the components I suppose, but a heater is purpose built to do just that, heat something up. So my guess would be that in most cases a heater will be more efficient. A pump's primary purpose is to provide some manner of mechanical function, with heat being a by product. Most pump designers will try to maximize the mechanical efficiency & minimize the heat. In your case, the 100 watt pump will be using most of that power to pump.

However, this doesn't mean we can't use the heat by product of our pumps to an advantage during the colder months. While I don't have a sump on my system yet, I do have plans for a basement sump at some point & have already acquired two different pumps, a Panworld & a Poseidon. Although both are external pumps, I understand the Poseidon produces a lot of heat which is xferred to the water while it's pumping. My plan is to use the Panworld in the summer, the Poseidon in the winter. I'll also insulate the sump in the basement with plenty of styrofoam.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

LED heater anyone?

Put waterproof leds on aluminium blocks and submerge them into the water. They are "efficient" at emitting heat too isinit?

Ok I shouldn't have said that being an electrical major But then again, its not a crime thinking outside the box (or inside the water over here)

Actually not such a bad idea really & I've found myself wondering why someone hasn't given this a go. Not only will you get at least some heat transfer to the water, you'll also benefit from having the light source very close to your livestock. It's common knowledge that distance is a killer when it comes to light loss. Downside is that you won't have that funky shimmer caused by a point source of light shining through surface agitated water.... and you'd probably need to scrape off algae once in a while... ok, I think now I know why no one's tried it...

Anyhow, waterproof SMD LED light strips have been available for quite some time now & I'm using a couple of 5050 strips to supplement my DIY 10 watt multichip build. Of course I don't have them in the water, but on a smaller system this could work quite well. It's a low voltage light source, so with proper water proofing it's no more dangerous (probably less so) than having a 300 watt heater running on 120 VAC submerged in your tank. I've ordered some LEDs that are submersible for my daughter's wedding this summer. No reason you can't throw a strip of waterproof SMD LED lighting into your tank.

Here's a photo of the waterproof RGB SMD 5050 strips I have. They're covered with a substantial layer of silicone like material. All you would need to do is keep the connectors out of the water, or just gum them up with silicone too. There are also more powerful 5630 SMDs available.

[sphelps]

If you're going to submerse LED strips make sure you get IP68 rating, most are IP65 to 67 which qualifies as waterproof but not for long term submersion. The bigger issue however will be the constant need to clean the algae film off them, not sure you'll gain any benefit compared to just mounting them closer to the water surface without actually submersing them. You could always rig up a liquid cooled heat sink with some titanium tubing using tank water to extract the heat into the tank but not likely very cost effective.

[mike31154]

Originally Posted by sphelps

If you're going to submerse LED strips make sure you get IP68 rating, most are IP65 to 67 which qualifies as waterproof but not for long term submersion.

Good point about the IP rating. I should have mentioned that as well. And yea, the algae cleaning would get old pretty quick I reckon. May not be as much of an issue for our freshwater friends though.

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by Baldy

Lol. Being an electrical major, you probably already know this but what makes leds so efficient is they put out more light energy vs heat energy than the other types of lighting. I never realized hoe much heat t5 can produce until I saw a buddy's 6 bulb fixture. Wow.

Yap. Technically, LED produce around 10% less heat than a typical fluorescent bulb. Its just that, fluros have a heat-light ratio of 95%-5% while LEDs have 85%-15%. Fluros cannot be fitted with heatsinks :P and hence LEDs get the big advantage along with being DC out-of-the-box.

[mrhasan]

Originally Posted by Reef Pilot

How efficient are in-sump pumps for heating water? For example, if I have a 100 watt pump running in my sump vs a 100 watt heater in my tank. Will both heat my tank equally? I assume not, but for sure the pump does produce a fair bit of heat as well.

In my specific case, I have 2 sumps, each with 2 pumps. One tank needs to be supplemented with a heater, while the other has bigger pumps and needs to be cooled with a chiller. And yes, I know some of the heating comes from the lights.

But just curious, what is the difference in heating efficiency between pumps and heaters?

Mike already explained that well enough. I will just add some footnotes :P

Typically, heaters are considered to be the MOST EFFICIENT device you can put in your tank; because they use the loss as the utility - heat! So typically, you are getting 300W heat (or a little bit more since the filaments changes resistance a bit with heat or maybe a little less depending on how much the thermistor is taking away; and the small LED ) from a 300W heater.

On the other hand, for a 300W pump, you will probably get around 150W of heat (loss) and the rest will go to the mechanical components.