melev

That's a good question, and any hobbyist that has been reefing for a while begins to try to figure out what the tank costs them, electricity-wise. I've done a couple of blogs pertaining to the 280g reef, found here: http://www.melevsreef.com/labels/electricity.html

My overall estimate for the 400g is about $85 per month, but it may be worth figuring up the total wattage again now that it's 2014. My latest electric bill came in, and the graph showing usage for the past 13 months was eye-opening when I saw that very tall blue bar.

As you can see, February 2014 was way over Feb 2013. And it was much higher than our vicious hot summer period. Historically, August is the worst month of the year for heat versus air conditioning, but as you can see our August was a mild month. December's bill was pretty high, especially when 10 days of that month I wasn't even in town. We've had a very cold winter here in Fort Worth, Texas - I don't remember it ever being like this with so many consecutive nights in 20s or lower.

For the past month or longer, I've felt cold even though the house was between 73° - 74° F. It was like a drafty cool breeze hitting my legs, and I'd get up from my desk or chair and put my hand under one of the vents and feel cool air blowing into the room. I don't know about you, but when I want to heat a home, I expect warm / hot air to blow out until the desired temperature, then turn off until more heat is needed. My home uses a heat pump, and that basically means the a/c compressor runs in reverse to provide less expensively-generated heat rather than relying on electric coils. Those coils are similar to what you see inside a hair dryer, but super-sized.

When the weather is icy cold outside, the system needs to defrost from time to time. The A/C technician came out and told me the system was set to defrost every 30 minutes, so he reset it to do so hourly. No wonder I was constantly cold, I probably had cool air circulating through my home for 20 minutes of every hour, and the unit was running a lot to combat it. Cool air lowers the temperature, and then the heater comes on to compensate. Rinse and repeat and send me the bill at the end of the month, right? Grrr.

The weather has changed for the better recently, so relief is in sight. Still, that didn't help when I got my bill this month. It's not the cost that was the problem, but rather the usage. The past 30 days used 3007 kWh of power, and I can't help but compare that number against the summer months' usage.

I called the people at Comfort Experts to discuss, and was told that everyone is upset about their giant bill. Many have reported their bill running twice what is normal. Mine was doubled, but it was up at least a third higher than a year ago. I called the power company to find out if they actually read the meter or if it was estimated. I have a Smart Meter which reports to them every 15 minutes, hence the readings are true.

One might ask the question "what about your aquarium?" I've been running a big tank since 2004. Last year this time, I had the exact same lights over a 215g aquarium with the same sump, and the same equipment. The only change was upgrading from 215g to 400g, and adding the 60g cube aquarium. The cube has a Mp40w ES Vortech pump and a Radion Gen2 LED light fixture. And those two tanks have been running since Nov 10, 2013. Adding one small pump and one light won't increase the bill much at all. However, the heaters do have to heat up a great water volume to keep the tank at 79°F, which is one of the reasons I keep my home comfortable at 74° F around the clock.

The power company told me I could go to a website called SmartMeterTexas.com to actually see how much power is being used in 15 minute increments all day long. So I did. Here's the power usage for the past 30 days:

Thanks to some help, I was pointed to a website that tracks temperatures, so the above graphic displays the daily low temperatures. http://www.wunderground.com/history/

Then I pulled up yesterday's power use:



Nothing really exciting there, no mega spikes of power consumption. Interestingly, the highest point of usage was at 11:00 - 11:15 p.m. when I was cooking dinner and had the oven running, yet the lights over the tank were off. I found myself distracted by this data that is a mere couple of clicks away, which I can log in to see any time...

Here are the total Amps used by the heaters for the same 24 hour period on February 17. The peak is 6.7 amps, but one of the heaters turns off prematurely and needs to be located and turned up slightly for equal heating per 1.5 hour session. I have three 300w heaters in the sump.
4:40 - 6:20 a.m.
7:59 - 9:29 a.m.
11:17 - 12:47 a.m.

Sadly, there's no real solution to this situation other than staying aware. I work from home, so I can't turn anything off. Hopefully this crazy weather will stay behind us and give me a reprieve before summer hits.