Electric bill

[Shiggknight]

I’m curious how much your electric bill went up when you switched to MH lighting. Did you notice the difference or was it not that bad?

Ide like to know how many watts your fixtures are too.

Thank you
Picture for attention

 

[ZoixDark]

It was a lot. But that was 10 years ago.

 

[stephj03]

My situation is a little different. I decided to add 2 250w radiums to my existing 4 Orphek Atlantik V4s as an alternative to adding 2-4 additional V4s.

But I was able to compare usage and calculate the potential difference.

I run 8hrs peak on all channels with sunrise and sunset on the Orpheks and have always run radiums for 8hrs/dy. 300g tank, no chiller,

I could only afford to add 2 new Orpheks to start so I compared 2 radiums to 2 orpheks.

1. Orphek: (240hrs/mo x 226w unit rating x 2 units) ÷ 1000= 108.48 kwh

2. 250w Radium:. (240hrs/mo x 350w/bulb x 2 bulbs) ÷ 1000 = 168 kwh

So my radiums are running about 60 extra kwh/mo vs what their immediate replacement would have been.

My tiers are $.28/kwh and $.35/kwh

So the range of extra for me is: $17- $21/mo. Add another. $13/mo for annual bulb change)

Until the moment I did this calculation I had no idea how overstated the difference was for my application.

In reality I likely would have added 4 additional Atlantiks over time. But I would have possibly turned down my peak or lowered the white channel with 4 so I can't do that calc from my current per unit measurements.

 

[stephj03]

Take this with a grain of salt though. I'm a bit weird in that I run all channels at 100% at the peak of the program.

But I also run my Radiums properly on hqi ballasts which is uncommon as well.

On a side note, I likely would have lit this tank happily with 4 radiums and a few blue plus bulbs or reefbrite bars in the past.

At my peak rate that only comes out to $120-$130/mo for there to be a difference on.


I wish I only spent that much on the rest of the tank every mo.....