Help Your Fellow Reefers With Your Energy Saving Reefing Tips

PeterC99 · Mar 10, 2022

Looking for suggestions to save energy/money on this Reefing hobby I love. Please share any Energy/money saving tips. Below are some of mine energy/money saving suggestions. Thank you fellow Reefers!

1) Fan controlled by Apex & aquarium temp to keep aquarium cool. (No chiller). I now have this fan on my 90g and it kept my aquarium below 79 degrees last summer.

2) 3D printed filter cups. No more washing socks!!! Change out a small piece of filter floss every week (30 seconds). Cheap, effective, and simple. Also, one less mechanical thing to go wrong. $15 for the cup & $10 a year for the filter floss.

3) Oxydator. Water quality goes up tremendously with an Oxydator. The Oxydator's oxidizing capacity will improve your water quality and many harmful contaminants in your water will be neutralized. Oxydator’s are also an aid to fighting algae problems.

4) Home grown phytoplankton. System has paid back itself in less than 6 months.

blaxsun · Mar 11, 2022

• Reduce your lighting by 5%
• Run the return pump and wavemakers at a slower speed off-peak
• Phase out T5/metal halide lights in favor of LED
• Phase out AC equipment with DC versions

BradB · Mar 11, 2022

Pay attention to temperature, especially in a larger system. I spend a lot heating my 79F LED lit reef. At 78F or 77F, it would be cheaper and I'd have less humidity.

There are people on the opposite end, paying to chill a reef. Some people pay to heat to 85F and others pay to chill down to 75F. Pick a temperature that requires minimal energy to support.

Equipment (not just lights) factors into this too. An MP40 and external pumps heat the tank a lot less than powerheads and submerged pumps.

I've never tried it, but I've read people heat a tank closed loop off their water heater. This would save me a ton if I had the time and took the risk. Lots of advice like this applies only if electricity is high and gas is cheap.

Pay attention to your home thermostat. Mine is 68F in the winter. I could save money bundling up and setting it lower if I weren't paying electric to heat my tank and gas to heat my home - but that would probably cost me more. I could also raise the house temperature and spend less heating the tank, but believe I found a good balance as far as energy cost.

I run my lights 10 hours because I like looking at my reef. But 8 hours would actually be better for the corals, and I bet they'd do fine with only 6. Might be able to save power and extend viewing times playing with dimmers - again, haven't had the time.

Pay attention to your plumbing. I run a Red Dragon because it should actually save money with the cost of electricity over the life of the pump. Every foot of head between your sump level and tank level costs you money. Every bend, especially 90 degree bends, cost you money. Narrower pipes cost you money. 1 pump running everything is probably cheaper than a separate skimmer pump.

I am a big fan of DIY led, although I understand it is not popular anymore. I run diodes directly over the water, no lenses, no splash guard, no egg crate. Obviously this doesn't work on a small tank. I oversize my wires and am careful with run lengths so I lose less on voltage drop. 1 large ballast is cheaper than multiple small ones. More LEDs ran at lower voltages use less power than fewer LEDs. I do have 1 fan, but cooling is almost entirely passive.