Electrical Costs Of Keeping Fish... Mmmm?

[Ludwig Venter]

Having moved from a scenario where I had company accommodation with free electricity…. I never really bothered to check up on my power consumption to assess the real expense of my fishkeeping hobby….


So!.... The move from Limpopo province (where heating was actually not required during winter)… to Northern Cape…. Where I was compelled to put (at least) 400Watt heaters in each of 5 ponds (during the winter) …. and… 200W heaters in all my tanks in an uninsulated fishroom….. it was not that easy to establish what portion of my usage was due to the fish… and what was run of the mill domestic consumption….


Now that the winter is (hopefully) over and gone….. I have decided to switch off all heaters in the ponds…. and in all the tanks…..


I could not believe it….. I used an average of 90 units per day…. Whilst the heaters were on…. (my wife loaded a R500 voucher every 3rd day) ….. and now…. I average between 25 and 35 units per day….


With no market for the fish … (only 2 mediocre petshops in KBY) ….. They are killing me in running costs… Now… if that is not a good reason to stop breeding….. or even keeping fish…. I am reconsidering!!!!... I'll start by insulating the fishroom.....

 

[DrRob]

Welcome to the world of worry LV.
 
There are ways to keep the costs down, it's all a case of adding up what the initial costs are and if they're worth the saving.
 
Heaters, as you've said, can be offset by insulation. Covers on ponds out of season can make a huge difference.
 
Pumps can pay for themselves in very little time if you go for the expensive, more efficient pumps. There's been a move in the UK certainly recently to pumps that consume a fraction of the power. At £0.125 pence per kilowatt hour here an efficient pump can pay for itself in energy savings fairly quickly as it's on 24/7.
 
Lighting tends to be next, the higher the power needed to more the savings there are, which is why the reefers tend to more obsessed with LED's than the freshwater keepers, but us planted folks are also very keen on them for similar reasons (plus we all like the colour control).

 

[Donya]

I'm curious, what sort of temperature differences were you fighting against? 
 
I've never found the electric for my tanks as a big cost worry, at least not compared to my other regular fishy supply costs like food, salt mix, etc. However, I use heaters very sparingly and allow most of my systems to undergo a more natural temperature cycle yearly (good for many of the inverts I keep; triggers many natural behaviors and longer lifespans). My fish room is also moderately insulated, although it's pretty poor/minimal. Outdoor temperatures reach peaks of 37C/100F in the summer and sometimes as low as -17C/0F in the winter. Indoors, most of my tanks hit brief peaks of 28C/82F in the summer and brief lows of 20C/68F. I try to buffer them from sitting at those levels for too long or reaching bigger extremes with fans and in-tank heaters. When the heaters aren't needed they are unplugged.
 
My home heating and cooling is by far the bigger power hog to keep the temperatures tolerable indoors. Partly that will be because I keep my indoor temps more regulated than my neighbors. Ignoring my own thermal tolerances, I also have a parrot that can't handle extremes (but I'd do the same if I had a cat or dog; seems cruel to me to let them roast or freeze while I'm out like some of my neighbors do). For a while my power company had a tool that let me watch the usage over short windows of time. I did do some experiments with it once when trying to diagnose the cause of my first frightening winter electric bill after moving to the area, and ultimately there were only two things I saw that made stuff spike badly: the home heating and the fridge. Turning fish equipment on/off didn't make a dent really compared to those. Even so, I've also been switching most of my old fluorescent fixtures to much lower-wattage LEDs over time to make heat management easier in the summer.

 

[DreamertK]

I have a 17/30g tank, and both of them along with the refrigerator's continuous electrical use is .14kWph.
 
My house is over the top insulated, insulation in the walls, floors and ceiling, so the interior of the house even in the winter is around 65-80 degrees all year around. I'd suspect that the fish are just a few pebbles in what the rest of your home is using in power. Actually heating in homes in this area use gas instead of electricity. If you have family and kids, I'd throw out the kids before the fish.