Hi, you know lights are a certain wattage, is that the ammount of electricity it consumes per hour, or is that what it emits???
Cos i was thinking, people with 400w halide lamps must pay a fortune if that is the case...
Cos when i set-up my tank (not sure what im getting, money issues really...) then i dont want to have to spend a load on the electricity bills
Halides are rated at the amount of energy that their bulbs themselves use. This does not include ballast energy and line losses. A typical single-ended 400watt MH running on a magnetic ballast will use 460-500watts of power while the same bulb running on an electronic ballast will use about 430watts. Dont be too scared about increases in electric bills, although that will depend upon your cost per kilowatt hour. I wouldnt run 400watt halides more than say 6-8 hours a day cause you risk burning your corals if you go more. Taking a longest-case scenario, 8 hours at 500watts you've got 4kilowatt hours per day. (500watts X 8 hours / 1000). Thats 1460kWh per year or 121.67kWh per month. Multiply that times your cost per kWh and you have your total cost. Where I live (next to the largest waterfall in the world) electricity is really cheap ($0.07/kWh) so the cost for me would be $102 per year or $8.52/month. If my costs were $0.10/kWh I'd be looking at $146/year and $12.17/month.
Btw, what kind of livestock do you want that requires 400watt MH lighting?
No, im not getting any 400w MH's. i was just wondering about it really (also, i was going to buy the nano pipatic had for sale, but hes sold the halides and is now keeping the tank ) and wanted to know how much it'd cost...
) and wanted to know how much it'd cost...
