Multiple Tanks

[CFC]

Im running a 16 tank fish room with roughly 800 gallons of water and the electric is roughly £90 a month to keep it running.

UK gallons? I've got around 735 US gallons between 24 tanks, plus a 65 & a 72 outside the fishroom for $65 monthly. It helps that the filtration for all the tanks in the fishroom are run off of one air pump that draws 60w. It also helps having all those tanks shoehorned into one room, the room itself is 78-80F.

I picked up one of these a while back; http/www.the-gadgeteer.com/review/kill_a..._monitor_review

I haven't had a chance to hook it up to any heaters, as they are an intermittent draw. Figuring out how much something that runs constantly costs is easy, intermittent appliances are tough.

Since the cost of electricity varies by location, posting KW usage would give folks a better idea, but figuring that one would take some work. I could hook this meter up to the 65 or 72 & get a monthly cost pretty easily, I would have to do all the heaters in the fishroom, along with a few canister filters & powerheads separately, although I could do them in groups off of one power strip.

No US gallons, UK gallons are not universally recognised and litres just make the numbers look too big and scary.

At the moment all my tanks are run either on big canisters or on small internal power filters, my filtration adds up to around 200 watts and i heat the room with a 2000w electric oil filled radiator.

Over the next few weeks i'm moving all my tanks into the new fish house which has far superior insulation and will be switching over to an air run filtration system for the smaller and low bioload tanks and a centralised system on one pump for the larger ones, although i am adding another 1200 gallons or so of tank volume so i dont expect the bills to come down too much. I will save on lighting though as the new fish house has a window so i will only need to light the room for a few hours in the evening.

 

[CAC]

Over the next few weeks i'm moving all my tanks into the new fish house which has far superior insulation and will be switching over to an air run filtration system for the smaller and low bioload tanks and a centralised system on one pump for the larger ones, although i am adding another 1200 gallons or so of tank volume so i dont expect the bills to come down too much. I will save on lighting though as the new fish house has a window so i will only need to light the room for a few hours in the evening.

Oh do tell us more Mr CFC
What new tanks are going in, or is that the beastly pond??? Any pics?

 

[Matty P]

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

I find that its cheaper to heat the room where my fish tanks are located, than to rely on the heaters inside the tanks to heat them all the time. I still have heaters in my fish tanks, however i always make sure the room my tanks are located in is kept warm itself so the fish tank heaters aren't constantly heating the tanks.

 

[Matty P]

Yeh thats better if you have many fish tanks in the same room.

 

[CFC]

Over the next few weeks i'm moving all my tanks into the new fish house which has far superior insulation and will be switching over to an air run filtration system for the smaller and low bioload tanks and a centralised system on one pump for the larger ones, although i am adding another 1200 gallons or so of tank volume so i dont expect the bills to come down too much. I will save on lighting though as the new fish house has a window so i will only need to light the room for a few hours in the evening.

Oh do tell us more Mr CFC
What new tanks are going in, or is that the beastly pond??? Any pics?

The pond idea got scrapped eventually due to me not having enough knowledge of structural bricklaying to trust my own work to hold in the pressure of 1000 gallons of water, and after getting a couple of silly quotes from tradesmen i know to come and build it for me i decided i might as well pay for a tank. So...................Instead i've got Windsor Aquatics coming at the end of September/begining of October to build a 900 US gallon (96x72x30") all glass tank instead

On top of that i'm adding a couple of 60 gallon cube shaped (30x30x15") tanks to house individual unsociable fish, another 180 (72x24x24") for grow outs and a 115 gallon (60x30x15") tank for the electric eel. Which will free up 5 existing tanks for some new bits and pieces.

No pictures yet as there is nothing to take pictures of other than a large pile of timber in an empty building, but the insulation is due on Wednesday this week and once that is all fitted (a days work for myself and Mr Andwyg on the bank holiday weekend) i can put in the lighting and electrical sockets, build some new racks with the said pile of timber and set about moving the tanks and fish in. By mid October i should be all done if all goes well.

 

[ebrcknrdg]

Just worked out how much electricity my 125L 33USg tank uses on the PFK website and its estimated i use £32 a year. I didnt include the heater as my room is usualy pretty warm winter and summer as its next to the boiler. Also i use 2 tubes 4 hours 4 tubes 2 hours 4 tubes 2 hours so i cant really calculate how many watts im using there. I just put that i use all 74w of my lights for 8 hours so i guess £32 a year is the most im using. Not bad!

 

[CAC]

Holy **** 900g!!!! (**** add what word you wish )
Wow, thats going to be amazing, cost a bomb too I imagine. What you going to do for filteration? And what additional stocking (I assume all the 205g fish will be going in) will be going in?
Are you keeping all the tanks you have now aswell??
I just realised, your tank is 6 feet deep. Oh dear lord thats going to be cool.

 

[Matty P]

Thats HUGE!

 

[CFC]

Holy **** 900g!!!! (**** add what word you wish )
Wow, thats going to be amazing, cost a bomb too I imagine. What you going to do for filteration? And what additional stocking (I assume all the 205g fish will be going in) will be going in?
Are you keeping all the tanks you have now aswell??
I just realised, your tank is 6 feet deep. Oh dear lord thats going to be cool.

6 feet is the front to back measurement, the height of the tank is just 30 inches as going higher would require 15mm glass which bumped the cost up by over £1000, but thats just as well since i'm going to have to put a pair of waders on to do any work in the tank! Filtration is a mixture, with the exception of the electric eel tank all the tanks over 100 gallons and the two 60g cubes are going on a centralised system running into two 75 gallon plastic water storage tanks filled with media and circulated by a 3300gph pump but each tank will also have two large air powered sponge filters capable of filtering 500L each as well so that individual tanks can be shut off from the system if needed.

The price really isnt that bad, i wont say the actual figure but its less than £1800 which obviously includes the tank being built in-situ on site.

I am keeping all the current tanks and will be splitting the fish into large and small south americans, asian and african themed tanks with the large south americans taking the new 900g.

No real plans for any new fish at the moment i'll just see what takes my fancy as it becomes available, and with 900 gallons of water to play with theres not that much that i cant have with the exception of things like RTC and TSN which arent really my thing anyway.

 

[CAC]

Yeah I know you meant front to back, I use height for tallness and assumed it was 6feet back because of the rays, which I assume you will be getting some more of at some point.
Im supprised at the cost, and also supprised you went with windsor aquatics over N&D who I would have thought to be cheaper (allthough maybe not the quaility?) of the tank build companys. The filteration system sounds interesting too.

 

[CFC]

Nah you wont beat Windsor on prices for big tanks, N&D might be better if you want a fancy looking cabinet to go under the tank but if all you want is a huge glass box then Windsor are the people to go with, plus i've bought tanks from Windsor before as have friends and have been very happy with the build quality and service.

 

[CAC]

I see, ive looked into their price for smaller things, like 120g tanks and similar, and I have to say the price isnt a huge differance but for larger ones, the built on site service is good. Is the under 1800 figure including a cabinet or are you making your own?

 

[CFC]

No cabinet, just 4 piers of concrete blocks with a sheet of ply fixed over them. The beauty of fishrooms/fish houses is you can put all the money into the tanks and fish without worring about the cosmetic side of things like you do with a tank in the front room.

 

[CAC]

Yeah thats very true. There may be a plan of mine to turn one of our sheds into a mini fish house, but I will have to wait till I get back and have a good look. If its poss then there are a few questions regarding insulation, heat etc which ill have to ask about, but not quite yet.