electric bill - please help

[misfit]

Also how olds your hot water heater.If it is old one of the heating elements could have gone bad and now its constantly on which is killing you.It could have gone bad the same time as the lights were installed.
Could be a bad meter on the outside of the house.have your electric co come out and inspect it.Ours went bad but to our advantage we were paying like 30 bucks a month for a while.
Or you can get solar panels.I did.I believe there a big thing out there.Its just been getting big on this side of the states.Dont know what you would pay out there for it but when we got them the state gave us like a 65% rebate which was sweet.

 

[calirob]

ok say its a coil and add in the mag 36 pump along with a few other things, skimmer and sump ..
How much should I be looking at..
My bill has to be wrong
and water heater is gas..
Thanks guys

 

[misfit]

Not sure on how much it should be but a coil ballast will use more power.Something does seem like its not right.You can call up the place where you bought the lights from and ask them what kind of ballast it is or You can also start plugging things in one at a time and have someone watch the meter on the house and see which pump,light ect spins it off the side of the house, that will tell you which is using the most electricty.
Do you have a mag 36 running on a 125gal.

 

[calirob]

Originally Posted by misfit
Do you have a mag 36 running on a 125gal.

Yea for a closed loop, but I think its too much flow. and its noisy as crap...any better ideas?

 

[fraggle_a]

HOLY CRAP!!
MY average Electric bill is $70 in the winter / spring. (Fall it drops to $50-$60)
Climbs to $80-$90 in the summer.
(suddenly TECO isnt so bad)
The watts generated by your light are different from the watts being used by the ballast. Remeber, if your "Draw" is high enough to add over $100 a month to your bill, a regular 120/240VAC tripswitch is going to become unstable and start getting hot and tripping out.
Think of it this way. An incandesent light uses more power per hour than an energy saver of the same light output. But the energy saver uses more power to "Start" than the incandesant.
Flouresent lights use less power over 30 minutes than it does when you first turn it on.
The Ballast on a MH / MV opperate in a similar way. They are rated to start the light, but once the light is running the draw drops dramaticaly. That said, you need to be careful, some ballats operate differently. The pulse start and electronic start work differently and you need ot use the appropriate lamp, if you use the wrong lamp, the ballast may draw more power than normal.

 

[calirob]

Originally Posted by Fraggle_a
HOLY CRAP!!
MY average Electric bill is $70 in the winter / spring. (Fall it drops to $50-$60)
Climbs to $80-$90 in the summer.
(suddenly TECO isnt so bad)
The watts generated by your light are different from the watts being used by the ballast. Remeber, if your "Draw" is high enough to add over $100 a month to your bill, a regular 120/240VAC tripswitch is going to become unstable and start getting hot and tripping out.
Think of it this way. An incandesent light uses more power per hour than an energy saver of the same light output. But the energy saver uses more power to "Start" than the incandesant.
Flouresent lights use less power over 30 minutes than it does when you first turn it on.
The Ballast on a MH / MV opperate in a similar way. They are rated to start the light, but once the light is running the draw drops dramaticaly. That said, you need to be careful, some ballats operate differently. The pulse start and electronic start work differently and you need ot use the appropriate lamp, if you use the wrong lamp, the ballast may draw more power than normal.

That makes since. Thanks
The Power company came out today to read the meter again. No word yet. And my neighbor is going to help me test to see how much the lights are drawing and try and figure it out on paper. if anybody has bought lights from aquauniverse.com before please let me know what kink of ballast Im running? Sorry about the link admin.

 

[grmreefer2]

what happened to me when the electric bill got that high:
the wife would run he A/C all day while I was at work... then turn it off and open the windows and doors so it would be hot when I got home, and of course I turned on the A/C.. She did this so I wouldnt think she was just sitting around the house while I was out working ALL day long... I wouldnt doubt the wife may be kickin the A/C on while u arent there! LOL

 

[calirob]

Originally Posted by grmreefer2
what happened to me when the electric bill got that high:
the wife would run he A/C all day while I was at work... then turn it off and open the windows and doors so it would be hot when I got home, and of course I turned on the A/C.. She did this so I wouldnt think she was just sitting around the house while I was out working ALL day long... I wouldnt doubt the wife may be kickin the A/C on while u arent there! LOL

If I had an AC I would worry..but nope, dont have one..SoCal.. and the wifeee is never home..ahah!

 

[nytrillium]

PF.... Your right it was a little excessive to say double. Still they are more inefficient than electronic. I cant seem to find the ballast i was looking at before but it must have been an industrial one with a reall low Power Factor.

 

[misfit]

IMO I would say there is something else in your house drawing power,Along with the halides.I would also drop that mag 36 to a mag 12or go with some power heads or DIY a different Closed loop system.
I just looked on mag drives site that pump runs at 380 watts at 3.0 amps which is a lot.
That coould be part of the problem too along with the lights.

 

[fraggle_a]

Heres an idea.
A very simple idea.
Get yourself a watch, stopwatch or some other timing device.
Go outside to your electric box and watch the dial turn.
Count the number of turns it makes in 1 minute (or 2 minutes depending on its speed)
Then go inside and unplug your entire aquarium and repeat the proicess. (then plug it all back in right away).
Compair the results.
If there is little change in the number of revolutions a minute (or 2) then its not your Fishy stuff. If there is a big change in the speed of the disk. Start unplugging your aquarium devices one at a time and timing the disk again. Alternate which device you unplug and keep a note of the results. At the end, you should beable to see what device is causing the high current draw and perhaps investigate farther.

 

[oreo12]

All I can say is that must be one huge house i have a 2000 sq ft home with total elec base board heat. Live in Indiana where it gets cold. My highest elec bill for the winter was 175.33 and I thought that was outrages.

 

[calirob]

1458 square feet..going to time the meter now..thanks

 

[calirob]

ok....Timed the meter..
with the lights and mag pump on the dial took 5 seconds to spin one revolution
with the lights and mag pump off it took the dial 15 seconds to make it around..
So what this is telling me is that the lights and pump are taking 2 times what my house is taking...crazy
What do you guys think?

 

[jamie814]

Originally Posted by Shu-perman
Our bills ( I live in Orange) went up DRASTICALLY in Jan(rate increases)...I don't think it has anything to do w/ your lighting...those lights should cause an increase of only cents a month to maybe a $1 max increase per month.....
This is completly incorrect where did you come up with that :notsure: rknapp is exactly right

on this one but it does depend on how much per kw hour you pay in your area too.

 

[nytrillium]

calirob.... :notsure: thats scary.... Go buy one of those plug in the wall watt/voltage/amp meter thingys... i think wally world sells them... Idk what your total household load is but to have it run that much faster just from turning on lights & a pump doesnt sound quite right.

 

[agent707]

Your elect bill said you used 2055 kWh... (which is a LOT for a 1400sf house IMO. I have 2700sf and average about 500 kWh not running the AC and about 1200kWh running the AC (dual AC's even)).
With your lights and accessories, I'd say you run ~ 12kWh per day, which is about 300 per month. With your HIGH rate of elect ($.22 per kWh... OUCH! I pay $.07~$.10 here.), that's an expensive display aquarium you have.
If you're that worried, I'd do as suggested and run your aquarium through an amp meter to see how much current you're drawing.
Just take your amp reading and MultX is by voltage and you have your TOTAL wattage your aquarium is using. Do it both Lights on and lights off so you can figure out how much you use per day.
((Lights on wattage) x (how manu hours you run lights/day))
+ ((Lights off wattage) x (remainder of hours per day))
x 30 x .001 = kWh's used per month.
Should come out to somewhere ~300-350.

 

[agent707]

Oh, and I might add. My 75 gallon aquarium with 92 watts of flourescents and accessories (figuring using the method above) cost me an average of (with the cost of elect here that is) about $8 per month to operate.

Also wanted to point out that the reason my kWh usage is so low is I hardly ever have the TV on (HUGE juice sucker!) and mostly burn compact flourescent lights. RARELY do I burn incandescent bulbs at all. I'd say we have on average 100-150 watts of lights on throughout the house at any given time.
(46 in the den, 15 in the stairwell, 30 to 72 in the kitchen, 23 in the living room)
Also, we don't cook that often... Point is, it all depends on your lifestyle. Some people have the TV on ALL THE TIME, cook 2-3 meals/day. have 1000+ watts of incandescent lights burning throughout the house at any given time...etc.

 

[calirob]

OK did the amprage test with a meter and the whole tank with the light ans pumps comes out to 12 amps.
Now How bad its that!
the 2055 kWp on my bill has to be wrong. I on average only use 800 to 1200. Besides the mistake on that bill, what do you think my tank cost me?
With lights on- 10 amps 7 hours
Lights off - 2 - 24 hours

 

[nytrillium]

Wow... Im glad that i didnt order their 150 HQI setup now. I would call CA to see about the specs for the ballast. You may have one that isnt working right. That is really prety high. Are any of them getting unnecessarily hot? You could have a short somewhere inside. That number just sounds way to high...