Energy Efficient Reef?

[cmaxwell39]

Originally Posted by 72bowfront

I'll say it once and I'll say it again ... as long as people like yourself co-inhabit this planet with those of us that care, we are all ****ed!

I rest my case. Others are entitiled to their opinion as much as you are entitled to yours. Good luck with your endeavor.

[ReeferAL]

I for one understand what you saying. but when you bring it up a lot of people see it more in a what difference will I make in the big picture light. so what if I cut back my energy use by 10w. But if everyone on this forum was to cut out just 10w of energy use from their tank use your talking about saving magawatts of power a month and tons of coal/oil/gas.

I personally just switched up all of my lighting and powerheads for the ecotech lights and vortech pumps. I cut my energy use in half just with those. Plus not only do I save money on electricty but I don't have to buy new bulbs every 9-12 months and with no new bulbs means I dont have any to toss out.

i save over $150 a year in just light bulbs and probably another $300 in electricty if not more. ill pay for the fixtures in a few years in savings alone.

Id love to do more to cut down on my energy use but unfortunatly all the energy efficient products cost so much more than thier unefficient counterparts its hard to justify the upfront cost to most people.

I wish I could afford to do solor panels or a small wind turbine but the cost is just to much for me right now.

Now as for cutting down on energy use for the tank

definitaly get some LED lighting the dimmable ones are the best. ive got mine set to ramp up and down on a nice curve to they are really only on the highest setting for a very short period.

if you have wavemaker pumps put them on the lowest setting for the night, the vortech ones do this which I really like.

use an in sump return pump the excess heat from it can actually supplement your heater so it runs less often.

turn you skimmer off for half of the day.

[CUNAReefer]

Originally Posted by katymunoz

Dang I missed all the fun!!! I love fighting forums!!!! Lol

You probably wont like reef2reef.com then

[entropicstatic]

Back to the owner's original post...

Most people in this hobby update based on what makes fiscal sense. From your original post it looks like by going to LED's you plan to save about $2 a month over t5ho. If you are truly that passionate about saving the environment go for it. Spend your heart out.
If you care about your wallet I might reconsider. Just thinking about it, I spend 2 x more money driving to the nearest LFS once than what your ALL of your lighting costs for the entire month ($6.53)...

One of the easiest places to save a good amount of cash (or watts) if you are running a larger tank is to consider transitioning your heat from electric to plumbing off a gas hot water heater. Definately some money to be saved there. I recently put about $300 in investment into it and have definately noticed a drop in my electric bill. but then again I have about 400 gallons of water flowing through my tank system.

Bottom line should be that if your are really that devoted to the enviroment and contemplating spending around a grand on lights to save $2 of power you might want to reconsider this hobby. Keeping animals that require special lighting, pumps, and heat to run continuously just doesn't seem like an Eco-friendly hobby. And that's not even getting into how the animals get from ocean to pet shop with all the atrocities in between.

[72bowfront]

Originally Posted by entropicstatic

Most people in this hobby update based on what makes fiscal sense. From your original post it looks like by going to LED's you plan to save about $2 a month over t5ho. If you are truly that passionate about saving the environment go for it. Spend your heart out.
If you care about your wallet I might reconsider. Just thinking about it, I spend 2 x more money driving to the nearest LFS once than what your ALL of your lighting costs for the entire month ($6.53)...

Actually, LED's pay off rather quickly after a few T5 bulb changes! I pay $120 for a set of 4 bulbs every 9-10 months. I'll never need to do that again ...

As for your eco-friendly comment, I am not looking for an eco-friendly hobby. I already have the reef keeping hobby ... I just want to reduce to the minimum power requirements.

[Jasper]

Originally Posted by 72bowfront

Another person that needs an education! No, the coal plant will not burn 1 ton of coal regardless. The plant will burn whatever the grid demands and not a penny more because they do not have a way to "bank" the unused energy and they run that plant as a business to make money. This is why there are demand plants all over the state. One is about 5 miles away in Zeeland actually that runs only as the demand increases above average annualized usage (i.e. A/C in the summer and electric heat in the winter).

I'll say it once and I'll say it again ... as long as people like yourself co-inhabit this planet with those of us that care, we are all ****ed!

If your genuinely that concerned about consuming energy prove it and just shut the tank down(you can use the saved energy to run your computer and printer to make cute little unnecessary spreadsheets)...btw I don't think you would have had the responses you did if you wouldn't have taken the "I'm the smartest person the the room because I'm an environmentalist" stance, it's your religion and I respect that but we don't talk about religion here

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[72bowfront]

Originally Posted by Jasper

If your genuinely that concerned about consuming energy prove it and just shut the tank down(you can use the saved energy to run your computer and printer to make cute little unnecessary spreadsheets)...btw I don't think you would have had the responses you did if you wouldn't have taken the "I'm the smartest person the the room because I'm an environmentalist" stance, it's your religion and I respect that but we don't talk about religion here

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Not that I am smarter ... just not as ignorant as people that post comments such as those highlighted in red above that have absolutely no motive other than to stoke the fire ...

[Jasper]

Hehe nah, I just get sick of self righteous hypocrites...and I love to get them going, I would hope you didn't need to waste that coal to tell you LED's consume less power than T-5's and that it will pay for itself eventually...either way in your mind it's the responsible thing to do so why aren't you running them already? We could go back and forth forever on this which would be pointless, were not changing anybody's mind, you seem like a good guy that cares about things beyond his control which is very frustrating (it's all by design buddy), so I'll leave it at that....as for this rock banger I have cut my tank's energy consumption by half in the last month by changing lighting and ditching four powerheads for a vortech...but I did it to save money so I'm not expecting a pat on the back

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[reeferdale]

Originally Posted by tdb180reef

I got my 320 down to about just under 6 amps with everything on. This is achieved by using a efficient reeflo dart with snapper impeller < 100 watts, 4 120 leds Dimmabe with sunset and sunrise and plumbing everything into the inlet of the the pump. For me this will be a huge reduction of running about 25 amps between three tanks. The 6 amp does not include the 800 watt heater however I use the Neptune season table which keeps the tank colder than what we are told. Right now it is 76 and with the house at 70 the heater is not on often. Down the road I will install a hotwater closed loop when I fully understand it.

I did the EXACT same thing on my 270. It runs cheaper than the 180 I had. I have a baracudda gold pump (just 1 but I do have a few large koralia powerheads), all LEDs, and I also need to hook up the water heater so I can dump the electric heat. Insulate your sump and the back and sides of the tank (or as much as you can). If you want a reef tank, and you want to run it as effecient as possible to support the corals you like, you are going to have to pay the price.

The only other options, that others have mentioned, geo thermal, solar panels, wind, etc, are very expesive. However, if you are more concerned with sustainability than cost, you shhould expore adding some or all of these alternative power sources

[vargomat]

[QUOTE=72bowfront;955507]

So far, I like these ideas:

• LED's - Panorama Pro retrofits are pretty nice and I saw them at a local store. I miss the shimmer my old 250W halides had and these bring it back! That and the PAR rating is excellent on them with good SPS and clam growth results.
  
  Buy quality equipment once and save from buying so so twice (or so so then quality). I know nothing about these retrofits (they may be awesome), but just something I've learned from buying the cheaper stuff and later buying high end which was more expensive in the long run.
  
• LED Stunner Reverse photoperiod refugium lighting (reduces 12 hrs./day)
• 12hrs/day skimmer - do they recommend evening or daytime skimming? From what I've read they suggested only running the skimmer during the day and this allows the nocturnal coral and filter feeders to feed on the leftovers during the night when the skimmer is off
• Ecotech pump ... WOW! I love these as I could use a single MP40, but holy crap are they pricey!

Buy quality stuff once and it may save you $. Ecotech has great customer service...

[dputt88]

i dont understand why he cant make a thread for energy efficient ways to run a reef without criticisms. he really didnt start going on about the power power plants, others did, he just corrected them. only made comments about others intelligence once they proved they were worthy of the comments. if you want to go use up all the power go ahead, be a moron leave your car running all night i dont care, you'll be living in it soon enough. but some of us are interested in saving money and energy and would like the sarcastic rack bangers to let us read this thread without their comments.

[NewBostonConst]

+1..........

[72bowfront]

Originally Posted by Jasper

Hehe nah, I just get sick of self righteous hypocrites...and I love to get them going, I would hope you didn't need to waste that coal to tell you LED's consume less power than T-5's and that it will pay for itself eventually...either way in your mind it's the responsible thing to do so why aren't you running them already? We could go back and forth forever on this which would be pointless, were not changing anybody's mind, you seem like a good guy that cares about things beyond his control which is very frustrating (it's all by design buddy), so I'll leave it at that....as for this rock banger I have cut my tank's energy consumption by half in the last month by changing lighting and ditching four powerheads for a vortech...but I did it to save money so I'm not expecting a pat on the back

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So you bought the EcoTech Radion fixtures? Those look like incredible technology with color temp adjustment and infinite dimming via their software. What size is your tank? I have a 36" long bow front with a massive center support, so I'd be stuck buying 2 of those fixtures ... OUCH!

The reason I have not gone LED yet is I can't find enough research on PAR ratings. Sanjay has posts on the higher-end fixtures and I have seen numbers for the Radion, but not much is out for the Panorama Pro modules ... anyone have any good links?

As for the comment about quality, I have heard nothing but rave reviews about Ecoxotic and the Panorama Pro's. While I agree that EcoTech is an industry leader and glad to see such innovation in the hobby, they sure seem to be milking the price because they know they have a unique product. I am leaning towards the Ecoxotic route with a DIY programmable dimmer. I can enlist the help of the LabVIEW gurus at work and I am pretty sure I can find an LED driver chip that has a dev board that will integrate. If I go this route, I'll be sure to document the project well so others can repeat ...

And to answer the comment about solar, wind, etc., I first need to get all my usage down to a minimum so I do not overbuy a generation source since the prices are still pretty high and the ROI pretty far out. It goes beyond the reef tank too, I plugged the Kill-A-Watt onto my 4 year old plasma last night ... OUCH! Looks like it is time for an LED TV! So once I can get my usage down to the "minimum" with "tweaking" products to match our current lifestyle, I then plan to buy a renewable generation source. FWIW, we are down to 700KWh/month on average ... only 100KWh more to go to avoid Consumer Energy's >600KWh/month double rates in the summer!

[Jasper]

Originally Posted by 72bowfront

So you bought the EcoTech Radion fixtures? Those look like incredible technology with color temp adjustment and infinite dimming via their software. What size is your tank? I have a 36" long bow front with a massive center support, so I'd be stuck buying 2 of those fixtures ... OUCH!

The reason I have not gone LED yet is I can't find enough research on PAR ratings. Sanjay has posts on the higher-end fixtures and I have seen numbers for the Radion, but not much is out for the Panorama Pro modules ... anyone have any good links?

As for the comment about quality, I have heard nothing but rave reviews about Ecoxotic and the Panorama Pro's. While I agree that EcoTech is an industry leader and glad to see such innovation in the hobby, they sure seem to be milking the price because they know they have a unique product. I am leaning towards the Ecoxotic route with a DIY programmable dimmer. I can enlist the help of the LabVIEW gurus at work and I am pretty sure I can find an LED driver chip that has a dev board that will integrate. If I go this route, I'll be sure to document the project well so others can repeat ...

And to answer the comment about solar, wind, etc., I first need to get all my usage down to a minimum so I do not overbuy a generation source since the prices are still pretty high and the ROI pretty far out. It goes beyond the reef tank too, I plugged the Kill-A-Watt onto my 4 year old plasma last night ... OUCH! Looks like it is time for an LED TV! So once I can get my usage down to the "minimum" with "tweaking" products to match our current lifestyle, I then plan to buy a renewable generation source. FWIW, we are down to 700KWh/month on average ... only 100KWh more to go to avoid Consumer Energy's >600KWh/month double rates in the summer!

Noooo...I'm not lucky enough to have those fixture(s), the vortech product is an MP40, that's how I got rid of the powerheads...I'm still not totally sold on LED but back to that in a sec, I was running two 400w 20,000k over a 72 bowfront, ludicrous I know but the sps growth and colors are amazing and I was only running then 5-6 hours so I got a year on the bulbs...but I decided that with the depth of the tank and some elementary math that I would be better off running 150's (in lower spectrum)for 8 hours and replace the bulbs every 6 months...seems to be ok so far, actually I had a bleach with the change but I'm sure has to do with a combination of spectrum change, bulb age, and maybe even going from mogul to double ended...idk for sure. As far as LED's I'm concerned about you getting the par you want out of those panoramas, I love their products(I run their stunners) but not sure what types of animals are in that 180 or 36...if you put four over a 36 it might be kosher, I'm sure their are some folks on here that have put a par meter under those and could tell you. There is a recent post where a reefer tested his new apollo ( a sponsor here) fixture and the results are great

Ooops got cut off but I guess only thing I should add is YES your plasma is feeding the pig unfortunately lol

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