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? for the large tank owners.

A

albie611

hi all, the wife just told me that she has no objections to a larger tank but if i do upgrade it should be "as big as i want to go. dont upgrade to just want a bigger tank later and then have to upgrade again." wooohoooo! isn't she awesome.. ;D

so the question is what is your opperational cost for the large tanks per month.
example( elec. bill, water change, suppliments ,bulb releacement, etc....)

i have been planing to upgrade to a 70 gal tech. but am now thinking of a 6ft 120gal.
but money is still an object to me so i have to be realistic in what i can afford.
thanks and happy reefing ...........al
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
The 6' 120 is an awkward depth front to back and makes for difficult aquascaping. If you're going to go 6' I'd go straight to a 180. Unless you're PINNED to the 18" depth.

Matter of fact, Billy is selling his 210 (6'x2'x30" tall) and that would fit in the same space as the 180. The price is great on it too (1000 for a tank, stand and canopy in oak, a real piece of furniture). Well worth it.

Our electric has been so crazy this summer so I have *no* idea what to attribut to the tank. On a 210 you'd want to change 30-60g every 2 weeks to hit the 10-20%, depending on what you're current schedule is. Lighting will be dependant on what you want to keep and what kind of lighting you're running.
 
D

debfife

Go bigger! I don't think you'll see much of a monthly cost increase between a 120 and a 210 other than salt (depending on how often you do water changes).
 
RichT

RichT

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I strongly recommend you not go with an 18" wide tank if at all avoidable. I have one and sorely regret it. As Phyl pointed out and I have learned first hand, it's real tough to aquascape.
 
1

120gallons

Really depends mainly on your pumps and lighting and how low you run your ac/chiller to keep your tank cool. I use a rather large pump since it is in the basement and I suspect my electric for the tank is in the $75-100 a month range, in wonderful NJ. Now if I was back 5 mins in PA where I used to live, that'd probably only be $40-50.
 
A

albie611

holy crap batman...... ;D
but hun , you said to go big....hahahaha...

im positive she would flip out if i brought that home.......
whats the problem with aquascaping an 18in deep tank.... i once had a 90 and thought it was ok........curently i have 2 20 gal set ups and monthly costs are minimal 10gal of r/o and p/c lights for each tank cost about $25/month.
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Aquascaping a 3-4' tank that is 18" deep is completely different from a 6' tank that's 18" deep. With the greater length, larger rocks are nice to use, and since it is 24" tall you want to go higher than you'd want to with a 90. Hard to get the height without the depth. You need smaller rock, you need to stay a 3-4 off the front glass for the magnet cleaner which leaves you only 14" for rockwork.
 
C

Carlo

I've got to agree with Phyl and RichT on the dynamics of the 18" depth. It's more difficult to aquascape but not imposable by any means. It's just a lot harder then on a 22-24" depth tank. It's pretty hard to have both rock and "swim room" at the bottom of the tank. If you follow the general rule of thumb and have about 1.5 rock weight to gallons that ends up being a lot of rock stocked vertically. The same rock "stack" in the other depth tank gives you an additional 4 to 6 inches of swim room. With only 18" of depth you have to be more careful in your selection of rock to so everything fits correctly.

I think a lot of the decision depends on the longest length of tank you can have. Generally speaking it's much better to have a longer tank then a taller tank given the same gallonage since you'll have more surface area and greater penetration of lights.

Some of the common large sizes for common lengths are 120g at 4' (sometimes you can find a 150g also but much more expensive). 210g at 6' and 265g at 7 feet.

I also think part of the decision should be based on the height of the tank you want. Common sizes are 24" and 30". 30 inchers could require stronger/brighter lights but some people think it gives the illusion of the tank being a lot bigger then it really is. I've got both 30" and 24" and prefer the look of the 30". This is strictly personal of course.

I don't track the electrical usage of my system and don't require the use of a chiller which helps but I typically have about 2000 watts of heaters running even in the summer which is my biggest cost. I guess that's the downside to keeping your house "ice cold" in the summer. :)

Carlo

PS The tank Billyr98 has for sale is truly beautiful and could very easily be the centerpiece of any room.
 
C

Carlo

Oh meant to add I think the biggest cost isn't really in the monthly running of the tank but in the initial setup and stocking! The bigger the tank the bigger the skimmer that is required and of course it requires more rock. You're biggest monthly cost will most likely be stocking it with fish and corals.

Carlo
 
RichT

RichT

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Another thing to note, not all your rock has to be in the display tank.
 
C

Carlo

Very good point Rich about the rock.

albie611 if you go large have you given any thought to putting the sump in the basement instead of under the stand? This can help a lot on chilling if your basement is cooler then the rest of the house. It also give you more freedom to connect things like your RO/DI unit near your sump. It gives you more room for equipment if the need arises, etc.

Carlo
 
A

albie611

it's a fairly new idea to go to the bigger tank so im just looking into the total costs. i know the initial set up is a big cost but i figured i could add rock , corals and fish as i go and spread the stocking cost over a year or so. i also figured the cost of opperating every month will(should) be constant from the get go . so i need to see what the monthly budget will have to be for the tank.
as for the sump , i have no basement only a crawl space and i dont think it would be a good place for it because there is no easy way to access it for maintenance . so the sump will most likely be under the tank.
 
J

jazzsam

It all depends!!!!!!!!!!!! I paid upfront so I would not have high bills along the way. I did Solaris lights so I would not have high bills and don't need a chiller, my pumps are close to the system so I don't need very powerful pumps and things like that.
 
C

Carlo

If you pick a rough size tank like 180 or 210 we can get you close on operational costs. There are of course different setups but a nutshell view for main electrical usage could be:
1 Return Pump
4 Powerheads
Lights
Heaters/Chillers/Fans

The first two will be pretty easy to calculate but you'll need to give us input on the type of lights you want to run. IE 3 250 watt Halides with 96w strips.

We can't really tell you heating and/or cooling costs without knowing the type of lights and what your ALL THE TIME room temperature is. With that info we can make educated guesses on equipment needed and be able to figure out the power requirements and costs.

Carlo
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
You should write them for Joomla, Carlo and we'll add them to the home page.
 
C

Carlo

It's a lot of info to do well. Like having a pull down menu for return pump. Pull down for powerheads, etc. That's a lot of amps/watts to track down and populate.

That's why I mentioned it would be cool if there was one already done. :)

I've thought about adding this type of calculation to the info I pull from my Neptune controller. For example knowing how many minutes a day/week/month each device is on and knowing the watts/amps used it would be easy to calculate the actual amount of electricity used for each device. This of course would only require tracking down or better yet measuring each device to find it's usage with something like a kilowatt (sp?) meter.

I just don't think I really want to know the answer for my system. I bet some of you don't either. :)

It really shouldn't be to hard to calculate this for an individual system when we know rough components used.

Maybe we could setup a excel template people could download and use? I'm sure that would be better then nothing and that shouldn't be overly complicated or require a lot of prepopulated data as we could leave it up to the user to input the power requirements of each device they use.

A template could be neat to play with just to figure out how much difference running your lights for an extra hour cost you a month. How long that new lower amp powerhead/pump would need to run to pay for itself, etc...

Wheels are spinning...

Carlo
 
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