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Post by ewanmcn on Jan 6, 2012 22:07:41 GMT
Does anyone have any advice regarding saving money on electricity costs for turtle keeping? While I love my turtles and am happy to keep them, the missus is nagging! I have a Fluval fx5, 2 heaters (its a 150 gallon tank) and 2 lamps running 24-7. Is there a best kind of heater that will heat that amount of water and still be kind on the purse?
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Post by wayne020668 on Jan 7, 2012 11:23:29 GMT
hi regarding the running costs... we know only to well the cost of trying to keep these animals, we find that while you have the fx5 filter running all the time the basking lights can be used as they would find light in the wild so we have ours on timers switching on in the day and off in the evening using a very light wattage light to simply light the tank when needed then this to gets turned of at night. the heaters well if you use the more powerful 300 watt ones then these will heat the water quickly and then turn off saving you more money, where the smaller watt ones need to remain on to achieve the water temp so keep burning electric. by simply using these two changes you should see your bills for this set up drop by around 35% which is a lot of saving over the year. you can get an electricity monitor free from your suppler so you see the savings yourself this simply plugs in any socket leave for two days then make the changes and it will show you the drop in electricity... hope this helps you, regards Wayne.
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Post by turtlegirl on Jan 7, 2012 21:04:07 GMT
That's a very useful hint about heaters. With 20 turtles to care for, every little helps. Currently paying £40/month for electricity, home and turtle and fishtanks
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Post by jacquisunderland on Jan 8, 2012 21:09:19 GMT
With previous advice from Wayne I now only buy 300w heaters as I have found they heat the water much more effectively and efficiently like he said and I will eventually upgrade all my heaters to 300w when funds allow. I have all my tanks lighting on timer switches, " 2 for each tank, 1 comes on from 7.30am til about 8.30pm, from dawn to dusk and the one other comes on from about 12noon till about 5pm to replicate the heat of the afternoon sun. Also it may be a silly question but is your tank covered as this saves the heat and its surprising how many I come across uncovered. I've even got a piece of foil insulation left over from putting it behind my radiators on top of one of my tanks with only plastic coragated sheet on.. I can feel the difference it has made when I lift it up. xx
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Post by turtlegirl on Jan 8, 2012 23:17:56 GMT
Good point about keeping tanks covered
Another useful tip is to insulate your tanks by wrapping bubble wrap round back and sides or sellotaping that behind radiator silver backed insulating stuff Even better put a layer of kitchen aluminium foil beneath the bubblewrap to reflect the heat If you don't have bubblewrap thin sheets of polystyrene from packaging work well too as tank insulation
Finally smaller tanks can be placed on thick polystyrene sheets or better still wall insulating stuff that is about 8cm thick (builders often give away free offcuts) to prevent heat loss from the bottom
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Post by ewanmcn on Jan 12, 2012 10:47:01 GMT
thanks everyone. I will look into getting a 300W heater.
Interesting about having the tank covered. I always thought it wasn't supposed to be covered. Did I read that somewhere? Even so, its not possible to cover it all up because the basking platform is half in and half over the tank (if you know what I mean) but I will keep this is mind and think of a redesign.
Great help everyone thanks :-)
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