CanadianCray has pretty much covered all the points (quite well too, so I
might find myself out of work soon ;~) _except_ for using insulation to
reduce costs (I knew I could find something if I wanted to be a pain in
the butt ).

Some fishkeepers wrap 3 sides of their tanks with styrofoam insulation.
Paint the side facing the aquarium with black latex (the carrier in _oil_
paints will dissolve styrofoam) for the added benefit of a calmer tank
(less shadows & movement to bother timid fish) and good contrast (dark
blue is good too).

If you have a dedicated fish-room, heating individual tank with heaters
may be more expensive than just keeping the room warmer. It depends on
how your electricity rates compare with other heat sources. Generally,
running your tanks at the cooler end of a fish's range will allow you to
run safer (higher?) fish-loads (more oxygen in the water), but the fish
may grow a bit slower (lower metabolism) and be a bit less colourful. As
growth rates depends more on their menu, and the colours improve when
they are put into warmer water, it's not a big deal. Spawning tanks will
probably still need heaters, so you have more control over the
temperature to stimulate spawning (if you need to use temperature to do
so), or growing them to sexual maturity faster.

NetMax

"CanadianCray" wrote in message
...
That depends on many things. What the heaters are set to & what the
ambient
temp of the room is. If it is the the heater will stay on longer. If it
is a
problem find out what the low temp is for you fish & keep it near the
low
rang. I also find the larger tanks are cheaper for this as they lose
the
heat slower because of the large volume of water. Its prob. the
smaller
tanks that are killing you. Also make sure that your canopy is well
sealed
to keep the heat in. Also I find for larger tanks canister type heaters
are
great because they actaully add some heat to the water from the pump so
the
heater doesn't come on as often..... Another thing you could try is to
add
more rocks to the tank as these will add more to the thermal mass of
the
tank absorbing the heat during the day & releasing it at night so the
heater
doesn't have to work as hard....

Just a few suggestions....


"FishNut" wrote in message
news
Yikes. I it's costing me about 65.00 a month to run my aquariums. I
have
a
55 gallon tank, a 10 gallon turtle tank and a small 3 gallon acrylic
tank.
Does anyone else have this problem? Apparently the tank heaters are
very
costly to run. And I have 3.