On Wed, 24 Mar 2004 07:18:58 -0600, "p2kmon"
wrote:

I too live in texas. What Size A/C and what size blower do you have in your
house? I have a 3.5 ton inside and a 2.5 outside. My electric bill was
350+ last year. I was told that the outside Unit can't keep up with the
inside and it draws large amounts of juice. I've had up to 4 tanks running
in the apts and only ever had a bill of 250.

Gotta love the texas summers.


"Dick" wrote in message
.. .


On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 11:59:58 GMT, "FishNut" wrote:

Where do you live. I'm in NY?


Small town in West Texas, electric and gas rates have been
skyrocketing in the last two years. However, I keep a record by
energy use separate from actual dollars. I had a 10% increase in KWH
in the year after getting my tanks going from 9145 kwh to 10,780.

"Dick" wrote in message
.. .
On Sun, 21 Mar 2004 15:53:56 GMT, "FishNut" wrote:

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.

I have one 75 gallon, one 29 gallon and three 10 gallon tanks. I run
them at 79 degrees. In the winter I keep the room temperature set to
76 degrees, but the actual temperature at each fish tank varies by
location from 70 to 76 (near the thermostat).

I run under 2 watts per gallon in each tank, but I leave the lights on
for 13 hours each day.

This is my first winter, but I think it cost me about $50/month extra.
I air condition my home and keep the ambient temperature about 74
degrees in the summer. I don't understand why 76 is comfortable in
the winter but too hot in the summer, but that is the way it comes
down for me. So the short of it is in both summer and winter I must
add heat to reach the tank temperature of 79 degrees. Thus my gas and
electric bill does average the extra $50 all year round. I spend
more for my ISDN internet service and drink more than $50 a month, so
the price is acceptable for the pleasure I get from the tanks.




So many factors when considering cost of heating/cooling. I don't
remember how large the AC unit is. I had it installed on my roof and
forgot about it. My costs for cooling will look low compared to
yours. My house is quite small. My largest bill was $148 and last
year was a mild summer in Marfa. I only remember a couple of days
over 100 last summer.

What I was interested in was the cost change due to the tanks. Last
summer was my first since getting my tanks set up. Here I am heating
my 5 tanks to 78 while cooling the house to 76 degrees. So the AC and
the tanks are competing.

What part of Texas are you in? East Texas is so different from west.
Not that humidity is a problem for the fish unless you have to rely on
evaporative coolers, you and I just have dollars to worry about.