I'll post my bills after a month or so and see if it goes down. So hopefully it will be $80+ per month in savings, but I'd even be happy with $40 / month and have it pay for itself in 2 years. You can see when I started my tank, because 10/2009 is roughly the same as 10/2010 because I had my tank running both those months. 5/2010 you can see a big difference of about $95, and then about $120 for 6/2009 vs. The reason I think it will be $80+ is that if you look at my power bill history (below) you can see that year-over-year, my cost went up by about $80-$120 from when I started the tank (October 2009) until now. Not to mention they're badass so I'd probably rationalize it just about any way I could - ha! And even if it takes 2 years to get your $$$ back, these things will last 10+ years, so in my mind, it was a good decision financially. Then you figure you can part out the old system for $500-$700, so between power savings, old part-outs, and savings on MH's, one can get back the total cost within about a year. Also, you have to buy new MH's each year, so that's another $200 at least. So if you call it $80 / month, that's $1,000 in a year. Then you can factor in the cost savings, which I think will probably be between $75 and $100 per month, due to less wattage, less chiller use, and less AC keeping the house cool (this was a big one for me). So call it $2,000 shipped for the system, give or take $100. I've ordered a bunch of stuff from Aquacave before so he gave me 10% off - I'm sure he'd probably give anyone at least 7% off. Haha no worries ronreef - The modules were $530 each, so that's $2,120, and then the controller was another $80, so total call it $2,200. It's like a true look into an ocean when it's stormy outside - truly a new experience in aquariums!!! The look of the tank when you start one is unreal - it looks exactly like it's an overcast day outside. The other pretty cool part is the thunderstorms - you can put it on to be random, with a set probability, or you can just start one right away. Here's the old top (notice all the stuff I had to cut out.)Īnd here's all the old stuff that I took out:Īnd of course the new tank with lights and no reflectors! It's looks like really nice lunar lights - seriously - the color is unreal - better than my 4x9-1watt Lunar's I had from Finnex): So, enter the 4x72w LED system from Aqua Illuminations:Īnd full 100% Super Blue (it doesn't look purple. My AC isn't top notch, so it would have to work overdrive to keep the tempurature of the house down. The biggest issue I was having is that my house was getting too hot with all the lighting. So that's a whopping total of 1,066 watts of lighting on for 8+ hours per day:Īnd here's what the tank looked like before with the Lumenbrights: I'll probably officially post everything later this week.Īs you can see, the original setup included 3x250w MH's, 3x Lumenbright Mini's, 2x140w VHO 454's, and 4x9 1-watt LED lunar lights. Please note - most of the stuff that I took down is for sales, so PM for prices if you're interested in any of it. I'm extremely happy with them - they are actually brighter than my 3x250w MH's on full blast. Finally got my 4x SOL Super Blue LED's from Aquacave ( ) a few days ago, and set them up today.
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