$72.19/month electricity cost

[D&RW]

i have to figure out a way to lower this cost. i have two pumps running. An external sequence 1000 4500gph pulling water from a skimmer, through a bead filter, a UV light and back to the pond. Energy use 250 watts. Monthly cost to operate $21. A second submersible Easy Pro 4500 mag drive pump goes into an Easy Pro large waterfall filter and returns to the pond. Energy use 470 watts. Monthly cost to operate $42.50. UV light uses 57 watts and an aerator uses 25 for the difference.

I feel pretty certain i could cut the hours of the sequence, bead filter, uv light system by 50% to 12 hours a day with only mild loss of water clarity. And i don't think it contributes that much to the biological filtration. So that'd save $15/mo.

the easy pro water fall filter is full of bagged bead media and is the primary biological filter. I have a small aerator in it already to boost efficiency. Say i hooked up a higher flow aerator and ran the pump an hour on - hour off. or two on two off. or three. how long can the bacteria sustain no water flow if the filter stays full of water and is aerated? if i could run it just 12 hours a day i cut my energy costs by nearly 1/2.

Pond is 4500 gallons. Fish load is 5 20 in. KOI, 3 10 in. KOI, 2 10 inch shebunkins, 3 12-14 inch goldfish and about 20 tiny koi babies. water quality checks are always 0 with a ph of 8. GH runs about 7 and KH about 5-6. 1/3 surface coverage with lillys

 

[Dave 54]

Pretty steep bill monthly but I do know one thing my friend you should not be cutting the hours of any filters etc the quickest way to cut your cost is to downsize your pond by say half , which then would allow you to sell on your larger pumps and buy in smaller
You could also sell on some of your koi but its a simple equasion when it comes down to it am I going to keep paying these high bills or should I be downsizing .
I have a friend who had a large pond like yourself , when he was bemoaning the cost of the electric and what could he do to save it I simply said downsize which he did and is now real happy he did.

Dave

 

[addy1]

Maybe turn off the uv, just turn it on if the clarity gets bad enough to bother you. Not sure how much that would save you, I don't use them.
We don't really notice a big change with flipping on the pond in our electricity, but we only have one 24/7 pump running.

 

[Dave 54]

Maybe turn off the uv, just turn it on if the clarity gets bad enough to bother you. Not sure how much that would save you, I don't use them.
We don't really notice a big change with flipping on the pond in our electricity, but we only have one 24/7 pump running.

What about air pumps as well addy ?

Dave

 

[addy1]

My pond? I don't run one, I have enough water flow, falling water with the waterfalls.

His pond, that would help too, if he can turn them off.

 

[dieselplower]

I would be more apt to run one pump and split the line into two so both features are still running 24/7 but each at half the rate of before.

 

[Troutredds]

I concur with Diesel's idea. Run everything inline, powered by only one pump instead of two, if possible.

 

[sissy]

That's the main reason I shopped around for energy wise pumps and my electric bill last month was not even 100 dollars because the pumps I bought save electric .My whole house is electric and only 11 years old and I added all new energy savings items in the last 3 years .Like new water heater that only uses 59 dollars of electric for the whole year .You have to save or go solar .They now have solar systems that you can rent and they maintain the system so you have no worries .Even my new heat pump can use solar .My pumps laguna 2900 gph using 95 watts and my 2400 gph using 65 watts and once I put the new 1 1/2 inch hose on that I suspect that will go down .Laguna's hit a sweet spot and run at that energy use .I also use the laguna aerator and found the more hoses you put on it the less electric it uses .I now have 10 of the valves being used and it is now running at 26 watts .I'm happy .

 

[Troutredds]

I feel your pain, D&RW. By way of comparison, our 14000 gph pump draws 7.4 amps (over 1000 watts) and we leave it on 24/7. Our monthly power bill is over twice yours - even though we have cheap and abundant hydropower here in the pacific northwest.

 

[D&RW]

Dieselplower: Well, i already tried the one pump option. using the sequence external pump i replumbed the system with 2 3-way valves. there was too much head for the 4500 gph sequence. waterfall slowed way down. probably too slow for good bio-filtration. at that time i thought about buying a larger external pump, but didn't. i'll have to crunch the numbers again on a bigger sequence. they get very pricey when you get up in the high gph range. and not sure of the energy use comparatively.

Dave 54: downsize? how.

Troutredds: we live down in Salem. haven't compared electricity costs w/other parts of the country, but our combined Kwh cost is about 11.12 cents. Man, that's a lot of amps. you must be running it on 220.

 

[sissy]

They do sell externals that use less energy .I think addy has 1 that uses less .If you shop around you may be able to find 1 cheaper .I google until I dropped about submersible pumps and other 1 was the Oases which you don't see any where cheap .I got 4 year warranty on mine so that does help .

 

[timvz]

Not sure of your aeration requirements, but I recently got a 6 amp aerator that I'm pretty happy with. Search for "Aquascape 75000 Pond Air 2" on amazon. That would save you a little. Other than that, I'll second what others have already said: look for higher efficiency pumps (what you have already is pretty good), turn off your UV (I hardly ever use mine), get by with smaller pump and less flow, or if less flow doesn't work for 4500 gallons then reduce pond size.

 

[sissy]

My pond is almost 4000 gallons and those are the pumps I use and they work good for mine .But I have 2 home made filters .The aerator was 129 dollars off wayfair on ebay .

 

[TekWarren]

I would look at more things than just your pond. Our bill was getting ridiculous this winter...almost $300!! and the pond is shut down in the winter...so it wasn't that at all. I have a *ehem* snake room that I had to keep heated and that was pretty big culprit but I have left that hobby. The other big thing was the TV. We don't pay for cable or anything but I have the bad habit of turning it on at dinner and leaving it on until bed even if no one is watching. I am pretty anal about turning everything off but the tv for some reason...but getting better. I also decided that we really don't need that big 47" tv in the living room, sure its nice but when I looked at the wattage rating is was way higher than I expected for for an LCD TV. I replaced it with a 32" LCD we had but was sitting in the basement, tv is still on more than it should be (now that spring is here less as we will be outside) but the 32" consumes WAY less power. I forget the exact wattage but the 47 was almost 300watts and the 32 is around 60-70watts I want to say. The bill dropped immediately after just those two changes.

I got a kill-a-watt to check appliances and see what ones should be replaced if/when we can with energy rated ones. We do other things as well such as dry clothes outside on a line in the summer which really helps...not popular these days but it can be money in your pocket! Turn off anything you can at night and during the day with a surge strip so that it is *really* off not just in stand by.

 

[dieselplower]

Check out LED tvs! Even less power.