Efficiency in the marine aquarium isn’t a new idea, but one that evolving in line with the times. It’s always been part of what we do as aquarists, but it’s becoming more important now than ever. We know that it’s possible to have a successful captive coral reef. We also know that it takes a lot of equipment to do so, and all that equipment consumes electrical power. According to my own home energy report from Potomac Edison, my home uses 110% more power than comparable homes in my area. They suggest turning down the temperature of my water heater, unplugging power strips, along with a host of energy savings tips, most things I’ve already done. I know none of those things are the culprit, as that excess power consumption is coming from my downstairs fish room. As I mentioned in my post entitled “Our coral powered reefs” if grid power is supplying electricity to your reef aquarium, your reef is coal powered (at the very least fossil fuel powered.) This means that it’s not only eating through your pocketbook, it’s also eating through coal, which in turn releases carbon into the atmosphere. An eye toward efficiency:
Having an efficient marine aquarium is two-fold: one it saves money and two it eases the burden on natural resources, along with their effects on the planet. It’s ironic that saving money and natural resources walk hand in hand, but in this case they do. The first step is making smart choices, and using products that efficiently use electricity to produce things like light, water circulation, water pressure, heat, etc. For example many of us have upgraded to LED lighting, which creates photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) for our coral animals to use. But what if one fixture creates just as much PAR as another, yet uses a smaller percentage of power. Say it’s creating the same 364 PAR amount as fixture B, but it’s using 120 watts rather than 150. One could say this fixture is more efficient (both cost and resource wise) than the other. In order to make smart decisions about our tanks, we need accurate information about the power consumption of every product we install. To put it simply, we need to know if one product is going to be more expensive in the long run than another, but produce the same results. It’s no different from choosing a more fuel efficient car, which has the same horsepower and capability of another that isn’t fuel efficient.… More:
The post An efficient reef tank appeared first on reefs.com.