30" tank--halides or T5?

[Bifferwine]

My light bill has went up $150.00 a month since going to halides.

You rookie! Once your light bill starts being more than half of your mortgage, that's when you know you're in the big leagues ;)

But to answer the OPs question, pick T5s over halides.

 

[bobby]

Mine made no difference going from PC's to halide. You can do the math and figure out exactly how much it'll cost you per month.

My 175 watt halide at 8 hours a day in a 30 day month at .12 per KWH cost $5.04 a month to run.

100 watts of t5 will cost the same to run as 100 watts or halide. The thing about t5 is you can run less light to get close to the same output, but watt for watt they're the same to run.

 

[xcastn0shad0wx]

The tank is 23" tall. It's a 30X12X23

 

[yote]

You rookie! Once your light bill starts being more than half of your mortgage, that's when you know you're in the big leagues ;)

But to answer the OPs question, pick T5s over halides.

That was just the jump from adding the halides my dear:mrgreen:
Last month my light bill right $500.:frustrat: The wife aint happy about that.:helm2:

 

[bobby]

That was just the jump from adding the halides my dear:mrgreen:
Last month my light bill right $500.:frustrat: The wife aint happy about that.:helm2:

Holy crap!!!!! Thas one hell of a bill. Most mine has hit was in the 3's, but I recently put down 41 bags of cellulose in my attic so hopefully it shoud go down. You might want to think about some serious insallation or something. I couldn't afford a bill like that for very long.

 

[bobby]

How many halides do you run and how many hours?

 

[IraqVeteran]

Damn........my bill is around $220-$250 a month and I just had PC's over my 75g before. I hope my bill doesnt double like that. How should I have my lights set for my tank...like what should my light cycle be? Should I have the actinics on at noon halides on at 2 pm halides off at 8 pm and actinics off at 9 pm? Or is that not enough time for the lights to be on?

 

[bobby]

I went form 196 watts of PC to 175 watt of halide and didn't notice any change. If there was a change it shoudl have went down a few cents. my 300.00 bills were at peak times hottest time or coldest time. BTW my electric bill is my electric and gas combined.

 

[bobby]

After adding the new installation my last bill (and it was freezing that month) was only 180.00

 

[yote]

Holy crap!!!!! Thas one hell of a bill. Most mine has hit was in the 3's, but I recently put down 41 bags of cellulose in my attic so hopefully it shoud go down. You might want to think about some serious insallation or something. I couldn't afford a bill like that for very long.

3X 250 HQIs and 8X 39 watt T-5s for a total 940 watts.Started out with the HQIs on 8 hours and actinics for 12.Since the dino outbreak,the HQIs only run 2 hours and I got the actinics on for 6.Slowly upping it by 15 minutes a day.

I was running 432 watts of T-5s before.
Plus our rates went anyway.Somebodies got to pay for the big ash spill clean up for TVA.