With the current credit crunch, increased energy and fuel prices, heres some energy saving tips for your reef tank that might help keep those costs down

IMPORTANT
Please ensure when using any of the tips below, do so slowly and observe your livestock to ensure that no changes cause any issues in your reef tank.

 

KRAKENS TOP TIPS

#1 Reduce your lighting hours, start small with just half an hour each end of the day, this will already reduce your consumption, keep an eye on any coral changes

#2 Reduce your lighting intensity. Ensure you do this slowly so that corals get used to the amount of light, reducing your lighting by a couple of percent will have a positive impact on your electricity bill.

#3 Turn down your return pump, often these are run higher than we might actually need and slowing them down can also have a positive impact on the way our tanks run. Reducing the speed slightly will reduce the energy consumption of the pump.

#4 Reduce the amount of flow from your wavemakers. Again we want to observe our coral to ensure we are not causing them any issues, but a small reduction will help.

#5 Reduce the temperature of your tank. Most of us keep our reef tanks around 25-26 degrees C, but we can afford to lower this a little. Keeping it at 23-24 degrees will help save energy. The actual temp of reefs varies between 20 and 35 degrees. We increase our SPS coral trays slightly during summer so theres no great fluctuation in temperatures on a hot day.

#6 Potentially add a lid to those open top tanks. As much as we might not like this idea it retains the heat and reduces evaporation.

 

OUR CUSTOMERS TIPS

Mark Jobling - Cover the parts of the sump that don’t have equipment sticking up. The heater is deffo the thirstiest piece of kit.

Dominic Knight - Switch to LED if still using older tube type lights. Also look to install more efficient pumps

Dominic Knight - Put your skimmer on a timer and only run it for 8 hours a day (during the night)

Campbell Robertson - Reflective insulating padding to the rear of the tank and around the sump.

 

Email us your energy saving tips to be included on this list.