Green Technology and the Fish Room

[etheonut]

I am starting this thread as a central place to post ideas that would make all of our fish rooms more 'green'. This could range from how you recycle water change waters to building the whole thing out of recycled tires..

Seriously though, I think you guys and gals probably have some great ideas in this area. I would love to hear what you do now, what you would like to do, what you have seen on the internet, and what your imagination can come up with.

Kevin

[Josey]

This is really cool because I'm studying for my LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The architectural industry is trying to head toward not only being environmentally conscious but making life better for people as well. For example when we designed our current office all of the offices where put on the inside of the building and the cubical dwellers (me) got all the window space this is good for everything from moral to saving energy. Also LEED covers construction practices and even which glues you use all to keep people happy. Sundance you should know your hero Robert Redford is their spokesperson they even named a building after him

Most of us are very energy conscious already we don't want our hobby to cost us more than necessary. We use florescent lighting and low energy pumps for our filtration systems. Some of us use one large pump for everything this saves on energy lost thru transfer. All of our chemicals have to be biologically safe or we would loose stock. I would bet that a lot of us are using recycled tanks or other equipment.

I guess I got kinda longwinded

[Josey]

I have been looking into building an LED lighting system. New LEDs can put out up to 130 lumens per watt compared with current your average office fluorescents gets 70 to 80 lumens per watt Now the T8s on an electronic ballast can produce around 93 lumens per watt while the bulbs are new. Compared to LEDs fluorescents look like energy hogs some costing almost twice as much to run. Some LEDs are spectrum controllable and none of them put of any heat not even from the ballast.

This is a quote from the us department of energy.
"If 25 percent of the lightbulbs in the U.S. were converted to LEDs putting out 150 lumens per watt(higher than the commercial standard now), the U.S. as a whole could save $115 billion in utility costs, cumulatively, by 2025, and it would alleviate the need to build 133 new coal-burning power stations."

Another long post sorry

[dennysfishroom]

Any time I find incandescent bulbs burned out, I've been replacing them with the screw in fluorescents. I'm ready to do that using LED's once the price starts to drop and gets reasonable. I've also tried to minimize the number of heaters I use on my tanks. Obviously, this is a little easier with central systems than with individual tanks. I think having good tops on the tanks to reduce evaporation would also help. I'll be interested in what you all can come up with, because I've got the astronomical electric bills from my hobby to prove the need. Denny

[sskruzr]

I started building my own stands out of treated wood. Should last for quite a while. I've put a single screw-in fixture with a CF bulb over the middle tank on these racks. All lights are on timers. I use one central blower for air, soon to be a linear piston pump using 1/3 of the wattage of the blower. I guess the water changes go out and water the yard(not on purpose). Always wanted to find out about using solar to power the fishroom, but haven't come across this solution yet.

[sskruzr]

Almost forgot, I've made some of my own tanks. A hundred gallon acrylic and a 75 gallon glass tank. The 75, I only have 40 bucks in it. I traded some fish for brand new frames, I had some used glass for the sides and back, a $10 mirror from habitat for the bottom, and a new piece for the front. I can't remember the last time I bought a new tank. New tanks are like new cars, once you drive it off the lot, it's used, once you fill a tank with water, it's used.

[etheonut]

I am looking at linear air pumps and I have to admit to being lost. How do you know how big a pump you need? I am working on my 'fish room' and would prefer to have a linear pump rather than a pile of smaller filters.

I purchased a Python wanna-be by Lee today. Instead of dishing out the big money for one of their extension hoses I got an extra garden hose instead. Now I can do water changes anywhere in the house, should save my back a little bit of carrying.

Kevin

[sumpnfishy]

The best thing you can do is call Mark at Jehmco and he will walk you through what you need. I promise he will not sell you more than you need and he's the best guy to buy a linear from anyway.
Michael

[etheonut]

I just looked at Jehmco, wow! Why is it that over the past two weeks as I have done web search after web search for "air pump" "linear air pump" "fishroom air pump" etc I haven't run across their name once. Someone needs to work on their web presence.

Kevin

[sskruzr]

Yeah Kevin, nothing makes the wife more happy than the hubby carrying a couple of sloshing buckets through her house, especially if you can do it in front of her. Hopefully she won't mind the hose. The wife has mentioned a tank in the living area more than once, but I keep saying "no thanks", I'll just get myself in trouble again.

[etheonut]

Nothing makes the wife happier than realizing that she won't have to carry sloshing buckets of water to her aquariums for water changes anymore.

Of course, it was nice to be able to do water changes last night on most of the tanks and only spend 20 minutes on it. I still have to carry buckets of RO water to some of the tanks, but that is a minor inconvenience.

Kevin

[sskruzr]

I have my R/O water in a 55 drum and then drop in a sump pump with a RV hose and a shut off on it. Makes filling the tanks fast.