So what is your vampire load?

[Yaryman]

Lowest reading in the middle of the night I could find was 431 watts.
Not too surprising as the pumps on this tank run 24/7. It's a 300 gallon tank, with a 80 gallon sump.

[josefontao]

Lowest reading in the middle of the night I could find was 431 watts.
Not too surprising as the pumps on this tank run 24/7. It's a 300 gallon tank, with a 80 gallon sump.

Thankfully you went LED. Are those Reef Breeders?
Imagine if we still were in the metal halide era...

Nice Tank!

[FFE]

A refrigerator also uses power to periodically warm a heating element in order to defrost the refrigeration coils.

You can program the latest refrigerators to do this at night during the lower rate TOU time too!

My house uses 190-200 watts when it is empty and the HVAC is off. Less than half of that is the fridge.

[bcroe]

My house uses 190-200 watts when it is empty and the HVAC is off. Less than half of that is the fridge.

How did you measure that, by timing the disc? A clamp on ammeter has been mentioned, but
these will not consider the power factor of the load. In some cases a capacitor is used to limit
voltage without burning power, but the clamp on won't recognize the current as mostly reactive.
Likely most wall warts are largely reactive as well when unloaded.

The other issue I have had, is clamp on meters aren't very accurate at the low currents of
Vampire loads. I did work out a way to connect a KILL-A-WATT to individual breaker circuits.
Bruce Roe

[FFE]

I measure it two ways with a double check. I left for the weekend and turned the HVAC off at the thermostat. I accessed my online account from my power company and it shows the useage for each hour of the day. It is the same as my overnight usage in the summer and my daytime useage in the winter for an empty house. 190-200 wattshours for the hour. The double check was the weekend useage for the day each day on the empty house weekend was less than 5 kWh. Also, my smart meter shows instantaneous flow in digital form. It is 130 watts when the fridge is off if I remember correctly. The cool thing is I can shut off breakers to measure where my power is going.

[bcroe]

I measure it two ways with a double check. I left for the weekend and turned the HVAC off at the thermostat. I accessed my online account from my power company and it shows the useage for each hour of the day. It is the same as my overnight usage in the summer and my daytime useage in the winter for an empty house. 190-200 wattshours for the hour. The double check was the weekend useage for the day each day on the empty house weekend was less than 5 kWh. Also, my smart meter shows instantaneous flow in digital form. It is 130 watts when the fridge is off if I remember correctly. The cool thing is I can shut off breakers to measure where my power is going.

Thats cool, so the PoCo actually measured it for you. I wouldn't count the fridge as a vampire load,
but its daily use is easily measured (1KWH a day here) and the average (42W here) subtracted.
Bruce Roe

[SunEagle]

Thats cool, so the PoCo actually measured it for you. I wouldn't count the fridge as a vampire load,
but its daily use is easily measured (1KWH a day here) and the average (42W here) subtracted.
Bruce Roe

Maybe he stores his blood supply in the fridge. That would be a vampire load.

[Yaryman]

Thankfully you went LED. Are those Reef Breeders?
Imagine if we still were in the metal halide era...

Nice Tank!

The two outside lights are Nova A4's ( not sure if they are still made ) 120W at full power. ( bought the pair for $380 )
The inside light is a 120W with timer system I bought on Ebay three years ago for $250. Still works.

I never used metal halide lights. On my previous small 6' tank, I used power compact bulbs. ( the tank in the above post is 8' x 24" tall x 30" deep )
They were cheaper and cooler than metal halide. Though as I remember it cost about $100 or so to replace them each year.
On the upside, the LED's on the tank now are 2 years (outside lights) and 3 years (inside light) old and I have no plans to replace them.

[josefontao]

The two outside lights are Nova A4's ( not sure if they are still made ) 120W at full power. ( bought the pair for $380 )
The inside light is a 120W with timer system I bought on Ebay three years ago for $250. Still works.

I never used metal halide lights. On my previous small 6' tank, I used power compact bulbs. ( the tank in the above post is 8' x 24" tall x 30" deep )
They were cheaper and cooler than metal halide. Though as I remember it cost about $100 or so to replace them each year.
On the upside, the LED's on the tank now are 2 years (outside lights) and 3 years (inside light) old and I have no plans to replace them.

I had a 120 gallon tank back in the mid 90s. I had it for about 7 or 8 years. Then I got tired of the water leaks that ended up ruining my wood floors, well, the wife was the one that got tired. LOL
I used VHOs back then. Power compacts were relatively new and expensive and metal halides were super expensive and would heat up the water too much, so then I would have to get a chiller, which was also damn expensive.

Then I started working for MarineDepot but by then i wasnt into the tank anymore.

[josefontao]

Is this behavior normal for your fridge?
I've noticed that the fridge is just about always on and it has this weird spikes every 7 minutes or so. The right hand side of the pic is when I turned the fridge off for comparison. This happens constantly.

Any clues? Is the fridge bad? Its a Whirlpool about 4 or 5 years old.rsz_img_7676.jpg

[SunEagle]

Is this behavior normal for your fridge?
I've noticed that the fridge is just about always on and it has this weird spikes every 7 minutes or so. The right hand side of the pic is when I turned the fridge off for comparison. This happens constantly.

Any clues? Is the fridge bad? Its a Whirlpool about 4 or 5 years old.[ATTACH]8097[/ATTACH]

Most fridges will cycle the compressor on and off to maintain whatever temperature you are asking for. The old fridges may not be very efficient and lose the cold faster then the newer ones so you might see that compressor (which is more than likely generating those spikes) running more often.

One other thing to help keep the fridge from cycling. They work better when they are filled up. Food & beverages usually keep their lower temperature longer then air does.

So if there is mostly air inside, the compressor may run more often then a fully loaded fridge.