Interesting question

[sanababit]

I am thinking of chainging my t5 for leds to save on the electric bill which runs me about 150 a month, my question is, if you changed your whatever lights (t5, halides) to leds, how much have you saved?, please no percentages its better in dollars and cents, thanks

Sana

[jdezek]

That really depends on different thing such as what size tank, cost of electricity in your area, average temps for your area, are you using a chiller, etc. you will get a wide verity of answers on this one. You also have to look at cost of bulb replacement. I myself never used T5 or halides, I had power compacts and those bulbs were pretty expensive for how long they lasted. I never compared power bill cost. I think the best way to get your answer would be to look at different fixtures and see how much electricity they use and the cost in your area and do the math then add in the cost of bulbs how often you replace them. The initial cost to switch to LEDs is expensive but in the long run you will end up saving money provided you stick with the LEDs for the duration of there life expectancy. Be ready for a lot of back and forth arguments on this question, I've read forums on this exact question. Some say they saved $300 a month others say there's no way they saved that much. Another thing they claim is with halides they put off so much heat that it causes there air to run more. T5's not so much.

[vair]

$9.42

[DopeCantWin]

I am thinking of chainging my t5 for leds to save on the electric bill which runs me about 150 a month, my question is, if you changed your whatever lights (t5, halides) to leds, how much have you saved?, please no percentages its better in dollars and cents, thanks

Sana

Electricity costs are different in different areas. People have different tanks. Why would you want percentages over dollars with so many variables? Probably both are useful, but so is what size tank, the inhabitants, how many LEDs what % are they running at.

[sanababit]

come on guys, don't be so analitical, just say "i used to spend 300 dlls a month, since i installed my leds its 280 dlls", something like that, i really dont care on size tank or if they have chillers or whatever, its just to give me an idea if they are really worth the investment and in the long run they will pay for themselves

Sana

[footballdude2k3]

The secret is to make sure that you find the lights with the turbo charged blues, I didn't do that so I only saved 4123.12 per month when I could have saved 4123.13. Seriously just deal with percentages.

Have an 8 bulb T-5 kit that came with the tank, each bulb is 96 watts or something, that will be replaced by 3 120 watt LEDs, bulbs on T-5s need to be replaced what, once or twice a year, the LEDs are good from 20,000-50,000 hours I think, if you cannot see the savings then you should learn some math.

[1SlickFish]

Not enough to justify switching if you already have them. Just stop smoking a pack of ciggs every week and that will off set it. Either that or put on your high heels and walk the streets for a few extra $$

[TheGodParticle]

You won't save any money if you use the same amount of wattage in LEDs. As much as this seems obvious a lot of people over look it. I switched from 250w MH to Radion G2's which put out 140w or something like that, I don't remember the exact amount of wattage. Anyhow because in reality there is only about 100watts worth of difference I only saved about $4 a month. Being that I have 2 fixtures I save around $8-$10 a month.....so not much at all. The common claim that LEDs can save you so much money in electricity is often very very misleading if saving you really any money at all.

[KafudaFish]

Seems like bulb replacement cost savings are as important and if you have run a chiller more so.

For a small tank:

single par 38 bulb 21 watts costs $90

T5 system with 2 bulbs 36 - 48 watts costs $90.

At the end of year one replacing the 2 bulbs would be around $50 with shipping.

[Vinny Kreyling]

Can't quote #'s but I do not need the chiller anymore,
& I don't have to buy bulbs anymore.
That has to count for something.

[RGCEsq]

I know this probably doesn't answer your question but there have been a lot of affordable LED lights lately. I just bought a pair of dimmable blue and white LEDs on ebay for $142 each. Tons of great reviews on them. Let me know if you need more info.

[sanababit]

wow so nobody saved any money, nobody changed their t5-halides to leds and saved anything, well i guess they are not worth it

Sana

[Ron Reefman]

Sana, I went from 1000w of MH and 160w of t5 running 10 hours a day to a 480w of led that runs for 5 hours at about 60% (290w) and a 4 hour sunrise and a 5 hour sunset (so even lower usage). Yes it reduced my electric bill, It also reduced my chiller run time by 80% or more and once I start using the A/C, it will not have to work as hard either. We are still in the mid 80's so I'm not using A/C yet.

[RA]

I changed from (2) 250w mh's to LED's. The LED's total about 135w. So I went from 500w to 135w, and the lights are brighter than my mh's. This was a DIY build using Cree Led's. The build cost me $600. I figured with the reduction of electricity and not replacing my bulbs once a year it would take me 4 years to break even. There are cheaper Led's out there but some of them probably won't last 4 years. If you are going to buy 1 don't skimp on quality.

[Handil]

I'd say do the math yourself. Figure out your power consumption old vs. new and your bulb costs per year (then you can divide by 12 for a monthly!). LEDs won't need to be replaced for probably 10 years and even then, they are pretty cheap. You can check your electric bill to see how much YOUR electricity costs. Then you can see EXCACTLY the dollars (or percentages) that YOU will save. Don't forget to determine your LED consumption based on the percentage at which you run them.

There's no sense in complaining about the answers you are getting from people if you have the complete ability to answer your own questions.

[edsbeaker]

I have T-5's and I'm kind of in the same place of "is it worth it". For me I'm not really considering the electric bill. I'm thinking in the big picture of all that equipment running on my tank, changing from T-5 to LED won't make much of a difference, but replacing the 6 bulbs every 9 months is definitely a more tangible expense. I'm pretty close to making a move soon.

[power boat jim]

It is simply a question of scale as to how much you will save. When I switched my 1200w of MH out for 400w of LEDs my bill went down about 40.00 a month. However, some of it was due to not having the AC kick on so often to cool the room the tank was in. Someone who changes out a 150 MH set up or a T5 setup over a 40 gallon tank and puts up a 100w LEDs wont see but pocket change for the month on his bill.

[tatuaje08]

wow so nobody saved any money, nobody changed their t5-halides to leds and saved anything, well i guess they are not worth it

Sana

You obviously didn't read all of the posts. It has been stated that it does save money.

I saved 4.89308% off my monthly electric bill. But the real savings, as other have pointed out numerous times, and advantages are down the road.

[dkeller_nc]

20 gallon nano, 3X65 w PC, 13 hr photoperiod, 1/10HP chiller at about 50% duty cycle during photoperiod:

Lights: 195w in 13 hrs - 105w on 24hr basis, 78 kw-h/mo, $0.13/kw-h = $10.15/mo.
Chiller: 300w, 50% duty cycle, 13 hr photoperiod - 80w on 24hr basis, 59 kw-h/mo = $7.70/mo.

LEDs: 95w, 50% intensity, 13 hr photoperiod - 26w on 24 hr basis, 19.3 kw-h/mo = $2.5/mo.

Electricity savings: $15.35/mo, not counting house A/C removing heat from chiller/aquarium.

Bulb replacement: $30 each * 3 = $90, once every nine months, $120 on annualized basis.

Approximate Annual Savings: $305.

Payback on $500 light fixture: One year, 7 months.

Your mileage may vary.;)