Is good reef lighting expensive?
- Thread starter Shark123
- Start date
- Status
Dmorty217
Saltwater Addict
Thousands and that's for 100g or less. You are talking 10's of thousands for a 2000g and up, that's 10 boxes of instant ocean do you have a place you can even know a local place to purchase that or anything else you need (lights,pumps,skimmer,sump,RO, holding tanks for RO water,live rock, sand, just to name a quick few. I like where your heads at with big tanks but you have no experience so buy a 75 minimum and read all you possibly can on saltwater aquariums fish only and reefs and not on the Internet get books. Julian Sprung and James Delbeck wrote a few books that have a nice bit of info about successful saltwater aquarium.
that guy
New member
that guy
New member
This hobby, as great as it may be, is ridiculously expensize. 1 ecotech radion can cost something like 500$ on the low end. My 38g which is miniscule sompared to 2000 gallon tank has cost me 1000$. At one point I was able to get a 175 gallon tank for free but that was the cheap part. It would have cost several thousands of dollars to set it up without the costs of live rock, sand, fish, corals, and lights. Do not get discouraged though. A 2000 gallon tank may be a tad ambitiouse for your first tank but if you have the ambition set up a 100g tank. You can get some pretty sweet fish, you won't grow out of it to quickly, you'll gain the experience you need to run a large tank, you'll figure out how much it will cost you to go larger, and you can decide if you want to go fowlr or a reef tank. Also if you realize you don't want a large tank it's a lot easier to take 100g down than 2000g. Best of luck.
My 475g cost me quite a bit less then $15 a gallon to setup completely 
. If I paid retail or online prices form erything that number bright be pretty close......
For a 2k gallon tank I would do a few metal halides. Depending on the dimensions of the tank its hard to say exactly what it would cost or how many you need. I use 3 - 250w mh's on my tank which is 120x30x30. I would say each light could easily cover a 36x36 area...... You can move up to 400w or even 1000w if you want a larger area covered or if your tank is really deep and you need lots of light down there.
250-400w ballast $120-140 ea
Reflector $100 - $110 ea
Bulb $15 ea
. If I paid retail or online prices form erything that number bright be pretty close......For a 2k gallon tank I would do a few metal halides. Depending on the dimensions of the tank its hard to say exactly what it would cost or how many you need. I use 3 - 250w mh's on my tank which is 120x30x30. I would say each light could easily cover a 36x36 area...... You can move up to 400w or even 1000w if you want a larger area covered or if your tank is really deep and you need lots of light down there.
250-400w ballast $120-140 ea
Reflector $100 - $110 ea
Bulb $15 ea
williewilliams
New member
google any questions and answers to question get answer real quick. I love the internet. My books on reefing stay in my rest room. I don't have a laptop.
Clownin Aroun
YouTube name- KNGRNGS
If you have never had a saltwater tank before FOLWR or REEF, you should not start with a 2000 gallon tank.
READ READ READ as much as possible, google and YouTube are your friend!
LED lighting for a 2000 gallon tank will be what
20 radions? --------$13,000
12 mitras? ---------$14,400
Lol. That's just for lights.
READ READ READ as much as possible, google and YouTube are your friend!
LED lighting for a 2000 gallon tank will be what
20 radions? --------$13,000
12 mitras? ---------$14,400
Lol. That's just for lights.
slief
RC Sponsor
I'd say 50% more fixtures then that if it's for a reef setup. Maybe even more depending on the depth of the tank and the inhabitants. It's really going to depend on the footprint as there is a lot of ways to build out a 2000 gallon tank. Heck, for a tank that size, halides would certainly be most practical from a cost standpoint but then you have to keep the tank cool.
Should I read from the Internet or books, which one do you think is better? Thanks.
Clownin Aroun
YouTube name- KNGRNGS
He originally said not a reef so that's where I came up with those numbers.
Read a lot on here, USE THE SEARCH BUTTON it is your friend. Read everything you can find from googling and read books. Everything is good to know, but take everything everyone says with a grain of salt also.
As you said in another thread, no I do not believe that even if you do 1000 hours of reading an researching you should START with a 500+ gallon tank! You learn the most in this hobby from trial and error and as a newbie trial and error on a 500+ gallon tank can be a disaster. I would once again recommend between 50-100 gallons to start. Who knows you might think its too much work and not even want to stay in the hobby........this would be like you turning 17 and saying I'm going to learn how to drive a manual on a Ferrari, might as well right, WRONG, if you burn the clutch out in a civic, not the end of the world, in a Ferrari not so good.
You also have to think about the lives that will be going into your tank. You don't want to use fish as test dummies. They are living beings and should be treated as such.
As for the costs of all of this, for a 2000 gallon tank (not reef) you would be looking at nearly $100,000 after buying everything you need to get it started........lol.
jmadison
rebmeM deretsigeR
If you're concerned about cost/cutting corners on a 2000 gallon tank ~2300 gallon system(presumably)... get out now. This hobby isn't cheap on any scale. Besides you truly get what you pay for in this hobby. If you buy cheap to start you'll quickly replace it with something more expensive and now you have wasted the money spent on something "cheap".
Of course this highly useful and poignant information provided by EVERYONE in all of your threads will be for nothing, as you are merely trolling the board this weekend being absurd.
How am I "trolling"?
- Status
