Reefkeeping and your Wallet

[Titans_Reef]

Start out with frags, full blown colonies are nice to have in a tank but I started out with just frags of corals and now im giving away corals or trading them with my LFS for more frags since they basically filled my 125g tank in a year and a half. A $10-$20 frag vs a $100-200 colony? I rather get a frag and grow it. There is exceptions like a $150 wellso and stuff you cant frag but I rather wait and see what my tank can be in a year or 2 vs a week

 

[shesacharmer]

This is great stuff you guys...anyone else care to chime in? (My Hubby got me the light controller I wanted for my birthday!)

 

[dragonfly1972]

Research, research, research before you buy!
NEVER dose anything that you haven't tested for.
Do regular water changes...many problems can be fixed by doing simple regular water changes.
Don't start out a new tank with expensive gear and reactors that aren't needed until your tank is more full and established.

 

[Fishy 1]

Its not a cheap hobby and little things add up quickly. I've just spent $720 on lights, pumps and test kits..:worried:

 

[Titans_Reef]

Buy stuff a little bit at a time also, I spend about $100-$200 per paycheck on saltwater stuff. I keeps me from blowing all of my money on saltwater. A friend just bought a 90g bow front tank which I told him buy small stuff to get it all set up now and once you are done buying stuff for the tank, set it up. All that time spent collecting stuff to properly set up your tank will help on the long run, plus it aids in being paceint since some people buy a tank, next day add saltwater and then start adding fish only to realize they need more equipment like a wavemaker, sump, decent lights, salt, refractometer, test kits, and more.

 

[EPRuss]

I'll offer this advice... I have a 90 and wish I bought a 120 (48x24). If you have the room I would go 24 inches deep. Much more depth and room for aquascaping.

I have to disagree. My advice would be to start small. I'm not saying to start with a 4 gallon pico, but there are some good AIO that come with everything you need to get started.

When I started (18 months ago) every one said go as big as you can. I bought a 90 gallon, stand, sump, lights, etc... $3000 and 18 months later I'm still spending on gadgets.

I'm still being told "your tank isn't big enough for that fish", and "your lights won't support those coral". So now I have a 4' tank with a few 2" fish?

I just bought a new 24 gallon Nano Cube with lights, hood, stand, pump and filters/media for $220. I'll need to add a few hundred in equipment (skimmer, cir. pump, ATO etc...) and I can put almost every fish I have in my 90 gallon in it.

Everyone will say a small tank is more maintenance, but I don't think so. I'm doing weekly to by-weekly water changes on my 90 and I'm positive the water change on the nano will be easier.

Also, the savings is not just in hardware. You save on salt, water, water change equipment etc...

I'm keeping my 90, gunna make it a fowlr, but I wish I would have started small.

 

[funkejj]

Totally agree. I just bought my pump and paid for the shipping instead of using my wife's prime. She's become very aware of exactly how much I've been spending with all the large boxes that keep showing up. I didn't feel there was any need to e-mail the receipt right to her cell phone for the pump.

To try and keep the wife just irritated and not angry, I've spent every free minute of the last month building shelves to sell to off-set the costs. This is in addition to building my own 40B stand. All of this has been 2+ years in the making, so we're making progress!

BTW...I thought building my own stand and canopy would save me a good bit of money, but it has been much more expensive than I anticipated. I guess I hadn't purchased wood in a while, but even the cheap stuff is expensive.

You guys know you can piggyback their prime account with your own amazon account. It is the Amazon family plan. Add 4 household members to your prime account.