PIPSTER
New member
Salty, if you're still there, I was where you are at a little more than 1 year ago.
I chose a 40b tank, despite wanting a 75 gallon because I was concerned about the weight on my floor with pier and beam house. I could have gotten one for the same price, but I probably would have to had bought an extra light.
It's just like buying clothes. You can get a walmart shirt that does the job for $10, or you can get a $80 name brand shirt at the trendy store.
I have about $1500 in equipment, and maybe $500 or a little more in livestock.
I'm sumpless, but use an HOB skimmer as sortof a sump.
I have a blackbox chinese light that I retro-fitted leds of my color taste and have plugged into simple cheap timers for both channels.
I started with dry rock and sand, IO salt, built and finished my own stand, and my RO\DI unit was the single most expensive thing, under $200.
The only mistake I made was buying too powerful of power heads at first, but I use them for saltwater mixing for water changes, so not really a waste.
I also had to buy a UV sterilizer to keep my water from clouding from bacteria. The tank will still cloud if I turn it off for a week, and that's 1 year later. (pollen?)
Things like controllers, dosers, wavemakers, lights with sunrises and wifi, super sumps, mechanical filters, etc are where the extra money can be spent, but you don't have to in order to succeed.
Test kits are also a good investment, and again you can spend $15 or $100.
Shopping around and not buying the first thing you see is a great way to find deals.
You can always add bells and whistles as your tank matures and the money comes in.
I chose a 40b tank, despite wanting a 75 gallon because I was concerned about the weight on my floor with pier and beam house. I could have gotten one for the same price, but I probably would have to had bought an extra light.
It's just like buying clothes. You can get a walmart shirt that does the job for $10, or you can get a $80 name brand shirt at the trendy store.
I have about $1500 in equipment, and maybe $500 or a little more in livestock.
I'm sumpless, but use an HOB skimmer as sortof a sump.
I have a blackbox chinese light that I retro-fitted leds of my color taste and have plugged into simple cheap timers for both channels.
I started with dry rock and sand, IO salt, built and finished my own stand, and my RO\DI unit was the single most expensive thing, under $200.
The only mistake I made was buying too powerful of power heads at first, but I use them for saltwater mixing for water changes, so not really a waste.
I also had to buy a UV sterilizer to keep my water from clouding from bacteria. The tank will still cloud if I turn it off for a week, and that's 1 year later. (pollen?)
Things like controllers, dosers, wavemakers, lights with sunrises and wifi, super sumps, mechanical filters, etc are where the extra money can be spent, but you don't have to in order to succeed.
Test kits are also a good investment, and again you can spend $15 or $100.
Shopping around and not buying the first thing you see is a great way to find deals.
You can always add bells and whistles as your tank matures and the money comes in.
