Decisions, Decisions, Decisions, Part 2

Ron Reefman

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Part 2 and the conclusion of Decisions, Decisions, Decisions.
(You can read the first article in this series here: Part 1)


Money

So just how much do you think a saltwater aquarium is going to cost? When I first started I bought a used 30g tank and stand for $35 at a garage sale in my neighborhood and in a few months had invested over $1500 just getting hardware and sand and rocks! Hang on now, don’t jump ship yet. Read on and find out why I spent so much on relatively small tank.

First, I bought the tank and metal stand used at a garage sale for $35! After that I bought everything new and from various LFS (Local Fish Stores). Also, I’m in SW Florida and we let the air in our house get up to around 80-82 degrees before we turn on the A/C, so I needed a chiller to keep the water in my aquarium at 80 degrees. BTW, this was back when return pumps and powerheads (before there were wavemakers) were all AC and ran warmer than today’s DC pumps. And the fluorescent light fixture ran warmer than today’s LED fixtures. Many reefers can run without a chiller and they are one of the major up-front expenses and a healthy addition to your monthly electric bill. Here is a list of what I spent:

Tank & stand $35.00 used

RO/DI water maker 130.00 new

Salt 25.00 new

Live Sand 60.00 new

Live Rock (LR) 175.00 new

HOB Filter 50.00 new

HOB Skimmer 200.00 new

Power compact light 160.00 new

Chiller 450.00 new

2 Powerheads 100.00 new

Power strip 25.00 new

Timers 30.00 new

Test kits 60.00 new

Total: $1500.00*

*just in case you didn’t notice there isn’t a single fish, coral, snail or any other living thing included in that $1500 cost!

For inspiration: a beautiful reef tank with custom skull wall created by the owner.
r2rcromagocto-cube075sm.jpg

This photo is from the Reef2Reef archives, courtesy of @cromag27 ©2019, All Rights Reserved.

If you do some reading and ask some questions on almost any local club website forums or on R2R (Reef2Reef) before you buy, you’ll be far, far smarter and better off than I was. Also, if you join your local club and get to a meeting and make a couple of new friends with tanks, you’ll be even further ahead of the game. With a month or two of reading, asking questions and seeing other people’s tanks, you’ll have a far better idea of what’s out there, what it costs and what you want to set as your goals.

Also you’ll find there’s a wide variety of used equipment you can buy for far below the cost of new equipment at retail prices. If you work at it, you can set up a system for 30-60% of what it would cost new, maybe even less if you find the right seller who wants out of the hobby. A friend of mine just bought an almost complete 125g system for only $500. It included water, fish, corals, a nice stand and canopy, led lights, pumps, a sump and a refugium! The only thing extra he really needed to buy was a skimmer.

Buying Used: Four years later I had my 75g system up and running when I decided I wanted to go even bigger. I started by buying the 180g tank and then spent over 18 months buying all the other equipment I needed before I built the stand, did the plumbing and set the system up. The build was in my mind all the time, but I knew I wanted to do it right, not just ‘do it’. And even then, I didn’t get it all right. Marine aquarium keeping is a process and an evolution. The hobby is still learning better and better ways to keep a small section of reef in a glass box in your home. New techniques, new equipment and new science just keep making it easier and better… and as often than not, more expensive!

For inspiration: a mature reef tank.
r2rrick45cal.jpeg

This photo is from the Reef2Reef archives, courtesy of @Rick.45cal ©2019, All Rights Reserved.

So my third system was a 180g mixed reef full of corals, fish and invertebrates, plus a 70g hexagon tank with many anemones, a few fish and a few inverts that I can’t keep in the mixed reef due to incompatibility between certain critters. The 2 tanks were tied together thru a 180g sump/refugium with lots of extra features. I got most of it used and a few items new at big discounts due to raffle winnings at local club events and an LFS ‘going out of business’ sale. I did buy a couple of special pieces of equipment new because I never found any used that were worth buying. Here is what I got and what I paid (as best I can remember):

180g Tank $200.00 used

70g hex tank 50.00 used

Stand 300.00 home made DIY and extremely heavy duty

RO/DI (for making water) 75.00 store close out

Filter socks 20.00 new

Skimmer 275.00 used

Sand 0.00 free from other reefers

Live Rock (LR) 50.00 my old rock plus 100 pounds used from other reefers

MH lights 500.00 1 store close out and 1 used

Chiller 1000.00 new

In tank pumps 100.00 new

Main circulation pump 30.00 new (won at a club raffle using 30 raffle tickets at $1 each)

Timers and on/off switches 150.00 new

2 breakers and new outlets 80.00 new parts DIY install

160g Sump tank 175.00 for used tank, baffles & installation

Plumbing parts 300.00 new

45g water mixing tank 50.00 new

Wiring 100.00 new

Power strip 25.00 new

Total: $3500.00

So that’s almost 15 times the water volume of my first system (435g vs 30g) at a little more than double (2.3 times) the cost! But we haven’t even touched on the cost of fish, corals, inverts, chemicals and food.

So consider how much money you want to spend up front on hardware. Then remember that fish, inverts, corals, sand, live rock, saltwater and food all cost money too. And then there is the regular maintenance like testing water parameters, water changes, eventually adding chemicals like calcium, alkalinity (sodium bicarbonate) and magnesium, paying for some extra electricity, new filters, new light bulbs, replacement pumps… sometimes it feels like it’s never going to end… oh, that’s right, it doesn’t!

For inspiration: a cube reef tank.
r2rleonel619.jpg

This photo is from the Reef2Reef archives, courtesy of @leonel619 ©2019, All Rights Reserved.
Then there’s the time. Setting up and getting started take far more time than the downstream care, but don’t underestimate what a daily, weekly and monthly toll you will have to commit to with an aquarium. Almost daily you’ll be feeding fish (and maybe corals too), adding ‘top off water’ to replace what has evaporated and looking things over just to be sure everything is working properly. Weekly you’ll be doing water parameter tests, cleaning the glass, doing a water change (which involves making clean RO/DI water and mixing in salt), cleaning or changing filters, and cleaning the skimmer. Monthly you’ll be finding other things to do like cleaning pumps, overflows and other pieces of equipment. It all adds up to a real commitment of time. And as so many have told you before, time is money!

As I stated earlier, this isn’t a cat or a dog. This is an ecosystem that allows you to keep tropical fish, live coral, sea stars, shrimp, snails, feather dusters, anemones, sea cucumbers and more. But to that ecosystem, you are god. And if you don’t keep a close eye on it, and you let it get out of hand, something will die. And it could easily daisy chain into everything in the tank dying. A few years ago I had a chiller go crazy and turn on one night and then not turn off when the water was the right temperature (79 degrees). As a result, at 6am the next morning the tank temperature was 58 degrees and 70% of my coral (100% of my stony coral) and 95% of my fish (all but one) died! So even at 12+ years of experience, bad stuff can still happen. There are safeguards that will prevent what happened to me, but like almost every solution, it costs more money, and it takes time!

In the next article, I’ll cover the other topics of goals, expectations, experiences and the wide variety of paths you can (and should) choose before you start.

If you have questions, feel free to ask me here on the website or send me a private message.

(You can read the next article in this series here: Part 3)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Note From the Editor:

This article and several future ones by the same author were originally part of several presentations made to a local aquarium club. The article is reprinted with permission from the author. Reef2Reef is grateful to the author for sharing these articles with us.

~~~~~~~~~~~

We encourage all our readers to join the Reef2Reef forum. It’s easy to register, free, and reefkeeping is much easier and more fun in a community of fellow aquarists. We pride ourselves on a warm and family-friendly forum where everyone is welcome. You will also find lots of contests and giveaways with our sponsors.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Author Profile: @Ron Reefman

@Ron Reefman has been keeping saltwater aquariums for almost 20 years. Some time ago, there was a profile of him. He lives in Florida and is happy to share his ocean and aquarium adventures with us all.
 

ZoWhat

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Not to undermine your post.... but that's nothin'

I started with a 30g cube. Then 75g. Now a 180.

All tolled on the 180 btwn equip, coral, fish.... I'm probably $15,000 into it.

And that's nothing.

I've been to local reefers houses:

Reefer#1- 350g squared custom acrylic in his basement with a custom fish room behind it that looks like an professional server room of a fortune 500 company with every hi end gadget mounted perfectly to the walls and professional racks PLUS a hidden QT room and frag room.I asked him if it was over $100,000 setup and he smile and put out the thumbs up hand and raised it to the ceiling. His father left him a HUGE inheritance. He was actually nervous to show me bc he's was afraid of the word getting out and his fish stuff getting robbed in the middle of the night. I had to promise to keep his house location a secret....

Reefer #2 - Second guy I saw his entire basement retroed into a coral farm. I counted no less than 20 dosing pumps. Again all high end equip. He said he was well over $200,000 invested. Had to put a custom 400amp electrical service box in his house.....and I asked, " and you're still married?". He laughed and said, "beats getting drunk at the corner pub and totalling my Corvette"


.
 
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Taxus812

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Being a new reefer, the biggest hit to me was all the “oh, you will also need one of these”. I was expecting to have some but it was still shocking how many there actually were. I was aiming for a super low maintenance system (I had specific needs due to medical limitations and it really required newer equipment). My RS max e170 was budgeted at about $2200 (I thought that was way more than enough for a 45g tank) but the end cost (not including fish) was closer to $3000. Over $800 in unplanned extras in addition to the tank and rock. All of which was truly needed to build my little ecosystem. Now 3 months later I’m adding livestock ($180 so far for basic stuff). It is going to take me a while to save up enough funds to start buying corals. I am fortunate to have a reefing club near me and got some for free.
 
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Ron Reefman

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Not to undermine your post.... but that's nothin'

I started with a 30g cube. Then 75g. Now a 180.

All tolled on the 180 btwn equip, coral, fish.... I'm probably $15,000 into it.

The point wasn't to start a contest of how much can you spend, but to show that even small systems cost a lot and that there a lot of unintended costs what newbies don't usually see coming until after they are already involved.


Being a new reefer, the biggest hit to me was all the “oh, you will also need one of these”. I was expecting to have some but it was still shocking how many there actually were. I was aiming for a super low maintenance system (I had specific needs due to medical limitations and it really required newer equipment). My RS max e170 was budgeted at about $2200 (I thought that was way more than enough for a 45g tank) but the end cost (not including fish) was closer to $3000. Over $800 in unplanned extras in addition to the tank and rock. All of which was truly needed to build my little ecosystem. Now 3 months later I’m adding livestock ($180 so far for basic stuff). It is going to take me a while to save up enough funds to start buying corals. I am fortunate to have a reefing club near me and got some for free.

I hear you. And I wish there were some way to raise a red flag to people who think they want to start in this hobby and try to get them to SERIOUSLY understand the expense and the time requirements. For many these are not big issues. I can afford it and I'm retired so I have the time. But too many get started and find they really can't, or don't want, to spend THAT much money on a small glass box of saltwater to keep fish and corals. They get frustrated and quit.
 

vetteguy53081

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I feel for everyone posting. This is a colorful and exciting hobby although met by challenges. However, it is also a hobby that comes with Many compliments and awe from friends and visitors alike. Many of us face stress with this hobby, but at the end of the day . . . . Relaxation and Pride.
My current 360g which is in the process of transfer and being taken down is at about $11,000 with all specimens, lighting, filtration and custom ensemble.
My new 660g has nothing in it yet as I am battling with obtaining and maintaining salinity and I am so far at $9000 before I start and add several planned components.
I feel the pain, but again at the end of the day. . . . There is joy, OH and Overtime !!

360:

360g40.jpg



660:

660 cabinets 2.jpg
 

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Thank you for this post, as a newbie it's actually funny that this is mentioned. Because just to give you an idea I first was considering a marineland 180 new with stand and canopy, but we saw the red sea 750xxl and liked it a lot. We first considered our budget at about 4-5k, we learned quick ad a few k to that and thats buying some stuff used. The spending on this hobby is limitless based off your wallet and budget, but it's rewarding especially when you get to see your ecosystem striving. For my family and I we're not rich don't get me wrong, but this was a decision made for the entire household to enjoy. But im also taking my time and collecting items, not all at once. Hopefully I'll be up and running within the next few months.
 

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I agree about finding a local club to join, and I really miss the one and friends I made in the hobby back in Wisconsin. Here in Texas I have not found one yet that is really excepting of new people. The LFS's here cater more to over priced corals and only caring for customers that are rich enough that hires them to care for their tanks.

Lucky for me I was smart enough to have kept almost all my equipment from when I broke down my last tank, and I ha e learnt well from my last club how to reef on a budget.

I was able to set up my current tank and including live stock and corals, I have about 1k into it to date. I have built a lot of my own stuff, and love tinkering to get thing working in perfect harmony.
 

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I agree about finding a local club to join, and I really miss the one and friends I made in the hobby back in Wisconsin. Here in Texas I have not found one yet that is really excepting of new people. The LFS's here cater more to over priced corals and only caring for customers that are rich enough that hires them to care for their tanks.

Lucky for me I was smart enough to have kept almost all my equipment from when I broke down my last tank, and I ha e learnt well from my last club how to reef on a budget.

I was able to set up my current tank and including live stock and corals, I have about 1k into it to date. I have built a lot of my own stuff, and love tinkering to get thing working in perfect harmony.
+1 on local clubs. I met one of my best friends just here on this forum. He has years of experience building tanks and he’s been real helpful. He also introduced me to a group of friends where I live and we all share frags. I’ll never pay $100 for a frag again.
 

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+1 on local clubs. I met one of my best friends just here on this forum. He has years of experience building tanks and he’s been real helpful. He also introduced me to a group of friends where I live and we all share frags. I’ll never pay $100 for a frag again.
I do miss sharing and fragging with people in the club. I see chaeto being sold for $20 a small sandwich bag here where I could get a garbage bag for the cost of a 6 pack.

I have kept in touch with a few still in the club, just explained to someone how to sand and buff the new to him acrylic tank. I would have loved to have gone over and showed first hand, but a 20 hour road trip was not going to happen..lol
 

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The point wasn't to start a contest of how much can you spend, but to show that even small systems cost a lot and that there a lot of unintended costs what newbies don't usually see coming until after they are already involved.




I hear you. And I wish there were some way to raise a red flag to people who think they want to start in this hobby and try to get them to SERIOUSLY understand the expense and the time requirements. For many these are not big issues. I can afford it and I'm retired so I have the time. But too many get started and find they really can't, or don't want, to spend THAT much money on a small glass box of saltwater to keep fish and corals. They get frustrated and quit.

The key question to me is = how many of these costs are 'requirements' for a new reef keeper?

I dont think 'live sand' is a requirement
I don't think 'live rock' is a requirement
Most people don't require (or would think its a waste of money) to buy a chiller for a small tank like this. (that takes off 33% of the cost)
For the 250$ Hob filter and skimmer - a nice sump (10 gallon tank, etc could be put below the tank) including a pump - it would still be less
You may not need an RODI water maker - instead merely buying the water from an LFS (some give it away)
If you didnt use 'live sand.rock' you would need to add bacteria (or wait a long time) to cycle.

But I think there are multiple other ways to save beyond the costs in the article (with which I basically agree). For example powerhead for that size tank can be gotten for less than 100...
 
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Ron Reefman

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The key question to me is = how many of these costs are 'requirements' for a new reef keeper?

I dont think 'live sand' is a requirement
I don't think 'live rock' is a requirement
Most people don't require (or would think its a waste of money) to buy a chiller for a small tank like this. (that takes off 33% of the cost)
For the 250$ Hob filter and skimmer - a nice sump (10 gallon tank, etc could be put below the tank) including a pump - it would still be less
You may not need an RODI water maker - instead merely buying the water from an LFS (some give it away)
If you didnt use 'live sand.rock' you would need to add bacteria (or wait a long time) to cycle.

But I think there are multiple other ways to save beyond the costs in the article (with which I basically agree). For example powerhead for that size tank can be gotten for less than 100...

You are absolutely right. :cool:

I wasn't listing what should be, I was listing what I did as a newbie who didn't know any better. And for me, back in the days before led lights and DC pumps which run much cooler, my tank got too warm. Even fluorescent lights and the old AC pumps would add heat to the water, so I had to have a chiller.We keep our house at 80 to 82 degrees in the spring, summer and fall. And back then our A/C couldn't even keep up and the house would regularly hit 84 to 86 during the real heat of summer.

I'm happy to say that our A/C has improved and the use of led lights (our entire house and the aquarium) and DC pumps, I no longer need a chiller. Yeah! ;)
 

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Great article Ron, so on point.

A friend of my son's visited our home recently. He was fascinated by my tanks and asked question after question. Seemed to soak it up like a dry sponge. Later that day he was telling his father about what he saw. It turns out his dad has always wanted to get into the hobby. He called me the next day and we talked for an hour easy about my system. Ultimately the big question came up. "How much does it cost to set up a reef tank"?

Well...........
 

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One thing I really wanted to mention. I think many new reefers like myself seem get an initial feeling of absolute dread/panic a few months in thinking “what the heck did I commit too. How much is it really going to cost me a month I just spent out $3000 for a base tank and support equipment. It seems way higher than I thought it would.

In my case I actually planned for the initial cost and had the cash on hand. I wasn’t quite versed on the running cost. I still got that oh crap/ dread feeling once I was a bit more educated. . I can only imagine if I bought a huge tank and didn’t do any research.

Fortunately now things are rolling, the expense (in both time and money) to run it has dropped off and is far more manageable and closer to my expectations. I am able to enjoy my tank and watching it develop.

I think there is an additional question a new reefer needs to ask themselves. Am I going to get $xxxx.xx (insert the cost of your setup plus the monthly costs) worth of enjoyment out of my tank?

In my case my initial and monthly costs so far has been a bargain. The benefit to my health alone has far surpassed the costs in time and money. Plus I really am enjoying watching it develop and learning about it during each stage in its development,
 

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One thing I really wanted to mention. I think many new reefers like myself seem get an initial feeling of absolute dread/panic a few months in thinking “what the heck did I commit too. How much is it really going to cost me a month I just spent out $3000 for a base tank and support equipment. It seems way higher than I thought it would.

In my case I actually planned for the initial cost and had the cash on hand. I wasn’t quite versed on the running cost. I still got that oh crap/ dread feeling once I was a bit more educated. . I can only imagine if I bought a huge tank and didn’t do any research.

Fortunately now things are rolling, the expense (in both time and money) to run it has dropped off and is far more manageable and closer to my expectations. I am able to enjoy my tank and watching it develop.

I think there is an additional question a new reefer needs to ask themselves. Am I going to get $xxxx.xx (insert the cost of your setup plus the monthly costs) worth of enjoyment out of my tank?

In my case my initial and monthly costs so far has been a bargain. The benefit to my health alone has far surpassed the costs in time and money. Plus I really am enjoying watching it develop and learning about it during each stage in its development,

Wait until you start imagining that the tank breaks and spreads 200 gallons of water all over (they say tanks need to be replaced every so often)...:). Sorry
 

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Wait until you start imagining that the tank breaks and spreads 200 gallons of water all over (they say tanks need to be replaced every so often)...:). Sorry

Thanks now I’m curling back up in the fetal position again.

Actually how long does a tank last anyway? (I may be dead by then and probably not care at that point :) )
 

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Thanks for the post @Ron Reefman and @Seawitch. Great to hear other people’s experiences and to flag that this can be an expensive hobby.

I walked in with eyes wide open. I am based in Sydney Australia so things overall here are more expensive for us than for those in some other markets, particularly North America. Our livestock is probably the only item that is well priced in comparison. In my case I wanted a smallish (65g) system but wanted to do it well and wanted automation. I allowed $10K and that’s pretty much where I landed. RSR 250, all required tank HW (return, lights, wavemaker), live rock, initial livestock, Neptune APEX, 2x DOS dosers, ATK, RODI station, QT setup plus filter media etc. Running costs are currently at ~$350/year excluding electricity.

I could certainly have trimmed some off this if I didn’t want the automation, but probably $3K less at most. To get lower than that would require other tank, stand and sump options, likely DIY. Certainly possible but not the result I wanted.
 
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Ron Reefman

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Great article Ron, so on point.

A friend of my son's visited our home recently. He was fascinated by my tanks and asked question after question. Seemed to soak it up like a dry sponge. Later that day he was telling his father about what he saw. It turns out his dad has always wanted to get into the hobby. He called me the next day and we talked for an hour easy about my system. Ultimately the big question came up. "How much does it cost to set up a reef tank"?

Well...........

With my old 120g tank that was mostly sps corals I was selling a lot of frags. Every so often somebody fairly new would come over to buy a frag or two and they would see the tank and start in on all the questions. Personally, I love talking about the hobby because I struggled more than I was really comfortable with back when I started. And anything I can do to help others deal with costs and curveballs this hobby can throw at you, I'm happy to try and help. That's why this is going to be a series of about 20 articles hopefully at the rate of about one per week.

One thing I really wanted to mention. I think many new reefers like myself seem get an initial feeling of absolute dread/panic a few months in thinking “what the heck did I commit too. How much is it really going to cost me a month I just spent out $3000 for a base tank and support equipment. It seems way higher than I thought it would.

In my case I actually planned for the initial cost and had the cash on hand. I wasn’t quite versed on the running cost. I still got that oh crap/ dread feeling once I was a bit more educated. . I can only imagine if I bought a huge tank and didn’t do any research.

Fortunately now things are rolling, the expense (in both time and money) to run it has dropped off and is far more manageable and closer to my expectations. I am able to enjoy my tank and watching it develop.

I think there is an additional question a new reefer needs to ask themselves. Am I going to get $xxxx.xx (insert the cost of your setup plus the monthly costs) worth of enjoyment out of my tank?

In my case my initial and monthly costs so far has been a bargain. The benefit to my health alone has far surpassed the costs in time and money. Plus I really am enjoying watching it develop and learning about it during each stage in its development,

I think there are so many different ways people get pleasure out of this hobby. And many of them overlap so it can be even more enjoyable. I'm a diy kind of guy so I'm building my own tanks. But for me, the biggest draw is that it constantly reminds me of how much I love to go snorkeling and exploring over shallow reef flats in the Florida Keys. We do 3 to 5 long weekends every year and spend 90% of our time in the water just off shore, especially of small uninhabited islands where the bottom is covered in sponges, coral, anemones and lots of diverse inverts and fish. Look over the snorkeling thread that is linked in my signature below for lots of info and photos.

P8020230 R1.jpg


Thanks for the post @Ron Reefman and @Seawitch. Great to hear other people’s experiences and to flag that this can be an expensive hobby.

I walked in with eyes wide open. I am based in Sydney Australia so things overall here are more expensive for us than for those in some other markets, particularly North America. Our livestock is probably the only item that is well priced in comparison. In my case I wanted a smallish (65g) system but wanted to do it well and wanted automation. I allowed $10K and that’s pretty much where I landed. RSR 250, all required tank HW (return, lights, wavemaker), live rock, initial livestock, Neptune APEX, 2x DOS dosers, ATK, RODI station, QT setup plus filter media etc. Running costs are currently at ~$350/year excluding electricity.

I could certainly have trimmed some off this if I didn’t want the automation, but probably $3K less at most. To get lower than that would require other tank, stand and sump options, likely DIY. Certainly possible but not the result I wanted.

I hope that someday in the next 3 or 4 years my wife and I can get to Australia for a 3 or 4 week vacation. Right now we have 2 vacations per year (10 days or more) scheduled out through 2020. The last one set for the fall of 2020 is a 10 day trip to Fiji on a snorkel trip with 8 different snorkel locations!
 

Tastee

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With my old 120g tank that was mostly sps corals I was selling a lot of frags. Every so often somebody fairly new would come over to buy a frag or two and they would see the tank and start in on all the questions. Personally, I love talking about the hobby because I struggled more than I was really comfortable with back when I started. And anything I can do to help others deal with costs and curveballs this hobby can throw at you, I'm happy to try and help. That's why this is going to be a series of about 20 articles hopefully at the rate of about one per week.



I think there are so many different ways people get pleasure out of this hobby. And many of them overlap so it can be even more enjoyable. I'm a diy kind of guy so I'm building my own tanks. But for me, the biggest draw is that it constantly reminds me of how much I love to go snorkeling and exploring over shallow reef flats in the Florida Keys. We do 3 to 5 long weekends every year and spend 90% of our time in the water just off shore, especially of small uninhabited islands where the bottom is covered in sponges, coral, anemones and lots of diverse inverts and fish. Look over the snorkeling thread that is linked in my signature below for lots of info and photos.

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I hope that someday in the next 3 or 4 years my wife and I can get to Australia for a 3 or 4 week vacation. Right now we have 2 vacations per year (10 days or more) scheduled out through 2020. The last one set for the fall of 2020 is a 10 day trip to Fiji on a snorkel trip with 8 different snorkel locations!

Please feel welcome to look us up if you do head down under. Would love to show you some Aussie hospitality!
 
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