RUDE reefers cuz I'm on a budget...

[agreeive?fish]

Ok can somebody suggest a site where a poor boy can buy an american made light for a 29g tank for mushrooms/polyps/and other beginer level softies with atleast space for 2 bulbs because i want an anitic bulb and a white light bulb i hate the looks of 50/50 bulbs and i want to beable to control the dawn/daylight/dusk/lunar liting cycle

[DaveMorris]

I think cost should be the last thing considered when buying equipment. Do the research, figure out what would be best for your needs, and then list the best solutions by price if that is the limiting factor. Then either look for a deal on the best one or buy the best that you can afford. And remember...just because the tank "looks" good, doesn't mean that the animals are healthy.

Are we going to get to see a FTS Aso?

[NealNano]

You really should listen to the advice given by other reefers. They are your best source of knowledge in the hobby for the simple fact that they have been there. I am sure this person didnt mean to bash on your set up, most likely he was sharing his knowleged about you equipment. If someone has a Jebo skimmer and asks me what I think of it. I tell them staight up, Jebo is a crappy skimmer but it does skim. Just my advice dont flame on others for whatever reasons. You yourself my need help one day and you can burn bridges. As for reefing on a low income I have been doing it for 3 years. I find good deals on good equipment and I save. I would rather wait and get good equipment than get cheap stuff right now. I figure it is an investment in the long life and health of my tank and expensive corals.

[hahnmeister]

Very true. This hobby is pretty much about providing medical grade life support to living creatures inside a captive environment. How would you feel if you went to a hospital and they were using equipment that they 'got the best deal on'? These are living things we are dealing with.

To a certain extent, below a certain level... if you cant afford it, you shouldnt be in the hobby to begin with. Thats not snobby, or elitest, but ethical. Keeping living organisms in a situation what puts them at substantial/probable risk of death is not the way forward.

There is also a time aspect to the hobby. If you cant give the time needed... your tank will not do so well. If you need a hobby that you can 'put on the shelf' for periods of time because of other things in your life... this hobby isnt for you. Unless, of course you are an engineer I know who has his entire tank automated so he can dial up, view the tank (remote control positionable/zoomable webcam), check the pH/ORP, run an automatic skimmer washdown/cleaning, turn on/off the lights, dose 2-part, feed the fish, and even flip the solenoids on the top off and water storage system to do a water change from the other side of the world... well... of course, if a fish dies, coral starts RTN'ing or falls into another one (make sure your corals are secured!), or something like that... well... he still needs to call up his neighbor and have them go over while he directs them via webcam what to do.

[asonitez]

Screens @ http://flickr.com/asonitez/

[asonitez]

i got movies but no real way of uploading them my company blocks ftp's so i upload the pics by e-mailing flickr

[asonitez]

Smaller Tank About 300 Gallons




Larger Tank 600 Gallons

[downhillbiker]

I have a lot of the cheap equipment, and have upgraded a lot as well. i think that it pays to buy once, and on some things i wish i had, but on others, i just couldn't afford it at the time.

I have replaced all of my MJ and Aquaclear powerheads with 2 koralia 4's, they are not the most expensive, but none the less, a GREAT product.

I bought the 760w aquatraders light. looks beautiful with stock bulbs and ballasts, and i dont feel in danger of it catching on fire. ballasts run very cool, and light output is great. then i borrowed a friend's GALAXY ballast. what did i get? a marginal increase at best. here is a pic with a side-by-side of the two ballasts, one odyssea, one galaxy.



Then the bulbs got to be around a year old, and I decided to go with 12k no-name bulbs from "thelightingdudes.com". Several people in my local club have bought these bulbs, and I am very impressed, and so are they. But then the odyssea ballast wouldn't fire the bulbs after the first day, but the galaxy would immediately. Looks like I am upgrading my ballasts afterall. I just wish I would have gone with a TEK light or something and got the energy efficiency of T5 lighting.

This is a comparison of the odyssea ballast powering the new 12k bulb in the first pic on the left, with galaxy with old 10k on right.



This is a pic with the bulbs swapped. 12k bulb with galaxy ballast on right, 10k with odyssea ballast on left.



As you can see in the first pic, the 10k over powers the 12k pretty easily, but that is to be expected with the k differences here, but in the second pic they appear to be more even, so the output is definitely more from the galaxy, and of course the odyssea ballast only fired the bulbs the first day, and then couldn't do the job.

[downhillbiker]

Originally posted by agreeive?fish
Ok can somebody suggest a site where a poor boy can buy an american made light for a 29g tank for mushrooms/polyps/and other beginer level softies with atleast space for 2 bulbs because i want an anitic bulb and a white light bulb i hate the looks of 50/50 bulbs and i want to beable to control the dawn/daylight/dusk/lunar liting cycle

with low cost, and low demand corals, i would recommend...gasp...aquatraders.com

you can easily go with a CF light for softies and polyps. i would choose this one: http://www.aquatraders.com/24-130W-d...g-advance.aspx

[Logzor]

Hi I am on a very limited budget and I have a 300g and 600g tank.

Is this correct? I am confused, elaborate please.

[Breakeronetwo]

The problem you are referring to has not thaaat much to do with reefkeeping. There are not many areas where you dont encounter the same scheme. You can work with almost anything in the middle to low range and at the top end the prices rise astronomically while the advantage over medium quality if often only some percent.

A good comparison might be what a lot of reefers also know. Photography. You have a sigma lens and a canon lens. Same specs. One costs 200 dollars, one costs 800 dollars. The latter has the better picture quality. By what extend and in what percentage might be difficult to judge, might only be 10-30%.

Nontheless, if I have the money, I'll buy the canon lens, just to be sure I got the better one, even when the gain is absolutely not justified by the higher price.

The same goes for almost everything in your life. Of course thats very superficial, but thats about it. I drive a car for 200k. I could drive one for 15k, it would be just as good, my drive to work is only 3 minutes every day. But I love it every single day and I dont look down to other people with less expensive cars. Where is the sense in that?

So while of course you are right, that NO ONE should judge you for being forced to live with a small budget, you should be on top of it and also not judge people who are able to spend the money as long as they dont hurt you.

Apart from that I have to agree with some other statements here. Reefkeeping is not only about material stuff. Compare it maybe to horse keeping and riding. In the U.S. that might be a common thing and not so special. In germany riding is quite an expensive hobby. You are responsible for living beings, just like the ones in your tank. You already give them a hard time, because, say what you want, you took them out of the life that was meant to be.

So there is also a big part of responsibility to give the animals or fishes a live as good as possible for keeping them as an entertainment toy. You could feed your horse some mixed dirt and it will live, same goes for your fish, life is adapting quick. But if thats all you can do, should you really be doing it at all? This is no comparison between a BMW and some cheap car.

[hahnmeister]

Yeah, the Hyundai wont fry your balls with the seat heaters!

[maynardjames]

its true opinions are just like ***holes everyone has one including me lol to each his own...... why is everybody soooooooooooooo uptight?

[unbreakable]

i mentioned AT on my local board once and everyone went nuts on me. they started accusing me of things telling me my house would burn down and this and that, it was just insane. i had a 24" AT fixture that i changed the ballast to an icecap and people still didnt care, calling me cheap and telling me i was putting everyone in danger and calling me careless, it was uncalled for. i had the fixture for almost a year before i broke down the tank and sold everything, was a great fixture but noisy fans. im surprised people dont just go over to the DIY section and start name calling everyone for trying to save some money

the funniest part was i asked if they ever owned anything recent by them and they said, "NO, but I've seen the posts on other forums. YOURE CHEAP."

[Bmgrocks]

cause


its REEF CENTRAL

duh! lmao

[seapug]

Originally posted by Logzor
Hi I am on a very limited budget and I have a 300g and 600g tank.

Is this correct? I am confused, elaborate please.

Great point but I understand where the OP is coming from. Bottom line is do what works for you. If it doesn't work, try something different.

[turtleman9100]

Question. What is the difference between a hamilton mh hood ran by two icecap ballast with oppose to an aquatraders hood ran by two ice cap ballast with the same bulb choice. Chit. I see reflectors mounted to wooden canopies (retros) and everything else. I figured all a fixutre was is wires and light sockets. Seriously, if you change out the bulbs and ballast, whats make them crappy? The wires? Sockets? I don't get it.

[turtleman9100]

oh yeah. I got my reefkeeper elite today. It arrived DOA. Now I got to wait for a replacement. Guess I was being cheap. Should have spent more money.

[jubjub]

i absolutely agree with the OP....i have a 75gal tank, the 2x 250w mh system from oddysea, and the p75 odyssea skimmer to (35$) and u know what they work great! my anemone loves the lights he's bout the size of a dinner plate now... i do weekly water changes of 5-7gals (do get lazy and do 10g sometimes every other week and a half at most) very wise man though water changes are next to godly ness

[paraletho]

+1 to Logzor. If I had that much tank I wouldnt be worried about lights or skimmers I'd need a bigger house.

[CoralCaps]

Even with cheap parts, as long as you are paying attention to what you're doing then you can be successful. Obviously there are extremes on both sides, good and bad.

I've seen skimmerless SPS tanks, probably even overstocked, that grow SPS likes weeds. Who am I to knock someone that is successful at something I am not? Knowledge > Equipment.

The 300g and 600g tanks could have been bought used. Very large tanks are hard to move (both due to size and just the sheer work/money involved setting it up) so they could have been bought pretty cheap! Don't remember the size, something in the 400-500g range, sold locally for about $600-$700.

Then again, one man's budget is another man's salary.

[Kellie in CA]

There are some interesting points in this thread. I have always assumed that in many cases men just want to have the newest and biggest "toys" and that is why there is so much money being thrown around on tank parts. =)

I usually do my research and choose the "middle of the road" products with the best reputation. My budget is limited too.

[SALT WATER CRAZ]

Originally posted by downhillbiker
Then the bulbs got to be around a year old, and I decided to go with 12k no-name bulbs from "thelightingdudes.com".

Sorry but I just had to at that web sight thelightingdudes.com thats just to funny.

[asonitez]

Both tanks are used.. and you don't know what I had to do to get em.

[BigJay]

Originally posted by hahnmeister
This hobby is pretty much about providing medical grade life support to living creatures inside a captive environment.

Hahn, this is sig-worthy material right here.