Why you cannot build a saltwater aquarium on a budget! (AKA My Build thread)

[90GalFOWLR]

Earlier today I was going through my cell phone and found some pictures of when I first got my aquarium, then tonight I was doing a water change. Seeing where I am at now inspired me to do this thread.

I by no means have a lot of money and everyone knows this is an expensive hobby. So I thought I would start in on it doing everything cheap and on a budget. Between the unpredictability of the whole hobby, and how addicting it is.... a budget is im possible and here is why.

Here are the pictures of the tank to start with.




I bought the aquarium at a yard sale for $40. It has ugly caulk lines but it holds water.... and 90 gallons of it! SCORE! It came with the hood and alot of freshwater gear. My mother works in the corporate office of a pet store chain and they get "samples" I scored a Marineland C360 canister off of her and a SeaClone skimmer. I used the heater that came with the tank. I scored about 45lbs of rock (dry) off of craigslist for $15 and bought a big hunk of live rock from my LFS for $45. + Sand & Salt ($25) I was up and running from nothing to operating aquarium for $125.

That worked for a little while.

One day I was adjusting my skimmer and when I came back later I saw drips down the back of the aquarium afterwards. Just a simple o-ring that was leaking. But that scared me because I realized that if something went wrong the tank could leak down about 20 gallons before that maxi-jet powering it came out of the water and stopped. At that point I had a little bit of money and decided as soon as I could afford it I would upgrade to a sump since I had a built in corner overflow.

Once I had the sump I needed the upgraded skimmer to go in it My prices are estimates because I forget and dont want to know what I put into it. I made the mistake a keeping track and that was done after a few months. The return pump was about $90. $150 for the skimmer, $50 for the phosban reactor and media because now that I had room ...of course I needed that to tacle the algea problems I had. $20 for the maxijet powering that. Filter socks were $7.00x4 ($28). The sump itself was somewhere around $300. So now I'm at about $615 and I need another approx $50-100 for ball valves, check valves, unions, pvc, glue, linelock, etc. Total $715 to upgrade to a sump you dont even see.





These are in no particular order but somewhere along the way I upgraded from the cheap flourescent hood to a PC fixture with moon lights. Its a coralife knock off but it was still like $250 I think.

Then I needed more flow, its addicting, so I got the Koralia wavemaker and two koralia 3's. The wavmaker was like $325 the K3's were about $40. Well I already spent $405 and what kind of person would I be blowing my fish around the tank while they slept. The photocell was only $25 more. Oops $430




Not to mention in the pic of the wavemaker we all know the test kits about $30x2, salt was $30, bucket $10, flourescent light for chaeto $15, vegie clip $5, zooplex $20 Ooops $110.

Well if you'll notice in the pics from the begining the cabinet was black veneer over flake board and the pics from now are stained wood.

What happened you ask?

After a long and expensive vacation this summer I came home and my fish care person told me that my tank overflowed some. I have ABSOLUTELY no idea how it happened and do not believe the tank just did it itself, but thats another story.

I no longer trusted over 1,000lbs of water and rock and expensive fish on wet swolen flake board. Even if it was only around the edges of where the verticle peices me the base.

I wanted to be on my budget and had no money after vacation so I went the DIY route.

HA

DIY is still expensive. I got the plans for the stand on here and made the rough stand out of 2x4's and skinned and trimmed it with OAK. But now it looked so nice it needed a matching canopy. Close to $500 later here is what it looks like

The base is getting raised panel doors the same style as the top, they just arent done yet.




Oh yeah, if you have been following the story and looked with a sharp eye you'll see in the canopy those funny looking black things hanging from the top.

I couldnt have a custom canopy on a "reef-tank to be" without halides and my LFS just happened to have 2 used pendants for sale cheap.

Welllllll as the rest of the story has gone, cheap isnt cheap.

Pendants were $50 each. They are nice, but $50x2 + $60 for good slightly used 10k bulbs, and $80 for the 4 supplemental pc actinics that go in them and $30 to replace the PC ballast I found out was shot. I didnt get it yet but I found a place that sells the blueline dual 250w e ballast for $190.
That cheap $50x2 turned into $460.






So that there is why trying to do this on a budget turns from $125 to about $2600 in only 18 months. Not counting electric bills and maintenance stuff, floating magnets, food...

Not to mention the fish themselves


...oh yeah RO Unit for $150

ahh I better stop

[UnknownFish]

Lmao, I dont even want to think about how much I have in my setup and I am thinking of setting up a 38 gallon I have laying around here.

[90GalFOWLR]

Oh me too I have a solana that I got for $10 because it came in with a broken side. I ordered the replacement piece from the local glass place for $31 and bought a skimmer since it didnt have one. Now all I need is a return pump for it for $25.

[greech]

Funny stuff, great post.

[HAMsmith]

Great story and all too familiar!

[srusso]

Originally Posted by 90GalFOWLR

Oh me too I have a solana that I got for $10 because it came in with a broken side. I ordered the replacement piece from the local glass place for $31 and bought a skimmer since it didnt have one. Now all I need is a return pump for it for $25.

You haven't learned your own lesson yet... "now all I need is a return pump"... Sounds like you should re-read your own post here....

[kcochran0010]

You could have purchased a spare fish tank and added your own acrylic baffles... would of saved you 300 bucks...

[eric@tampa]

Too funny but true.I've got $2200 in my 34gal Solana in 1 year...I feel your pain.

[skitsobenny]

sounds like fun, i have just set up a 160 gallon tank... havnt got much in it yet though

[Mavrk]

That stand and canopy is great work. I would NEVER know it was DIY if you didn't mention it. Maybe you can make one and sell it for a profit

My recent story is that I decided to buy a Vortech MP40 to replace the K4's in my 90g tank. Since I was getting free shipping, I figured I would add a few things. Those few extra things added up to about 200 bucks Then I got my Vortech and loved it so much I decided I had to have a second one to open up the potential more (even though there was enough flow). This time I only ordered a few dollars extra

[agreeive?fish]

i learned a long time ago that i dont keep track of what i spend on hobby items it takes all the fun out of the hobby

[rayn]

Originally Posted by agreeive?fish

i learned a long time ago that i dont keep track of what i spend on hobby items it takes all the fun out of the hobby

agreed. I tried adding it all up the other day to help a new reefer figure out costs. Boy was I surprised at how much I'd spent and how much I have to go.


That 90 is looking really nice too. Stand and canopy look awesome.

[Mavrk]

Don't forget the extra cost for the QT.

Edit: or the QT that becomes a DT, then you have to upgrade it and get a new QT...

[90GalFOWLR]

oh yeah... my little qt too. lol. Thanks for the compliments.

[randomworker]

Excellent story. It starts out so cheap and then all the sudden your wallet is empty!

[nightfire]

i first bought my 55g for 80 bucks...not bad and that was just over a year ago,i dont like fresh water...never have and i told my wife salt water is only as expensive as ya make it out to be....lol i dont know if i tried to convince her or my sef lol to this day i think she keeps a running total on it LOL

[Rancherlee]

My wife asked how much our 58g setup was going to cost, I just said I'll be working some overtime It really isn't that bad for a hobby. I Snowmobile in the winter and buy a new sled every 3-4 years and I figure I lose about 800$ a year on the sled. That for only ~2-3 months of riding and about 2000 miles a year. At least with the aquariums I can can enjoy them 365 days a year.

[Crustman]

Great story; I am glad that I bought used for 600 and had a good 8 bulb fixture. Still had to get ATO, Kalk, Phosphate, Carbon reactors and new skimmer, wavemaker, Maxijets. You are not even counting the cost of livestock. Everything that we add does not live.

[jonbry123]

Ahh the story of a newbie ohhh just wait it only gets better. I've been in the hobby for almost 30 years since the age of 10. If I knew how much I'd spent over the years I'd probably drop dead or have been able to retire by now...lol. Here is an example of what you can expect sooner than later. I purchased an adult emperor three days ago for $120.00 at Something Fishy which you probably are familiar with since your in Q-town. Acclimated him over a four hour period using a drip line. Let him out around 11PM Thursday evening. Got up in the morning and notice some white blotches-ok possibly just bcz he's in a new tank. Get home they look worse. Well these angels are like the canary in a coal mine telling you something is wrong with your water. I've recently had a problem with nitrates getting a bit to high which they are sensitive to and hadn't been able to do a water change for a month plus I use a small pump to blast the rocks to loosen detritus which I then siphon out of the tank after it settles on the sand. Realized I need to do a water change quick so got a bag of RC at SF for 17.50. Get home then forgot I need to change the membrane in my RO/DI unit along with the filters. Sooo ran up to SF after work on Friday spent another $110.00. Get home change the filters/membrane and start running the water. Doing a 60 gl water change. So Saturday evening I do a water change everything fine. About an hour before I go to bed I notice my 9 inch Naso tang and my 7 inch Vlamingi tang are breathing rapidly and having a problem swimming and are now lying on the tank bottom against some live rock-OMG now what. I put around triple strenght of Prime in the tank hoping that if some unknown element from the water change got into the tank this will neutrilize it. Also I don't see my Bicolor angel anymore. Get up this morning the Naso still not looking great and the Vlamingi a bit better maybe. So I run back up to SF and buying a Polyfilter pad for $25.00. Oops forgot I need more live algae for the Tangs another 14.99. Well when I get home later this morning I notice that the pump for one of my skimmer isn't working it s a Euroreef RS. OMG what else I'm I going to have to deal with this weekend. So I order a new pump for $89.00. So you see what a wonderful hobby we are in. I think I'll stop now still waiting to see how the fish are going to do.

[frozenreefer]

haha so true...hey look a new skimmer...oh i need a pump and this and that...

[SaltwaterAdict]

I think you should stop thinking about money and more time enjoying your tank!! Afterall, that's why you got in the hobby in the first place..right?

[langtudatinh01]

hhaha, agree with above. just stop to count the money. everyone will upgrade their tank sooner or later. as long as you plan ahead, you could try to spread them out enough for some pocket recovery. i just upgrade my skimmer and plan to upgrade to a MP10 or MP40 once i got my tax money back next year. livestocks are the hardest things to control for, at least with me.

[jonathansruelas]

yea this hobby is expensive but so are other hobbies, i think its alll worth it at the end when you see your fish all happy and swiimming. you forget all the money you wasted and then not before long you want a bigger tank lol..

[tvotaw]

lol good luck cutting back. i just got a job at the lfs where i do all my buying from. i just saw in the computer that i spent 1500 since i started shopping there since end of june.

[nightfire]

Originally Posted by tvotaw

lol good luck cutting back. i just got a job at the lfs where i do all my buying from. i just saw in the computer that i spent 1500 since i started shopping there since end of june.

tell em not to pay you but maybe 80 bucks for gas and you get the rest in frags....fish and junk lol