Do Budget friendly aquariums exist?

[reefingBeAmazin22]

Lots of great advice in this thread. I looked at your post history and I am going to make one more suggestion. Respectfully, you need to gain more experience. Your history states that almost a month ago, you said saltwater was new to you. So much to learn between a 20g and a 150g. Cost, maintenance, trends, emergencies, failsafes, backups, trial and error. Like many have said, we have closets of crap we’ve replaced because we wanted nicer, or through trial and error. It’s much easier to buy for small than large.

I like where your mind is at. Keep asking questions, learn from others (and their mistakes) and enjoy the hobby. Much like everything else in life, bigger does not equal better

Yeah I agree, I’m making so many mistakes right now like in my most recent thread, my pep shrimp are messing up my nem, I wasn’t originally planning on getting a 150 only a month after my 20 gal, I was thinking I could have both, one in my room and 1 in my living room, but I would most likely lose a lot of livestock as I am rn lol

 

[Westside Guy]

There are always people looking to upgrade to larger tanks and use their LFS for the purchase. I would approach the manager of your LFS and ask that they keep an eye open for a used tank that they feel is in very good - excellent condition that you could buy at a reasonable price.

 

[Paulie069]

My setup is 7-8 months old and I consider myself a REEF VIRGIN,, all I ever had before was fake trees fake center piece and gravel that looked like fruity pebbles, one day I googled seahorse chat group and it bought me to R2R that’s when I discovered natural reefs with living coral and had to have it
Pic1 is first setup all fake
Pic2 is what I started when I discovered live reef
Pic3 is what I have going on today

 

[Paulie069]

So if I can do it then you can as well, just keep learning and asking questions the people here are always willing to help and give advice with the purpose of helping you succeed in reefing. Love the reef peeps on this site,, you will come to notice the amount of diversity in this community, people from other countries,races, colors, religions, politics,, ect ect,, that all come together under the umbrella of aquarium keeping
Keep up the good work junior you got this
Get hooked on reefing not on drugs. Lol

 

[reefingBeAmazin22]

So if I can do it then you can as well, just keep learning and asking questions the people here are always willing to help and give advice with the purpose of helping you succeed in reefing. Love the reef peeps on this site,, you will come to notice the amount of diversity in this community, people from other countries,races, colors, religions, politics,, ect ect,, that all come together under the umbrella of aquarium keeping
Keep up the good work junior you got this
Get hooked on reefing not on drugs. Lol

I wonder which one costs more money???

 

[Paulie069]

I wonder which one costs more money???

It’s basically a tie, but in the end you’ll have a nice tank,, at the end of other thing all that’s left is regret and trouble

 

[Soph-1689]

Yeah like where is everybody getting all this money from? Stable incomes? Hah

Don’t know man! It’s crazy they just pull in’ the cash from somewhere and spending it on tanks! If that’s what they want I think I found a good tank on amazon. It’s a little smaller than 180, but that’s ok I’d most likely be doing a fish only thing and it’s only 1,085$ which is good for a 150 gallon tank in my opinion. No stand but for just the tank I think that’s better than some!

 

[Tamberav]

So I’m looking into getting a 150 gallon aquarium in the future and I’m kind of lost as what to get. I mean I look at water box and red sea’s All in one tanks, And the price just makes me do a double take, so I’m only 16, but how many 16 year olds do you know just carrying around 3 grand, I’m debating making a diy plywood tank, I’m also fine without an AIO, just a tank with maybe some pre drilled holes, I can make a stand and the sump, I think the best prices I’ve found so far are on glasscages.com, don’t know if any of you guys have shopped their, anyway any help is greatly appreciated

You could just buy a used tank or instead of looking at all those rimless low iron glass tanks....get a normal rimmed one with normal glass.

But you may want to go smaller because the cost of the tank itself is minor compared to skimmers and wavemakers and lighting and upkeep. Even just filling it with dry rock and sand will drain your wallet.

Biggest I would go on a small budget is a 40 breeder from the dollar per gallon sale. I would just put a black box led over it and some jebao powerheads. I wouldn't even bother with a skimmer or any of that crap...maybe a hob powerfilter but honestly all you need is light...rock.. and flow.


From there I would just stock appropriately and not get too many fish...
get easy soft corals and such that don't demand tons of water changes as this will keep upkeep cost down and manageable.