Many of us especially very long timers have seen pricing evolve from very affordable to exorbitant. We old timers have seen Metal Halides, the evolution of LED starting with Marineland LED at affordable costs to now $600-$900 lights. This is one component of the cost of Reefing. We now see Algae scrubbers at $600, Skimmers at $500-800 and Sumps at $500-$700
What does everyone believe will be the costs of essential items such as lighting , water flow, sumps, tanks, skimmers and such?
Do you also see our equipment going completely WiFi ?
I have near $5000 in Orpheks and there is no way if I go to sell them used that I will recover half of that, making it a high depreciation item? Our equipment investments may not be investments Afterall.
This is where going back to basics can actually be a good thing. There used to be a lot more DIY happening but anymore people have no attention spans and they want everything yesterday. They’re willing to pay ridiculous prices to do it.
The Neptune Apex is one of the few higher cost items that might be worth investing in if one has money burning a hole in their pocket. At least it can help monitor things if a person has to be gone several days or weeks at a time.
I refuse to buy a lighting system or any other critical reefing system component that requires a subscription service. I’m more than capable of wiring my own. I don’t need thunderstorm mode to be happy or programmable schedules.
I started my first reef tank in 2009. Admittedly I was a bit of a latecomer because many, probably most, R2R members were reefing well before I started my first tank. MH was king, and people were still building their own custom fixtures, carefully choosing each component after researching them first. That was (still is for me) one of the most exciting aspects (and of course one of my favorite aspects) of the reefing hobby, second only to the creatures we keep and watching the newly established ecosystem come together.
Don’t get me wrong. I love technology more than most. I was building and troubleshooting computers and using telnet before the first internet browsers were a thing. I was also (and still am, though not actively anymore) a ham radio operator. But my love of technology, especially where electronics and computer science are concerned, has waned mainly because it has been twisted and warped to create the world we live in today.
I’m using T5s these days. It’s a six lamp, unbranded fixture like the ones a certain dealer on a certain online auction site sells. The only difference is that the dealer in question only sells the four lamp version. I’m going to spruce up the fixture, which has a surprisingly good reflector in it. Its only problem is a lack of gaskets, especially around the moonlighting. Once I drill out all the broken screws on the sides I’ll get some rubber and cut out some gaskets. I’ll also get waterproof sockets for the lamps themselves. No subscriptions, no issues. That’s just one component but I’ll save 500 bucks. I might be getting a 125 or so in the near future. If so I’ll build a custom lighting solution using a combination of MH and T5s. I’ll also build a stand for it if I get the right tank at the right price.
Reefing is only this expensive because we’ve become a throwaway society and these companies take advantage of it and of their customers. That and everyone wants a turnkey solution. I don’t have to look any further than the multitude of Red Sea tank blowouts to know that these $2000 and up systems, which are often are 75 gallons and under, are anything but a value these days. In fact it’s the exact opposite, especially when the cost of dead livestock and any other damages resulting from these blowouts.
