For many of us, it’s the research and time spent reading and being an informed consumer that makes this hobby interesting. I mean, we all are making different choices, but trying to achieve the same result. All of us a some point suffer from GAS (gear acquisition syndrome). It difficult not to want the best gadgets we can afford because it’s cool! Take a picture of just a reef though and you have no idea what’s running it and chances are your surprised at how humble the equipment is that’s actually keeping it going. The only point is that it’s thriving. Many are old school, some are new school. The only thing I have to compare this hobby to is photography. Outrageous prices for gear there as well, but, at the end of the day, no one really cares what camera, lens, or settings you used, just how good the shot was. Now you can run a reef without bells and whistles, but how valuable is your time? You can get a great picture with a cheap camera, but how valuable is your time? Is $600 for a pump too much. Yup. But people are feeding their families from our pump purchases. There are solid companies it’s seems that are bringing it back to normal. Like Avast Marine, for example. I hear there making stuff in the USA that just works and you can call them and talk to them. It’s tough for the little guy making products in our industry. It’s a vicious circle: company makes product, gives it to youtuber, youtuber gets ad revenue for liking the product and showing it works, we buy the product because we want reefs like them...I think distributors like BRS are the ones we need to support and really vote for. They are keeping these companies accountable by doing actual long term tests to see if their claims hold up to their marketing hype. And then asking us to comment about what “features” we would like to see. The key for me isn’t driving the price back down, it’s keeping the quality where the price is going by forcing companies to listen to consumers. Within the next 10 years I think we’ll the first “smart tank” a tank run totally from automation. Some people want that ULM tank. More time enjoying, less time cleaning. Some enjoy the process of the effort more than just sitting back. But your right, there’s a poor mans way or reefing and a rich mans way and the gap between them seems to be widening, with little to no middle ground.
I spend my OWN money on all my equipment so I am extremely picky. One must watch if you see a high profile person in the hobby using a piece of equipment they may have gotten a deal.
