- Hey, it's Thomas here, and today,
I'm going to be talking to you
about 10 ways you can save money reefing,
which sounds like an oxymoron, I know.
Now, I'm not gonna tell you that reefing is cheap,
because it's not, and if you wanna have a great tank,
you definitely need a little bit of money to burn.
However, you don't need $20,000
to have a nice-looking reef tank.
So whether or not you're brand new to the hobby
and you're just getting into it
or you already have a reef tank,
here are 10 ways that you can save money while reefing.
Number one, and I have a feeling
that nobody's gonna have seen this one coming,
but I think it needs to be said,
and every reefer needs to hear this,
especially in this day and age.
Reefing is not a competition.
A lot of people out there probably feel pressured
by all of the really awesome Instagram tanks
and Facebook tanks
and all of these forums and groups we're in,
seeing all these high-priced, high-end corals
and gear and custom sumps and custom tanks.
You do not need to go through any of that stuff
to have a really nice reef tank
and really enjoy the reefing hobby at home.
The culture seems to push us in that direction.
You know, we see a lot of really awesome tanks
and really awesome setups and gear
pushed into the limelight,
and it makes a lot of us feel
like we have to strive for that.
But reefing's not about what other people have.
Reefing is about what you have
and what you enjoy out of the hobby.
I guess what I'm trying to say here is,
don't get caught up in the latest coral craze
or named corals or getting this or that
because somebody else has it
or everybody thinks it looks really cool or custom built.
It doesn't matter.
We're not doing this to impress everybody else.
Number two: don't get a huge reef tank.
I know a lot of people say, "Going bigger is better.
Get the biggest tank you can afford.
You're not gonna regret it."
Guess what?
Nano tanks aren't just for people lacking space.
I generally prefer having a smaller tank,
for a lot of reasons.
Number one: they fill up with coral a lot faster.
You spend less money on livestock,
getting it to look like a beautiful reef tank,
than you would if it was a 200 gallon tank.
You also don't have to spend as much money on equipment
because you're getting smaller equipment.
You're gonna get, like,
a two-foot light instead of a four-foot light,
or one light fixture instead of several,
and accomplish the same thing on a smaller scale.
Yes, you will have some limitations with fish selection,
but I really think that's a worthwhile sacrifice
to having a tank you're going to enjoy and be proud of
versus something that is going to take a very long time
to erect and get set up
and then even longer to fill in with coral,
especially if you're on a tight budget.
I'd rather have a small reef tank
that looks like a gorgeous reef relatively quickly
than a big tank that looks like a big, empty tank
for years on end.
Number three: stick to the basics
when it comes to gear and equipment.
What I mean by that isn't
go get garbage gear and equipment.
I just mean there are tiers
of every kind of piece of equipment we've got out there,
whether it's a protein skimmer,
aquarium controller, or pump,
all kinds of fancy options
and add-ons that we can get for this gear.
You don't have to start
with all of that upper echelon stuff.
They're add-ons for a reason.
You can add them on later.
Start with, you know, affordable pieces of gear
that are gonna get the job done well, and if, you know,
it might take a little bit more elbow grease on your end
to take care of the tank
'cause you don't have some of those conveniences,
you just do that.
And you're gonna love your tank even more
because you put so much more effort into it,
a little bit of your own elbow grease, some love and care.
You're there for your tank.
It's there for you.
It's a great relationship to have,
and you end up saving some money
'cause you're not blowing it
trying to get the fanciest stuff out there,
which is not necessary.
It is just nice to have.
So stick to the basics.
Number four: get your own RODI unit for your house
so you can make RODI water at home.
If you're gonna be in the reefing hobby for a few years,
which most of us are,
nobody buys a reef tank
to just chuck it out the door
a month later, you wanna be able
to make your own water at home.
By the time you factor in all the gas you spend
taking trips to the store in your car,
all the money you spend buying buckets
of RODI water or pre-mixed saltwater
for top-ups and water changes,
and all the time it takes extra
going to and from these places to get that done,
you would've bought an RODI unit many times over.
So save yourself all of the hassle and extra money,
and just get the unit now.
It might seem like a hefty expense
for something that's gonna make pure water,
but when you really do the math,
doing it any other way is just
the worst way to waste money, I think.
Number five: buy bulk, dry additives
and then mix them with RODI water at home
and then dose them using something
like this Bettix bottle here.
This is going to save you a ton of money in the long run.
This is the most basic way to dose.
It's easy.
It's economical.
It's affordable.
And if you're especially doing, like, smaller tanks,
like we were talking about earlier,
this is gonna take you a really long way.
And we've done tests to see how economical
a dry, powdered additive is versus a liquid additive,
and the results can be pretty astounding,
especially with certain types of additives,
like Carbocalcium or Tropic Marin's All-For-Reef,
two really good examples.
You're gonna save a ton of coin by doing it at home.
It doesn't take very long.
It's very easy to do.
So keep more money in your pocket by mixing it up yourself
instead of buying it pre-mixed for you.
It doesn't take long.
It's super easy, like I said.
And then this is just an easy way to dose,
especially on those smaller 20 to 40 gallon tanks.
You don't need to go crazy.
This is gonna get the job done.
Number six: go DIY with your sump.
If you already have an all-in-one tank
or you're gonna use a hang on filter or something like that,
obviously this doesn't apply to you.
However, if you're going
to be using a tank that requires a sump,
I know the reflex is to wanna go out
and get a really fancy, beautiful acrylic sump
with all the chambers and all the things,
but guess what?
DIY sumps are about the easiest DIY thing you can do
in the reef aquarium hobby.
In fact, it can be as simple
as getting a standard glass aquarium
on a dollar-per-gallon sale,
which happens pretty often and predictably,
and then slapping some pre-built
acrylic baffle kits into it.
Or you can go even less expensive than that,
save a ton of coin, and just use that rigid foam block
that Ryan and Randy were showing off
in the ultra low maintenance series with one of those sumps
to separate your skimmer from your return pump.
Sure, it's super, super basic,
and sure, it's got no real mechanical filtration
and might require you to go into that sump
with a pump with a little cleaning nozzle
to vacuum it out every one in a while,
but that's just another way
to put a little bit of elbow grease into this situation
to save yourself some cash.
Number seven: use soft plumbing.
I know that, again,
there's this culture right now where everybody wants, like,
that super-permanent, elaborate look of hard plumbing,
me included.
I can't say anything.
That's what I did.
However, there is something to be said
about the simplicity and flexibility,
pun intended, with soft tubing.
It is just so much easier to install.
You don't have to be as precise with the cuts
or worry about gluing things.
It just slides on the barb fittings,
and you throw a clamp on it.
It's way less permanent,
which might sound like a bad thing at first,
but hey, check this out.
It's gonna be easier to fix and/or modify
if something went wrong
or you need to add something to the existing plumbing.
If it gets super grungy
and you don't really feel like cleaning it out,
you can chuck it away and put new soft tubing on,
because it's not that expensive.
I mean, it is way cheaper.
It is way, way cheaper,
and if you need to use a particular gate valve
or ball valve in certain places,
they make barbed fittings to go onto those,
so you don't have to skimp out
on using some of those nicer, like,
schedule 80 valves and stuff.
You just use barbs with them
instead of gluing everything together,
which also means you can reuse them in a different spot
if you decide to take that system and tear it all apart
or modify the way it's working.
So I'm having a hard time finding a downside,
other than it doesn't maybe look as slick.
Number eight: do not buy the cheapest
no-name, off-brand piece of gear you can find.
There's a good chance
you're gonna end up wasting money doing that.
This is what I mean by that,
'cause I know this is all about saving money
and I just told you not to buy cheap gear.
There's a big difference
between dirt cheap, bottom of the barrel,
probably not gonna do what it says it's gonna do
and/or if it can do it somewhat,
it's not gonna last very long.
There's a big difference between that garbage
and buying something that is affordable
from a brand you can trust
that's gonna have a good warranty,
that's going to, you know, actually do its job.
Sure, you might end up spending more money
on that piece of gear, but, you know,
spending 100 bucks on a skimmer
and thinking it's gonna do a good job
and then buying the same, you know,
size and rating skimmer for 300 bucks
from a company you can trust
that is gonna get that job done,
that you know you're backed up if something goes wrong,
this is the right choice.
If you buy this one,
it's probably either not gonna work and/or break
and then you're out 100 bucks
and then you spend this money anyways
and you've just wasted, you know, $100 for no reason.
So learn from our mistakes.
A lot of us reefers have already done that garbage.
Don't do it.
Just go get a piece of gear
that's gonna get the job done that's affordable.
Number nine:
stick to purchasing common, affordable fish and corals.
This goes back probably to that Instagram thing
I was talking about earlier, Facebook and forums,
where people are constantly showing off their tanks
and their high-end corals and their...
Look.
You don't have to go chasing colorful corals
and brand name stuff and the latest fad fish.
You can enjoy your reef tank
getting affordable fish and corals.
There are slews of them out there.
You can get frags from your local hobbyist,
frags from your local fish store,
buy frag packs online from affordable vendors
that send out really nice stuff
that is just common and affordable,
because something being rare or difficult to get a hold of
doesn't make it any better than anything else,
it only makes it more expensive.
At the end of the day,
this is your aquarium for you to enjoy,
and you can make a beautiful aquarium
full of common, beautiful colored corals and common fish,
have it grow out over a few years
into this really beautiful reef aquarium
that you can be proud of and that,
when you show off to the world,
people will, you know, be able to say,
"That person put a lot of work into that tank."
"That person's obviously doing something right."
"That person is reefing."
"That is a great reef."
That is so much more important than somebody being like,
"Wow, that person has a fat wallet."
Number 10 and the final way to save money reefing,
and I want everybody to hear me on this,
I don't care how much flak I catch for it:
SPS corals are not better than LPS corals,
and LPS corals are not better than soft corals.
They're just different kinds of corals.
But for some reason, a lot of reefers,
especially getting into the hobby,
see the forums and the pages out there,
and this kinda goes back to the point number one here,
it's a little bit different, though, so bear with me,
and start feeling like the best thing to do
is to go with SPS corals,
like that is the ultimate in reef keeping.
Let me explain what it actually is.
It's the hardest part of reef keeping.
So there's this, like, illusion of a status symbol
if you can keep SPS alive and happy,
but the trick to that is,
SPS tanks generally require a lot more light or more lights
and more flow and therefore more flow pumps
and typically, to keep things stable, dosing pumps.
People often use aquarium controllers.
Long story short, you're gonna spend a lot more on gear
trying to keep things stable for those finicky SPS corals,
which means you're just gonna blow a lot more money.
You don't have to do that.
If SPS corals are not your favorite thing
and you really like LPS and you really like soft corals,
not only are those corals easier to keep,
less likely to perish if a parameter drifts a little bit,
but they tend to be cheaper, grow faster,
and they tend to require a lot less equipment,
which means you're gonna save money
not trying to tailor your tank to being an SPS reef
if that's not something you actually care about.
LPS corals sway.
So do softies.
They grow faster.
They'll fill up the tank faster.
You don't have to worry about buying as many frags.
Stop with the SPS dominated tank thing.
If you're not into that,
don't let other people make you feel
like that is the best thing to have
and that's what you should do.
You should do what you like.
Soft coral tanks are awesome.
Some of my favorite tanks have been soft coral dominated.
Some of my favorite tanks have been LPS dominated.
So that's what I have to say about that.
And there you have it!
That is my top 10 list for how you can save money reefing,
which is not a sentence you hear very often.
But if you've got your own ideas
or ways that you save money reefing
and you'd like to share them with us,
comments section below.
We can all benefit from that.
I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas.
If you just wanna argue about what I put in my list,
I'll be there for you.
Let's do it.
If you wanna check out some really cool top 10 or,
let's be realistic, more like top 2021 mistakes videos,
you can click this badge right over here.
Look, we all make mistakes.
We make tons of them.
Save yourself some of the hassle,
so learn from the reefers
that have already made all the mistakes.
Watch those videos.
They are a lifesaver.
And see you next time.