use the budget you have and buy tickets and go to the public aquarium weekly/monthly.... this is not a budget hobby imho
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lol!!!!use the budget you have and buy tickets and go to the public aquarium weekly/monthly.... this is not a budget hobby imho
Reefing ain't cheap no matter the route you take. To me it's not necessarily the initial investment but the upkeep and associated costs. You can easily spend $100 to $200 a month just keeping a small tank going and that's if nothing breaks that needs to be replaced.Throw in livestock and you can easily double that number. That cost never goes away.
Getting everything used. Let someone else pay the "off the lot" price. Patience will reward you and great deals always come and go. Getting comfortable in fixing stuff to work with your setup.
Thoretically... I think the cheapest you can go is any AIO w/ return pump, a cheap LED light, a heater, rock and sand, and consistent water changes buying water from a LFS.
Next on the list would be ATO, protein skimmer, and wavemakers/pumps.
When you inevitably outgrow the AIO, get a used tank w/ sump and the cycle continues. But now you might be interested in dosing, getting a refugium or ATS setup, calcium reactor, a bigger protein skimmer, bigger lights...
And since you have a bigger tank, you might as well get an RODI unit and salt so you dont gotta lug around gallons of water from the LFS.
Then maybe a make the AIO a quarantine tank and have 2 full tank setups.
Christ this hobby has a way of squeezing you dry.