If we think equipment prices are high . .. . . . .

[is_that_a_fish]

I have been in the hobby for a while, about 15 years or so.

My first tank had used power compact lights with old bulbs. Over the years, my brother and I upgraded our tanks to T5's, and then got into metal halides. But we didnt have much disposable income, so we bought some old warehouse lights at a liquidation center, and made our own retrofit to run those.

All of my tanks have been used, which have consisted of 10g, 75g, 90g, 120g, 40g, 29g, 65g, 40b, and 2x 180g. My brother has had one new tank, a 125 he got on sale. I did grab a 40b on the $1/gallon sale in 2020 but never set it up and sold it for about the same when i moved.

Most of my equipment has been used, with the exception of the lights I am currently running now (smat farms LED)

I typically run softies/LPS tanks, so water quality and lighting dont need to be the strongest, and i usually dont run a skimmer (and i have an old coralife super skimmer i run when i want)

It has gotten more expensive, but I mostly see it in fish prices. Corals are cheap to come by in the local clubs (again, mostly fast growing softies / lps), and its a nice hobby and center piece in the house.

When I do get out of the hobby from time to time, I sell the equipment and rocoop some of the cost.

The hobby hasnt been too bad to me, with the exception of a lost fish or coral every once in a while.

 

[rja]

I haven't even scratched automation. And honestly being someone who wants to stick to nano tanks 30 gallons or less I dont think it would ever be worth it to do so. Right now I just have 3 wifi plugs so I can shut off my return, skimmer, and ATO during water changes without having to flip switches in my cabinet on my busted old man knees.cuddle?

The Neptune systems and such are cool but imo still overpriced even for the data monitoring they offer. Hands down the fanciest thing I think I'll ever invest in would be the Hanna Marine Master Multiparameter Checker.

The pharmaceutical grade testing is definitely something that cannot be DIY’ed, that’s for sure! In my opinion, the software and hardware behind an Apex system is far less complicated and expensive than most common household electronics. At its core, it’s a pH meter, wifi controller for lights, pumps, and outlets, temperature control, and ATO. There’s no reason other than a niche market why it should be that expensive. I am fairly certain a Raspberry Pi can do all the same things for a fraction of the cost. Of course, there are VERY competitive alternatives too.

 

[FUNGI]

The pharmaceutical grade testing is definitely something that cannot be DIY’ed, that’s for sure! In my opinion, the software and hardware behind an Apex system is far less complicated and expensive than most common household electronics. At its core, it’s a pH meter, wifi controller for lights, pumps, and outlets, temperature control, and ATO. There’s no reason other than a niche market why it should be that expensive. I am fairly certain a Raspberry Pi can do all the same things for a fraction of the cost. Of course, there are VERY competitive alternatives too.

Someone's already done a Pi version on another site......

 

[Aeiyr]

The pharmaceutical grade testing is definitely something that cannot be DIY’ed, that’s for sure! In my opinion, the software and hardware behind an Apex system is far less complicated and expensive than most common household electronics. At its core, it’s a pH meter, wifi controller for lights, pumps, and outlets, temperature control, and ATO. There’s no reason other than a niche market why it should be that expensive. I am fairly certain a Raspberry Pi can do all the same things for a fraction of the cost. Of course, there are VERY competitive alternatives too.

I had the same thought. A raspberry pie with a small lcd display. Hoss in a breadboard with some arduino coding and solenoids and bam. And water proofing would be easy with resin.

Mind you I can't currently cobble that together, but some DIY your tube workshop videos can go a very long way with a couple basic manuals off Amazon. Crud.. now I wanna brainstorm it and try it.

 

[rja]

Someone's already done a Pi version on another site......

Yeah there’s a source code on GitHub I believe. (Reef Pi?) This is beyond most people to build but honestly pretty easy with the shear amount of youtube videos out there on Pi programming. Sky is the limit

 

[Michael Adam]

Yes, I think it's getting too expensive. But then again, everything is getting expensive. It's the new Era of corporate greed. Going to have to get used to it.

 

[mattdg]

Coming from the video content production industry, I see LED lights going for as much as 10k. Some of them very similar in build quality and functionality to what we use. Of course, film and stage lighting is much more robust and built to withstand all kinds of abuse. There is also what we refer to as the "production premium" on any piece of gear that you can rent / makes money. That said, our lights have to withstand different kinds of abuse such as high humidity, temperatures and salt creep. I believe a very high quality light could be made available at a solid middle ground cost of $350. I've had amazing luck with Viparspectra for $125, many years of service and happy SPS coral. Those lights were made in china and have good, but not excellent components and design. Once we get into Made In The USA and higher quality products such as AI and Ecotech, things almost have to at least double in price. It is expensive to live in this country and employees need to be compensated fairly. It's a hobby. You can literally spend $99 - $1500 for a single light. Sure, you will get more advanced control options, sleeker design and Made in The USA at higher numbers. At this point in my hobby career, that is important to me, but it might not be important to you. Take it from me, you can have an awesome tank with almost any light available these days, as long as you have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of reefkeeping and a lot of patience.

 

[X-37B]

"Take it from me, you can have an awesome tank with almost any light available these days, as long as you have a firm grasp of the fundamentals of reefkeeping and a lot of patience".

This is reefing 101. Well said!

 

[Derrick0580]

Deal of the day!!!

JF Captain Jerk Palythoas Coral

WYSIWYG – you will receive the exact piece shown. All frag plugs are 3/4" - 1" unless otherwise stated.

topshelfaquatics.com

 

[Pickle_soup]

In this hobby, you better quickly learn to do girl math. If you buy $1000 lights, but they will last you for 5 years, then in reality, those lights are just $200 a year, that's less than $1 a day. No big deal.

 

[PeterErc]

I can’t afford to eat beef from the grocery store. The soup kitchen gets more beef than my belly. Maybe been doing it wrong.

Wi-Fi, bluetooth and satellite

Prices will continue to go up as long as people are buying.

Supply and demand

I’ll stick with my old lights, used skimmer, diy led, timers and ATO float with kalk top off bucket, manually dose.

I don’t know how people can afford to stock a tank at 50-100+ a nub.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

In this hobby, you better quickly learn to do girl math. If you buy $1000 lights, but they will last you for 5 years, then in reality, those lights are just $200 a year, that's less than $1 a day. No big deal.

My wife would make me save a dollar a day until I could buy them! Guy math hmmmmm, I can get that light on credit, pay 30.00 per month and tell her it's just a cheap Chinese light. She will never know!

 

[jft]

For me, I been keeping reefs since the eighties. I believe ALWAYS knowledge is the KEY. You DON T need all the Fancy Bells and NEW fangled equipment that the Minions TRY to get You to Buy. I personally ONLY support companies have been reliable and HAVE Strong Trac Records. YEARS NOT MONTHS . I also do tons of research BEFORE I buy anything and OBSERVE first hand Products months on end before I would consider buying. Too many times there is Unreliable Products being produced and THEN All of a sudden we have to have Increased versions etc,. Sorry, I Don t Buy Into That. If You the companies Produced Reliable products at the outset AT FAIR Prices with Proven Products Then Maybe we would have Less Dropouts From a great Hobby which IS MORE of A Passion for MOST of US.

 

[bakbay]

My tank’s size is similar to my wife’s diamond ring, they both shrink in size every year!

 

[paul01609]

No point be richest man in grave yard lol

 

[shcrimps]

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.

i haven’t been around here long but even i know people will revert to diy approaches more and more, the prices of everything going up and emptying pockets for essentials is ridiculous
there really isn’t a need for these things to be as expensive as they are IMO like some fancy stuff okay i get it but yeah 700$ sump? it’s just fancy acrylic and all the LED’s those diodes aren’t necessarily that expensive to produce
the diy approach is more fun too making things more of a hands on experience and to me it gives a bigger sense of accomplishment

 

[Paul B]

I think I am older than most here and have been doing this since I scrapped the barnacles off the bottom of Noah's Ark. I started with whale oil but then that became expensive and hard to get rid of those used whales so now I build most of my equipment. My $400.00 algae scrubber was probably two bucks, maybe three.

Much of my rock I built just because I like it better. I gave away most of the rock I collected in the sea.

I also find fish cheap because if you buy a fish for $50.00 and it lives 10 years it is only pennies a year. Maybe nickles I didn't do the math as it's to early and I am just wasting time until it gets light enough to go for my morning beach walk where I will collect some free mud and maybe sea weed.

 

[c4haskett]

Soon we can purchase toilets with WIFI connection and run on app....just like everything else

Actually, I just saw a toilet with a remote control. Does all kinds of "****".

 

[Hooz]

Prices are getting ridiculous on some of this stuff, for sure. I'm in the process of setting up a new tank, and I'm finding that I needed to make lists of things I wasn't willing to compromise on (lights, dosing pumps, etc) and things I was (powerheads, return pump, etc) in an effort to keep costs lower.

I plan to do small daily AWC on this tank, and I opted for the cheaper option (Smart AWC Duo) but, even then, "cheaper" is relative. I wanted reservoirs that actually fit under my stand and looked decent... at $140 each times 3... plus the cost of the AWC $300+

I got three "cheaper" used Hydra 26HD lights (saved some money), but then upgraded to $480 worth of LuxEngine LED pucks in all of them. $1000 for lights and upgraded pucks is not a small amount of money, but I'll be lighting my entire tank for basically the cost of a single Radion XR30, and I will have much better light from both a coverage and spectrum standpoint.

All-in-all, my "mid-range budget build" is still costing me a lot, but it's not undoable. It's just taking me a lot longer than I'd have liked.

 

[nuxx]

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.

It's just the nature of everything now...

We sold our old house for $700k in 2019, it's $1.4 now.

Our last pool cost $60k (2015), large pool with tons of rock work, spa and decking... same builder told me a basic rectangle pool by itself starts at $120k now.

Can't go out and spend less then $100 on any meal around us, used to be easy to spend < $30-40 (for two people).

We just bought a new car, nothing super special and it was nearly $80k. More than "special" cars we used to have like Shelbys and Hellcats...

I'm in the watch industry which has probably seen the craziest explosion in prices, more so than even the housing market...

I've always felt this bubble would end and everything would go back to pre-pandemic prices, but I don't think so now...