Very well said. If this hobby was so prohibitively expensive there's no way I could have gotten into it at the age of 13. Good luck with your future buildI have always been under the impression that starting and keeping a reef tank was inherently an expensive (nearly unmanageably so) hobby. I am now learning from some very helpful and friendly R2R members that my thinking has been way off the mark. When you see the majority of reefer's build threads and the equipment they are running as par for the course, it seems very easy to believe that you can't have a thriving and enjoyable reef tank short of spending $1000s. Pair that with the fact that many companies' YouTube channels dissuade beginners from the more affordable options of nano or pico tanks as inherently more prone to crashes with tempermental water balance/nutrient levels (none of us are interested in buying a few hundred dollars worth of coral just to watch it slowly wither away, right?) and it quickly becomes easy to conclude that this is a hobby intended only for those who do have $1000s in expendible income.
At any rate, my thanks to @Katrina71 @Tamberav and @pshootr for the very helpful information and video links of thriving, but just as important, affordable systems.
With any luck, I might have cause to start my own (expect modest,) build thread.
Thanks again.
SweetCoralline