Need cheap alternatives

[TheoneandonlyME]

Im going to make a 55 gallon for my first (saltwater) aquarium and i made a nice little stocking list with
-coral beauty
-2 mocha clowns
-2 fire fish
-diamond or neon blue goby
-2 or 3 green chromis
-clean up crew
Problem is though, my budget is WAYYY too low to afford these dudes. The clean up crew, clowns, and blue goby are cheap enough, even if they still are a bit pricey, but everything else costs WAYYY too much. Need help. A lot of it. Its a reef aquarium btw.

 

[MaxTremors]

Im going to make a 55 gallon for my first (saltwater) aquarium and i made a nice little stocking list with
-coral beauty
-2 mocha clowns
-2 fire fish
-diamond or neon blue goby
-2 or 3 green chromis
-clean up crew
Problem is though, my budget is WAYYY too low to afford these dudes. The clean up crew, clowns, and blue goby are cheap enough, even if they still are a bit pricey, but everything else costs WAYYY too much. Need help. A lot of it. Its a reef aquarium btw.

The only mildly expensive fish on the list is the coral beauty, and even then they’re usually $40-$60. Getting non-designer clowns would save you some money (they’re abominations anyway, lol). Other than that look for sales, a lot of LFSes have frequent sales, petco has sales usually once a quarter, look on Craigslist and your local reefing FB page for people looking to rehome their fish.

 

[TheoneandonlyME]

The only mildly expensive fish on the list is the coral beauty, and even then they’re usually $40-$60. Getting non-designer clowns would save you some money (they’re abominations anyway, lol). Other than that look for sales, a lot of LFSes have frequent sales, petco has sales usually once a quarter, look on Craigslist and your local reefing FB page for people looking to rehome their fish.

Will do. Turns out i've been looking at the wrong website. The new one i found makes everything 10-50 bucks cheaper. Will also search on petco/kijiji for any breeders or rehomers. Thanks.

 

[sascoaquatics]

also chromic should be only $6 firefish should only be $30

 

[RocketEngineer]

Please don’t use a 55G. That is one of the worse dimensioned tanks to use, especially for a reef. You would do much better with a 40B (which you can regularly find on sale), a 65G or a 75G. All three of these are 18” wide which gives you much more room for equipment and aquascaping.

Regarding cost, you don’t need all the fish at once, and honestly, you want to add them slowly anyways.

 

[Bucs20fan]

+1 to the 40 or 60 breeder, the 50% off sale is going on now at petco for aqueon tanks. The 40b is literally 55 dollars right now and thats a steal.

 

[doubleshot00]

Please don’t use a 55G. That is one of the worse dimensioned tanks to use, especially for a reef. You would do much better with a 40B (which you can regularly find on sale), a 65G or a 75G. All three of these are 18” wide which gives you much more room for equipment and aquascaping.

Regarding cost, you don’t need all the fish at once, and honestly, you want to add them slowly anyways.

 

[AydenLincoln]

I’m telling you right now throw out the budget or consider a different tank size this hobby is expensive. I definitely recommend looking at Facebook Marketplace and the marketplace on here too you can find plenty of people getting rid of their full tank setups for great prices.

 

[HankstankXXL750]

Will do. Turns out i've been looking at the wrong website. The new one i found makes everything 10-50 bucks cheaper. Will also search on petco/kijiji for any breeders or rehomers. Thanks.

I have found https://reefbeauties.com/ to be really affordable and great quality fish and service. Free shipping over I think $169.

 

[Jedi1199]

Please don’t use a 55G. That is one of the worse dimensioned tanks to use, especially for a reef. You would do much better with a 40B (which you can regularly find on sale), a 65G or a 75G. All three of these are 18” wide which gives you much more room for equipment and aquascaping.

Regarding cost, you don’t need all the fish at once, and honestly, you want to add them slowly anyways.

It CAN be done in a 55g! However, as stated, the depth, f-b, is a major limitation. It is quite likely that you will do exactly what I did.. spend thousands of dollars building a beautiful 55g reef, and then as soon as it is reaching its beauty, tear it all down for a larger tank.

For those who doubt a 55g can work.. check out my video here: