total breakdown of my 1st tank cost (30 gal hex): about $500
About four months ago I had never owned any fish. I kept track of what everything cost because it might be useful to other people.
Looking at the "Cost for Your FW Setup" thread, I thought it wouldn't be that much. The 30 gal. Oceanic hex was on sale for $99.99, after all.
I don't think many people appreciate the cost of getting everything when you're first setting up an aquarium. People might factor in the cost of a Python, but even fish and food adds a lot to it.
In the end, the aquarium itself isn't a very large part of the cost. Note that my father built me a custom oak stand for it, totally for free, and also built a custom hood for it (although I paid for all the parts except wood for the hood). So really, the average person's total cost could very easily run you well over $500 no matter what size of aquarium you choose. I did a
lot of shopping around, and this is a pretty basic setup with a HOB filter and nothing fancy (although I did try to get quality equipment). I didn't include tax, and I forget how much my small piece of driftwood was.
Anyway, I think this might be good for the average person who truly is new to the hobby. A lot of people who have been in it for awhile appear to forget a lot of the little things which really add up for someone who is starting from scratch.
30 gal tank (I got a free stand and partially free hood)
30 gal hex with basic accessories: $203.51
custom hood parts: $81.06
maintenance supplies: $56.70
fish and plants: $72.45
food and water treatment: $61.85
total: $475.57
That's including enough food for about 8 months. I think the driftwood added about another $11 that I didn't include.
Then I setup a little aquarium in my bedroom. For that, I was able to use the original hood that came free with my 30 gal. tank and cut my own lid out of a free piece of plexiglass.
5.5 gal with basic accessories: $49.76
moonlight upgrade: $15.70
fish and plants: $25.92
total: $91.38
I put up an HTML spreadsheet of the whole breakdown of everything I bought here:
http://home.woh.rr.com/brettland/fish.htm
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