Things that reefers can do to help save themselves money

[howdy20012002]

The money you guys have spent on LED's...ouch
I recommend to people to figure out what they want at the beginning and go from there...buying junk and figuring out that it is junk or not good enough for your future plans is just flushing money down the drain.
I think most of us of all bought some piece of equipment that we soon realize is not adequate and should have taken the advice from others.
buying second hand is probably the best way to save money for sure..especially when you can get stuff from a tank shut down.

[burgerchow]

Cut back on massage girls and casino. If I cut those in half, would save at least 2 k a month. Lol

[reefermadness]

Take the thought of trying an expensive supplememt regimen like zeovit out of your mind.

[Reef_Geek]

there's a trick I used while saving up for tuition to keep myself from wanting to go out and do stuff (and spend money)... I go and get a new/used xBox game.

Admittedly, I've done this to keep myself from wanting to go back to the LFS after a few binge trips.

[The Grizz]

Originally Posted by howdy20012002

The money you guys have spent on LED's...ouch

Fortunately for me I saved a crap load going with Martin, only actually but out $700 cash & was able to work off the rest with light hangers & such. Even if I paid full price of $2200 it would still have been half the cost of any manufactured fixtures & I never have to replace bulbs again.

[fishyfishster]

Eat KD

[Leah]

Sell the kids and other furry pets.

P.S. A couple of dogs, a cat and bird and a child all potty trained... will trade for fish and equipment.

[somewherebeyondthesea]

Don't buy anymore tanks! I filled my fluval edge with coral and now I bought a second one!...gonna be a seahorse tank!

[whatcaneyedo]

I'll try not to list anything already mentioned.

1. Reuse dead coral skeletons in a calcium reactor.
2. Sell frags.
3. Buy frags rather than colonies.
4. Feed fish free dead clams and mussels from a local sea food store. (they throw out the dead ones daily if I don't ask for them)
5. Hire a knowledgeable person to look after your tank when you go on vacation. Paying them a few bucks is cheeper than coming home to a dead tank caused by an inexperienced cheaper/free person.
6. Use non pharmaceutical grade magnesium chloride ice melting salt.
7. Purchase your annually consumed products during boxing day sales (bulbs, test kits etc)
8. Use crushed coral substrate rather than ARM fine reactor media in a Calcium Reactor.
9. Do weekly water changes rather than weekly trace element supplementing.
10. Lugol's Solution Potassium Iodide can be purchased from a pharmacy for less than half of what the Kent product retails for.
11. Plumb your tank with lots of unions and flexible hot tub hose. That way if you need to change something later you don't have to destroy everything with a saw. I've filled 2-3 garbage cans with old ridged plumbing configurations that I couldn't use anymore.
12. Keep spare parts, backup pumps and empty salt buckets. The extra inventory is cheaper than a dead tank caused by equipment failure.
13. Purchase an all in one controller rather than many individual controllers and monitors. Set it up to alarm and send a text message if something goes wrong. Again, dead tanks are expensive.
14. Buy small juvenile fish and clams rather than more expensive, less adaptive large adults.
15. Keep it simple... I think that is a contradiction to everything I just said. Oops.

[Reef_Geek]

there are also activities one can do, not to save money but to bring in money to subsidize your own expenses. By no means, does this typically produce much profit beyond a transaction basis, because a true business would have to consider all start up costs in its operations... thus one can only call it true profit if revenues have exceeded both 1) costs of goods & services of that transaction, plus 2) recovered all start up costs. Technically, it's called margin, where there is excess above cost of goods sold, but not yet considering overhead.

so some things one can do to 'subsidize' one's expenses in the hobby

1) buy a big piece of coral, frag, and trade/sell off surplus
2) grow and frag your own colonies for trade, store credit, or online sales
3) breed fish / seahorses
4) buy used or shut-down deals for further trading / selling
5) go get a business license and buy wholesale for trading / selling
6) write articles and sell first publication rights
7) leverage trade skills, for example, build aquarium cabinets and sell on consignment with a LFS, or make a service fee schedule for building DIY units... such as LEDs, for others
8) aquarium servicing. Weekly fish tank maintenance at offices and homes
9) culture Berghia

PS- be careful. the fastest way to take enjoyment out of a hobby is to turn it into 'work'