How to save money in this hobby

Well the economy is tight for many of us and I thought it might be nice to look at money saving ideas for us in the hobby.

Here are a few things I have done:
Water Conditioner: Many of these products are outrageously priced. Bang for the buck would have to be Seachem Safe. it is a powered form of Prime and I get 250 Grams for $7.95 online. I use 1 teaspoon to treat my entire 210g for a water change. This container lasted me for 10 months! With Prime I was going through 2-3 500ml bottles at about $9 a pop on-line. From $27 a month to $7.75 for 10 months. Pretty hard core savings here because I change my water 2-3 time a week on my 210g!

Lighting: My 210g had two HO T5 fixtures that used 4 bulbs at 39watts each. I switched over to the new Beamswork LED fixtures for $100 and each fixture uses 9 watts. The energy savings in a year should easily pay for the lighting upgrade. Do yourself a favor and check these out [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Food: I have also been looking at food cost. Have you ever put it into terms like price per ounce? Well I did and I was shocked at my results. One pellet I had been using that I thought was such a good deal came out to $1.07 an ounce. Another brand that I had always considered a "premium" and "too expensive" (NLS) was.... only $1.37 an ounce. So in this case I had to change my thinking regarding this "expensive" product because it really was in the same ballpark price wise. Its just they sell it by grams instead of ounce so it seemed like a lot more money until I did the math.

And here is the big disclaimer.... I love many of the local fish stores but I can not afford their price on many things including food. Buying on-line, waiting for sales, free shipping, no tax have all come into play for me also. Careful Craigslist shopping has also allowed me to own things I never could have by buying from a store.

So these were some of my money saving things I have done, what about you? Anything you do to save money?

Craigslist for all your aquarium hardware needs
LED all the way
Dry chem fertilizers instead of liquid fertilizers
Forum members for all your flora and fauna needs
DIY/bulk filter media changes instead of pre-fab inserts

To name a few...

Gizmo wrote:DIY/bulk filter media changes instead of pre-fab inserts

I forgot about this one. As an example I have a Penguin filter and the use the replacement cartridges that end up costing a small fortune. I found one company that makes a reusable frame that is meant for their system but you can cut out the blue bonded filter sheets and make your own to go in the frame. These frames were like a $1.19 each. [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

I have one for you, and this is what I did. You most likely have 2 x Fx5's on that tank. I believe that the Fx5 runs at 55 watts ea. Thats 110 watts. So 110watts pushing (so they say) 900 gph ea. I would be willing to bet by the time it gets to the tank, a freshly clean Fx5 is probably only pushing 500-600 gph, and as it gets dirty the gph drops drastically.

So you kick the canisters to the curb, buy yourself a wet/dry. Purchase a pump on-line that pushes 1350gph and at 6' still pushes 1000+ gph. You can find a pump that draws less than 100watts. I have a pump that draws 60 watts.

So now you have the same water flow at almost half the power consumption, and the flow never slows down because it is getting dirty.

Also, I use to run 2 x 300watt heaters in my big tanks now I use only one in my wet/dry and the temp maintains a toasty 80 degrees in all my tanks.

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this is another thread here that speaks to the topic

How I save money currently on my hobby...


Growing live food. Saves me alot of money.

Pick a speices and sticking with it for a long time. I used to not plan out my tanks well, and would go the community route adding fish I thought would work together as I pleased. Instead of having a set direction for a tank before stocking it. This goes for equipment to. Not buying cheap stuff that works in the moment that are not able to give you the desired end results with the hope to upgrade later. Its penny smart but dollar foolish. plan the whole tank, assemble its ideal parts then add the fish. Set your self up for success.


The Greater Seattle Aquarium Society meetings and auctions. They have free stuff all the time from members, give aways, drawings. or very cheap mini auction items. ( I made my member fee back twice over selling at the mini auctions on the first meeting i sold at...(just offering plant cuttings i would have otherwise composted) If your a member you can sell a limited number per meeting. At the large auctions you can sell up tp twenty items and buy super cheap fish or plants if you stick around till the end. The last large auction had giveaway bags with free food, $20 giftcards to drfostersandsmith.com and there airstone email forum has free stuff offered from other members all the time.

No more just going to the pet stores to just Look, Window shopping always turns in to more tanks for me.

The Fish Store in seattle has a mailed monthly coupon (last month was 40% of canister filters).. just go in and ask to sign up to the mailing list.

hobbyorobsession wrote:[You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

this is another thread here that speaks to the topic

I forget to use the search function way too much! Thanks for the other link, good info there!

Heres one to add. For those of us that constantly have chlorine in the source water, I switched to this Seachem Safe awhile back and its awesome! 250grams cost me about $12.50 on ebay and the bottle says it will treat 50,000gals. It is simply powdered prime. I would say it lasts me 6 months, that being a good estimate. I don't hear much of this stuff for water conditioning so I thought I'd throw it in. Not sure it would save you any money if you had smaller tanks, but I know us with larger/more tanks benefit from it.

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I use Safe also. I posted that in the original post. I buy mine from Kens for $7.95 for the 250ml container. One container lasted me 10 months! I usually will get in on a group order or just buy $100 worth of stuff to get free shipping. I highly recommend this product for the bang for the buck you get.