How Much Does It Cost to Start a Saltwater Aquarium

How Much Does It Cost to Start a Saltwater Aquarium

Salt water tanks can be expensive investments. The cost is hard to pinpoint and its kind of a hard question to answer ! Its sort of like buying a car in some aspects as it comes down to your budget. Do you want to buy a $1,000 old used car or do you want a brand new Mercedes. It can be as expensive or as cheap as you make it. The initial start up cost is high to enter the reef keeping hobby and its not uncommon to spend $1,000 or more on your initial set up.

Setting up a salt water reef tank is unlike any other hobby or aquarium as you are trying to recreate an artificial living habitat.  This is no gold fish tank or betta fish set up. The corals animals that enter the aquarium often come from all over the world.  It doesn’t have to break the bank though larger aquarium generally tend to cost more than smaller set ups. Its not uncommon for large build of 200 gallons plus to easily exceed $10,000 or even $20,000 just for hardware alone needed to support the living organisms.

You aquarium is investment and should bring you joy and happiness.

So what does it really cost to start up a saltwater aquarium?

You can check out the video we have made for youtube that can help give a better understanding of the cost of setting up a reef tank.

In this video however we do not cover the ongoing costs of maintaining a salt water aquarium. These include electricity costs, salt from water changes, chemicals needed, fish food, fish and coral additions, repair of equipment and the list goes on. These can be quiet hard to pin point exactly but I was guestimate about $100/month to run the average size reef aquarium with no new additions of animals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tchFm4BFETw

The Cost of Hardware

There are a few big ticket items that can greatly influence the price of a salt water tank. The first being the lights, these are usually the largest investment into a new tank. The other items are the powerheads you choose, protein skimmer, return pump and sump. These filtration units and water movement devices vary greatly from brand to brand based on features.