Twin Cities Business Daily

Costs??????

ok well i really want to be a marine biologist when i grow up...anywayz i wanna get a tank with fish cuz i love it sooo much ok my question is how much would everything cost the most i could spend is 151 dollars...would that be enough for the tank filter and everything else?

Public Comments

1. For Fresh water...Yes for Reef or Saltwater No, it is way more expensive.
2. You should probably go down to a pet store and investigate the prices there. Maybe you could also try looking up your hometown pet store online and get a quote that way. Hope this helps!!
3. That depends on how big a tank you want to keep. You should go to petsmart or even walmart and get a 10 or 20 gallon starter kit. A 10 gallon kit is about $50-$60. Then you would have to buy gravel, more water conditioner (normally kits come with a sample of water conditioner but it won't last long), more food (same thing), some real or fake plants and the fish. I do believe that you could START a fish tank with that much money but it will end up being much more for food, filters, fish, water conditioner, and medication.
4. Most likely not. Even with a 10 gallon set up, which gives you very little population options here, I think that still might not be enough. Like Marine said, the tank itself is very little, but you need lighting and a hood, gravel or sand substrate, a heater for tropical fish, decorations are optional, but would be a boring tank without some, a filtration unit, and possible an airstone/bubbler. IMO this would be bare minimum. Tank figure about 50.00, the filtration probably another 35.00-50.00, bag of gravel about 15.00-20.00, a heating unit shouldn't be terrible expensive around 10.00-15.00. These are a must. Now your lighting and hood, you could probably get as a single unit, but that's probably another 50.00 plus item. I'm basing my prices too from my area, and may be using more then what others would say you need or don't. Keep in mind, my tanks are 180, 75, 20, and 15. I have very large fish, excess filtration, and breed cichlids. How I do things may be a bit in excess to what simple fish keeping is too. I think if you compare answers though, the stuff I've listed are pretty common in terms of need. Maybe the air stone and decoration you could trim off, but you really do need the other items.
5. for a simple fish only set up $150 is do-able. go to petsmart or walmart (whichever is chaper and has them) and pick up a 29 starter kit probably like $60-70. buy some instant ocean salt $15-20 and a hydrometer $10 live sand $20-25 and some limestome or sandstone rocks usually like $2 a pound figure 15 pounds to start with so $30 that comes to about $155. you let that cycle for about 3 weeks saving a little bit of money as you go, them buy a damsel or clownfish, something small cheap and hardy. damsels are like $5 but you have to what what kind you get as some are very tempermental, i like the yellow tail blue damsels, they stay small and are rather peaceful (for damsels anyway) and a occelarus (nemo) clownfish would probably be about $15-20 depending on where you live and are almost as hardy as the damsels. as you progress and save more and more money you can upgrade skimming, lighting, filtration, stocking as needed/liked. if you spread the costs over a peroid of say a year or two it's much more manageable than buying it all at once. OK why the thumbs down? this is EXACTLY what i did with my first SW tank! now about 2 years later it's a full blown reef with stony corals, a skimmer, metal halide lights, a blackcap gramma (NOT CHEAP!!!!!!) all on a college students budget!!!
6. Well lets see: 10 gallon starter from petsmart-$50(includes horroble filter, incadesent lights,net,food samples,cover,cheap heater.) I will go to walmart and buy the 10w flouresent light bulbs-$7 A bio-wheel filter for perfection and visy-derm heater-$50 Natural looking gravel(since you are only having fish and maybe not plating at first only 1/4 of an inch of gravel with Bio-wheel filter)-$5 That is a total of S112 dollars+ tax this is your needs to start Food--$5 average water cleaner- $8 set Optional-Stability form Seachem for faster cycle-$5 Total of $125 minimum-$130 with stability Decor (will suggest nothing heavy because of the gravel bed being too narrow)-Say $10 filter replacements-$13 whis will be with everything- $148+ tax Enough, but fish none. This was a way to have a good aquairum,but this might be on your budget- The 10 gallon pack-$50 Just Bio wheel-$25 Replacements-$13 Gravel-$5 Better lights-$7 Food-$5 Water cleaners-$10 Stability-$7 Total of $112!+tax and this set might work for you Maybe anything - $5 On sale starter fish-$10 Decor-$15 $142+ tax This might fit your budget!!!!!! for fresh ONLY!!!! Saltwater-Sorry a fish alone can cost $20 and talk about golden water changes, almost $5 for every water change, the special low mineral water, and not to meantion the stings and bruzes!!!