The Puffer Forum

RTR wrote:For me, I now count on my extenals lasting for ever - I have some running continuously for over 40 years now - so their costs are effectively entirely operational, power and replacements. I replace hoses at 10-20 year intervals, O-rings about the same. My media are permanent - I use no disposables. I seem to drop and break about one impeller every 2-3 years - not too bad for a klutz running several dozen canisters. The waste heat from tank lights and filters heats the tanks, so I require no tank heaters. I do have to replace cover glasses on planted tanks and/or their hinges periodically from etching and/or scratching, but that is at fairly long intervals.

Power for operating equipment and lights is my biggest expense (I do multi-filter my tanks). Replacement light tubes and]or water are likely the next two in costs. Spares replacement is trivial, less than foods.

My tanks are always set for ~10 year runs. Some operate less than that because they bore me early on, but many go well past that and get rebuilt at 8-12 year intervals to the same essential setup for several cycles because they do not bore me. At least one 55 has had the same set-up since well before we built this house some 26 years ago, just re-built thoroughly periodically. Others change radically because I want to try different operating systems or different fish. Keeping basically species tanks is a wonderful excuse for running more tanks. Using lasting, quality equipment means that you can do whatever you want with any given tank without significant new investment beyond the livestock. It does involve non-trivial capital investment (for me over a 50+ year period), but that operational costs are the only significant current expenditures. Some of the tanks are generally given over to breeding some of my current favorites, and that helps somewhat to off-set some of the current operational costs. It certainly does not make the hobby pay, but that is not the object of hobby. that wold be a small and labor-intensive business - not at all what I want from a hobby.

AquatopMAG wrote:It's great to see a lively discussion on UV Canisters. There's an interesting article on UV in the 2011 Annual MF&R.