all I am looking at is that the prices that are listed are not realistic, there is no way some one could get thoes prices on the island.

The purpose of your contest was to set up a tank for XXX.XX not one of thoes tanks I have seen could be done for that amount honestly. why arn't you adding in the costs of the tank, stand ect.. that is the most expensive part if you do it nice and is probably one of the bigest factors on the end result.

I am building anyways, thought it might be interesting to see some one build a simular size and see how a few tanks can be built in a specific size range and the differances in cost to build them.

I am not going after what can you do for 300.00 or what ever, I want to do something that is a quality setup for the long haul. I also want to see how different people handle there equipment and the desisions they make on what there going all out on, what there doing themselves, and what there making do with.

I do agree that there has to be something to prevent rich people (which I am definatly not one of) from going out and just getting a turn key package, so maybe some rules on stuff you have to do yourself, like you have to make your own stand. Cannot start with a reef ready tank, ect..

that is the reason I was thinking of 6 months befor you even have to have water in it to give pour people time to save for what they want to do and to allow time for other people to clean out there garage to a point where they can actualy build there stand hehe

for prises maybe we could get something from the sponcers? have a few different prises like one for best build, where the reward could be a gift certificat for live stock or rock, then after the water is in and the tanks have aged there could be a vote for nicest overall, maby a couple different catagories for price range, ect....

wouldent be to hard to set up a contest with some restrictions to controle the builds, and then make it into 3 catagories, 2000 and under, 2001.00-3000.00 and 3K and up.

anyways I am going to go dig out my glass cutter and try take a bit off the back of one of the 27 gal tanks I have... wish me luck

Steve

Sorry Steve but I do take offense to this. I have built my tank for the XXX.XX dollars, my stand was all of 41.00 and my tank was 16.00. Questioning the integrity of the people in the contest on their honesty is probably not what you meant...but it's how I took it.

The reason that we don't include those costs is we were following the same build idea as done by Nano-reef.

you see what I mean, contest hasn't even started and already some disputes about pricing, the only way to eliminate these is to eliminate the budget. People can always post their costs for those who are curious. Spending a lot of money does not mean you'll have a nice tank, I think we can all agree on that.

nope not questioning any integrity here, I haven't seen your tank stand at all, I know when I do a stand here is no way I can do it cheep unless I use stuff I have around the house. ther eis the cost of glue, screws/nails, hardware, wood, and stain/paint, then paint supplies, brush, filler, ect...

I am bad for not accounting for stuff I have laying around.. I built a stand a while ago that I figures I did for 60.00. when I added up everything it was realy about 150.00

Now you guys don't have to account for that stuff in your contest which is good for you as if you had stuff laying around the house you used then bonus.

but I was refuring to the pricing on livestock, it is dirt cheep compared to what I see in stores down here. for example sand and live rick is free, so 10lbs of live rock and sand will be about 100.00 there is 1/3 of the 10g budgit gone if it was not free. acessories less than 15.00 free, so you add a magfloat, thermomitor, tongs ect and you could realistickly be at another 50 to 70 bucks. water, there is 10 bucks if you buy it.
a heater 30 to 50 bucks. I am at 230 now, so a tank we'll use your numbers 16, and wood for the stand 41, so now were at 287.00 still need some sort of pump for water flow..

you see what I am getting at.. I have seen some stands that probably are pushing 100 to 200.00 when all is said and done, they are neat and interesting but heck I could spend 600 bucks easy on a little stand and it would be out of this world and and it would have a huge impact on the finnished product.

Yeap I agree, this is exactly my point. Prices for everything especially livestock is extremely variable, one person will pay more for the same item as someone else in a different location. In addition very similar items can have very different prices even in the same location. This is the reasoning for the price list to produce a constant and keep things fair. Yes some things are way off either too low or too high and somethings are good. Best solution is to eliminate the variable and apply the contest constraints on true constants.

Also the fact that a stand adds integrity is a matter of opinion. For instance I don't even have a stand and feel livestock is more important.

yours is on a desk, kinda nice on its own. what I meen by this is that lets say I slap togeather a stand out of 2X4s and put some cheep plywood on it and leave it unfinnished (kinda like what you would do for a frag tank.
then I do one that is out of oak and stained with lots of router work and raised pannel doors, as long as it doesn't overpower the tank it is definatly going to cause the overall opinion of the set up to be nicer.

Steve

Dont know how i missed this thread till now, but i just got finished putting rock in my 25G like 3 min ago. :mrgreen:

To continue on topic the price list is a must. you have to have conformity in pricing live stock. if you think the list we are currently using is to low priced then up it next time around, but it IS nessasary in order to keep all people happy.

if this is all about the prices for 20-33 gallons contest, personally i wouldn't want a budget under 1000 dollars. like i'm working on my 29 gallon and i've already spent alot. i spent alot on good quality stuff,and isnt that what you want when you start a reef? basicaly what im saying is making a contest like that wouldn't be the best, because you would need a big budget if people made it a tank they want to keep for a long time

Go
 

Why instead of setting up a limit on budget, set a limit on other things such as:

Ammount of LR/LBS
Ammount of Substrate/LBS
Ammount of Inverts
Ammount of Fish
Ammount of Corals / Category ( SPS, etc.. )

Like others have said, the limit on the price is something that doesn't regulate properly due to a huge variation. If price "needs" to be taken into consideration, then a big enough buffer needs to be established to take into consideration in order for a decent tank to be created in a city where things are expensive.

Why should a contest's motivation/bottleneck be people trying to find the cheapest possible second-hand hardware/livestock VS. being creative with the things that they could possibly achieve when creating a tank in a certain category?
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medical marijuana

I like your breakdown, this allows for some uniformity in all the tanks, but gives room for plenty of creativity.