You get what you pay for?! A marketing hype or a reality?
 

Since Kien saved the day from a poll :twised: I came up with this great idea of starting something else! I hear all over the net about "you get what you pay for" . Some people religiously follow it, some twist it by a bit while some just stand against it. My stand is somewhat mix for different perspectives: for some cases I believe the line while for others, I completely disagree. Here's some points that I can presented for both sides:

You get what you pay for:

1. Custom build tanks: it is a well known fact that commercially available tanks are much cheaper than custom build tank. But I believe paying somewhat more for custom build tanks are worth it since thats the "house" of all your livestocks for which you will be paying money for!

2. Salt: IO is awesome; no doubt in that but it lacks some of the things that expensive salt has. Easy to overcome that with additives BUT you would have to measure things that are needed to be mixed. I believe paying $20 more for a bucket is worth it. After all, it is the 2nd most important thing for saltwater. But I also believe there's a very sharp break even point for using expensive to cheap salts as the tank size gets bigger.

3. Test kits: Yes I am willing to pay a bit more for test kits. Obviously not crazy amount but I believe the prices of salifert/elos are justified. Even hanna to some extend.

Complete marketing hype:

1. LEDs: You seriously don't get what you pay for in this! I have heard more problem from ecotec than people using AI or even evergrow!!! Alongside, the R&D thing is pretty lame to me too. Lets talk about a company do do cradle to grave R&D for LEDs: Kessil! They design and manufacture all their products starting from the silicons to a complete fixture: that's R&D. Putting a microcontroller with codes that you get to play around in your computer with a fancy user interface is R&D too but not to the extend that kessil do. But the price difference between a kessil and an radion pro is HUGE! Sure adding some fancy things that radion has is fun but that doesn't justify the "you get what you pay for" hype. You buy a toyota for $20k while a BMW for $50k; you get the self satisfaction but again, "you get what you pay for" doesn't apply.

2. Powerheads: Worst thing to me! Buying a vortec is like spending money on expensive ski gears while you never going to ski in real life but rather be a collector. Tunzi powerheads are AWESOME! So are hydros! You can even control them to produce random waves. In the end, what are you paying for? "I don't want power chords in my tank"....sure....get an wireless heater and motor then we will be talking ;) And about the hype, vortecs get busted way too much than the cheapest hydors out there! BOOOOOOO!!!!

Well there are more but don't feel like writing much (will proceed as this thread gets big :D).

Anyway, so what's your opinion? :)

My opinion is you've never owned a BMW... :)

Well I did mention the "satisfaction". But for the reliability, you are getting nothing less with a toyota. Basically, you are paying for the satisfaction, brand value and the nice features. No one can say, hey you bought a toyota for $20k....man you get what you pay for...not true. That was my point with that example ;)

And I am an international student; I shouldn't be driving a BMW right now :P

In layman's term: my point would be "do you really need a BMW? if you can afford it; wonderful but if you can't, do you have to starve yourself? Cause of the "you get what you pay for" hype?. Similarly, I see people screaming about "you get what you pay for" when someone buying something more reasonable to them. Do you need a vortec to have a successful tank? Do you need a bubble king to have a successful tank? Do you really need red dragon pumps for closed loop? It would be nice to be able to "afford" them but they are not a necessity.

and not too many toyotas! i wish my tacoma or sienna had been 20k lol.

kessil does do a lot of r&d but they're a special case in that their parent company (dicon) is pretty big and has a pretty varied portfolio (outside our little hobby).

tunze and vortech are both very pricey. i'd group them together in the same tier. both just have different pros and cons for the pile of money you shell out.

I shouldn't have put the car example :redface:

Yah tunzi and vortech are both pricey but even compared to each other, tunzi is less expensive than the overrated vortech. And you don't have to change parts as often as vortech too :razz:

Another example of "you get what you pay for" hype. I have had better success of keeping sps under odyssea lights than many others with more expensive fixtures.

Lesson: paying for expensive stuffs is not a shortcut to having a nice tank.

Lesson: there's a bazillion other factors at play that you're probably getting right or a little more right than those other reefers (myself included @$%)

Exactly. Hence, getting expensive stuffs won't give you the shortcut to success. Its your responsibility with the "minimum requirement". Powerhead: necessity; vortech: not a necessity. Light fixture: necessity; expensive light fixture: not a necessity. I have seen a lot of thread with "odyssea will never grow anything!!!!!! because you get what you pay for"...blah :razz:

Its a very common human behavior that we judge things with the "price tag". Heavier price tag = good stuff.....which is something I can't agree to at all. And for that particular reason, there are lots of brands which set higher price: the mental satisfaction.

Part of the problem is that "worth" and "value" are very subjective terms which underscore the phrase, "You get what you pay for." We've already got plenty of examples of this with your car analogy.

In our household we do own a more expensive Audi which in my opinion is over priced for what you get. It has 4 wheels that gets you from point A to Point B. My much cheaper Murano does the same thing and is actually much more comfortable to drive and hauls more junk in the trunk.

And I for one don't think it's expensive to buy a bucket of H2Ocean while everyone who uses IO will think it's ridiculously expensive. Meanwhile, I went to Starbucks rather than Tim Hortons for a coffee today. Did I get what I paid for? Well, I paid $5 for a coffee and I got a $5 coffee, so I guess I got what I paid for :biggrin:

Bottom line, yes, you get what you pay for, and no, you don't get what you pay for.

Holy grape from the tree! That line just escalated the whole thread :biggrin:

..and nevermind the hundreds of thousands of people who will scratch their heads when you tell them how much ANYTHING relating to your tank costs. To you it's totally worth it to buy a $30 bucket of salt, $5 jar of fish food, $10 for a 1" frag. These things may seem inexpensive to you but there are more people who would deem those things EXPENSIVE at any cost. The point here being, even the term "expensive" is relative.

Totally agree. But when someone posts a comment about which fixture of light to buy or which powerhead to buy, there seems to be numerous post supporting to buy the things with heavier price tag instead of saying "buy whichever suits your need". You shouldn't judge anything based on the price but should ask "does it worth it to pay that much" and thus personal judgement comes. I have experienced it numerous time myself in this forum starting from buying lights to buying skimmer.

From my limited experience and reading this and other forums, there is definitely a "hype" component, especially when it comes to new technologies. Wireless features, LED's, skimmer technologies etc. Think about when lighting changed so that corals could be kept in aquariums, lighting improved so that tougher corals could be kept. When these products first came out, I can imagine how expensive they were. Now there is more selection, pricing drops. I bought G1 Radions, within 6 months, the price dropped, within a year the G2's came out, dropping the value of mine even lower. This is not a cheap hobby period. I think the "get what you pay for" applies more so to used items rather than new. Trying to save money on used, not sure of condition, seller, history etc., means money you save up front could cost thousands if it fails (return pump off ex).

Each person's equipment set up is as unique as each person's tank inhabitants. I don't need to rush out and buy the latest and greatest, my tank suits me.

"Is it worth it?" is very much in the eye of the beholder. I bought literally the most expensive pump I could without ever seeing one in person let alone using it. Why you may ask? It wasn't a "look at my Ferrari" moment. It was a "I want the most efficient, controllable, and backed product on the market" decision. Same reason I bought my BK skimmer and LED lights from GHL…. reliability and track record. I have no problem paying for a companies R&D. Without companies that do the hard work, knock-off companies like Jebao would have nothing to copy.

I think you'd find if money wasn't a barrier (I don't mean that as a cut to whatever your financial situation is) you'd buy the name brands when possible.

And for what it's worth I have never had to replace parts on my vortech mp40's. They have been running for ~4-5 years. I clean the wet side once every 6 months maybe. Now my Profilux controls them and synchronizes feeding and maintenance modes with my light, skimmer, return pump, vortech mp40's. For me that compatibility between products is worth every penny.

Just my two cents.
Scott

I've been running Tunze 6100 pumps since they came out. One is from the original shipmant J&L received. I've replaced the impeller once. I put it in this tank 4 years ago, pointed it, and it goes.

I recently bought a much less expensive WP60. More flow, sure. But every couple of weeks is starts sucking air from the surface. That annoys me, I have to play with it. I also find that in most modes, I can hear it in the next room.

As Scott stated above, barring monetary barriers, I would choose a Tunze over a budget Jabeo any day. That being said, my expectations for the WP60 are much lower, and overall, I feel with both pumps, I got what I paid for.

I don't think your going to win this one bud.:biggrin:

Nicely explained Sheena :)

I totally agree with what you have said. It is a personal choice and should remain it that way. Someone asking "I bought an odyssea fixture, which lights should I put in" and people jump in saying "nothing is going to work cause you get what you pay for" is just obsolete. It should be what you have explained..."pay for what you want to". No one needs expensive stuffs in this hobby to succeed but the market and some people just put it that way.

About the China's coping comment, yes I do agree. Without some companies, China would have to come up with their own designs which would, in turn, increase the cost of the products but still won't be that expensive. And about the creativity/design concept, I can't say anything about that but all I can say is "people always find a way". I will keep this in mind for another thread for another day :D

Well I do use brand stuffs and with more affordability, I would definitely move to better stuffs but obviously will not spend money on things which are not "required". Like I would spend money on a better reflector for light but definitely not on something that has fancy things which I will never use. I would probably add more smaller powerhead instead of spending on vortec. I would buy an efficient skimmer that gets the job done instead of paying for brand names. Like you said, personal preferences and not relying on "you get what you pay for".

I don't go by you get what you pay for . I go by you get what effort you put in.

The fancy stuff is just to make are lazy lives easyier .

No one wants to top off or do water changes .
But even that doesn't have to break the bank and loose the house

But maintenance equipment make me feel like money well spent
(Skimmers, ato , more snails! , extra pump for wc ect.)

But a extra 500$ for lights that may up my coral growth a few inches a year doesn't .

Tunzi is definitely better and possibly the best powehead out there. But there are tanks running wps and doing alright (can't say successful since its too early to judge). Tunzi suits your need and hence you went for that. But I am pretty sure there will be people out there saying "ahhhh you should have bought vortech since they are the most expensive and coolest powerhead out there"....what will you say to that?

There's no winning or loosing over here Bill :razz: Its just a small empty tank hungry for fuel :mrgreen: And since Brad told me you are going to kill me if I open a poll, I opened this thread :D

But if you sold frags, you'd more than recover that $500 with those extra inches. :)

Also, often, when paying more, you get greater reliability and warranty. Not always, but often. I expect that my 8 year old Tunze will still be going long after my WP60 dies.

Come on Brad do you really think a hobbyist can "recover" money by selling frags? :razz: Whatever comes out of the tank goes in with added interest :lol:

Absolutely. I put very little into my tank these days. I've probably made $15 for every $5 I've added this year.

Couldn't have said that better .. I never could make money off the hobby .
It a addiction , and you can't make money off something your addicted to .

If I was a vendor then yes lights , dosers , all on nutrition for them corals.

As a hobby, I'd rather not walk away from my tank soaked

We all look forward to that :D

Raied everything that your using as examples you've never owned.
Just like your several comments on LED lights. Sure you can have an opinion but it really means nothing without actual experience. Get what you pay for? How bout Dont Knock It Till You Try It
And I love polls, just the biweekly Whats The Best Salt polls get rather boring.

To me this is a hobby and it is for the majority of us. Certain hobbies aren't cheap... in hobbies there are die hards, enthausist and the more mild crowd. We plan a lot of our lives around our tanks and fork out a good chunk of our income in hopes to succeed in this hobby. The majority aren't trying to make a buck on this, in the end we know we will forfeit our money to succumb to the joys of watching and sharing the growth of our reefs. In the end, it is the difference in the amount money it takes to get to a state where we are happy. This will differ from person to person, our enjoyment from this hobby not only comes from the success of our tanks but our pride in the choice of equipment we choose to run.


I agree, its possible to have a stunning system with cheaper barebones equipment as long as the person knows what they are doing and keeping up religiously with maintanence. There are so many circumstances to a successful tank, but we all have our own theoretical way of getting there. I don't think its fair to knock on the expensive equipment and call them hype because we all have the option of not buying them due to lots of community reviews.

Lemme ask you some questions:

1. Does a tank need bubble king to succeed or does skimmers like vertex/bubble magus works? I have seen tanks having success with vertex skimmer and also bubble magus skimmer.

2. Do you need expensive LEDs to have success? Do you need radion/mitra to grow/color up successfully? If I am not wrong, you use AI and are happy. Isn't that all it matters? You being happy with your tank and not listening to "you get what you pay for" and running after fixtures like radion/mitra?

3. Do you need vortech to have proper flow in the tank?

4. Do you need expensive lights with expensive reflector to get corals growing?

The points I put forth for LEDs are related to "cost" and that is an independent to owning one. Companies say you save money with LED, I prove you don't. I have never said anything related to growth/coloration which is what depends on true experience. I did talk about disco affect which is something non-debatable.

All I am saying is "you get what you pay for" is not true (to me) for having success in this hobby.

I think it depends. I expect that some brands will offer more value in some respects but not always.

I use IO because I have not found any value in paying for more expensive salt. I use bulk Ca/Alk/Mg additives, which I would have to buy anyhow to dose my tank with to compensate for losses thereof due to coral growth - so I have it onhand regardless - to match parameter for parameter those values you might expect in a more expensive salt. It's just that experience has taught me that I pay less for the additives I use to achieve that, than I would be paying extra for the more expensive salt. So I save money on salt and the tradeoff is I put a little extra effort in the form of testing a new bucket (which experience has also taught me that you should do regardless: just because a salt brand is more expensive does not mean that there aren't the occasional bad batches). In this case I find I defray my purchase price by investing a little bit of time.

Also in the case of LED's I did find that certain products may be overpriced. Knowing what I know now, I realize I could have built a DIY solution for far less than what I paid for the off-the-shelf solution I elected to go with. That said, I didn't really want to do a DIY solution at the time just because I had other projects to finish and I felt my time was worth more (I guess because I need more time to test my salt buckets :lol:)

But this:
I am a long time Tunze fan myself but lately I am finding that I am not getting more longevity out of the units. I still have original $20 Maxijets from 12 years ago and they run fine, but I've replaced probably 4 out of 5 Tunzes on my big tank in the last two years because of premature failure. To be honest I was starting to think that if another one goes soon I might just go with Jebao's or whatever they're called, if I pay $80 and get 1-2 years out of it, that's a far better cost proposition than paying $200-260(*) and getting 1-3 years out of it.

(*My wavebox is now also having issues, I'm not sure if it's in the connector or the pump, but to replace THAT particular pump (6100) is $260 whereas to replace a 6105 motor core is closer to $200. One of my 6105's died altogether last month so I chose to replace that one first.)

I still like Tunzes in the meantime because .. I just like what they offer. :lol:

This thread is bound to be an endless circle of you say potato I say potatoe. It already has that painful feel of endless repetition. Bottom line people that drive a ford will never drive a Mercedes and visa versa. The same goes for tank equipment. What a buzz kill am I.

Definitely. But a person who drives mercedes should never insist another person that he/she must buy Mercedes cause a ford is not safe and won't last and won't drive and blah blah blah....every one would love to be able to afford a mercedes but if one can't...its not the end of the world. Its a luxury and not a necessity to buy mercedes. A ford would still work right?

You got that right brother. My AI sol's and WP 25 oh not to mention my HOB skimmer:redface: work just fine

1. I'm on my 8th skimmer. So yes i've had a little experience with them.
Tank looking and doing so much better by far and reliabilty has been
awesome since skimmer number 7 and 8. Hmmmm...both BubbleKing

2. Are you suggesting that AI products are low end? I see way more defects
with Radions than anything else. I have not tried them so really I have no
right to comment on them cause i've never tried them just like you.

3. I have 5 Vortech pumps and will not be using them on my new build cause
they will not suit my needs.My comment on them is that they are noisy
and I have had reliability issues with them and have had 3 replaced on
warranty. But I do think they are the best powerhead out there with all
the bells and whistles they have. I have traded them off on Tunzes that I
yet to try. So no comment on them.

4. No you dont need expensive lights or reflectors to grow corals. Where you
came up with this I dunno. I ran CoralLife MH fixture for years.

You proved nothing on LEDs to me. I changed my MH bulbs every 8-10 months and my 4 T5s every 6-8 months. I'm not about to do the math but it's been over 2 years and i'm pretty sure once I wear these LED fixtures out i'll be ahead of the game. I dont have a disco ball effect at all. I've only seen it once on this site with Vegas and several times with DIY setups. As for heat issues in the summer, this has helped tremendously and having that piece of mind knowing my tank is'nt boiling is good for me.
I see it on this site and as well as others. Most of the time the people that like to bash the more expensive pieces of equipment have never really owned them. I don't get it. So back to "Dont Knock It Till You Try It"
Raied i'm not trying to be ignorant i'm just answering your questions for me. By no means are these fighting words.
As someone else already said "if it works for you than great"
No need to be a hater.

:lol: No hating with you at least or any fighting words :mrgreen:

I wrote the replies in the quote :D

I've decided that anyone complaining about my moderating in the future is getting "you get what you pay for" as a reply -lol

:lol: Finally something effective came out of this thread. :mrgreen:

custom tanks, your not getting what you pay for, you are merely getting a size or options not available in mass produced tanks for a huge markup.

IO salt is just fine, people add so many additives anyways why spend extra on sale for stuff your going to add anyways. but even for those that don't some of the best tanks I have ever seen were IO and a ca reactor...

test kits I agree with you, not because of the quality but rather because the more expensive ones seam to be easier to read

I have to agree about this. I have a G2 Radion sitting over my 29g tank, for me to buy a nice ATI T5 fixture with bulbs would be no cheaper (actually more expensive). The first 10 months after owning it I would have saved well over $150 in replacement bulbs and then saved some extra money on energy costs as well. No disco effect with this fixture even on white sand and rocks plus I can make it do what ever I want without it having to cost me $25 just to try a different color to see if I like it. To keep comparing apple to apples I can get a cheap LED fixture again for the same price as a cheap T5 fixture (so LED would still be cheaper within a year), unfortunately some of the cheap T5 fixtures also have a history of catching fire so I will never have them in my house even if the company says they have fixed the problems that went on for years. As a tradesman my tools and equipment are my livelihood and I can assure you that cheap tools are exactly that. I've wasted lots of money on cheap tools when I was starting out and all of them had to be replaced and in the case of precision machine work were just down right unusable. So yeah, in a lot of cases you really do get exactly what you pay for. To keep posting these same threads over and over again pretending to be looking for opinions but then disagree with everyone that posts that has a different opinion and also using it as a guise to run down things you don't and never have owned is getting very tiresome. Please move on.

Getting your money's worth..., who's to say...
 

Sometimes you do, and sometimes you don't. And sometimes people are hesitant to admit they did not get a good deal or made a mistake. But no shortage of opinions from people who have never even used a product, and just spew what seems to be popular. Myself, I would rather just hear from people with direct experience, and wish the others would just listen and try to learn something.

And then there are those that blame a product, instead of their own ineptness. What works great for one person might bomb for someone else.

What would be far more useful is people giving their experience along with some facts and explanation of how they were using a product (or method). And let everyone else make up their own minds about what they want to do. Plus we could better assess whether the person knows what they are doing or not.

Reminds me of stock trading. Worst thing people can do is run with the herd, or listen to popular opinion. Then when they lose all their money they blame the banks, brokers, corporations, markets, etc, and say the system is crooked. In reality, it was their own greed and laziness (lack of analysis and due diligence) that did them in and they got what they deserved.

1st bold line: I really don't understand what you mean by "same threads over and over again". Mind explaining? :)

2nd bold line: Did I really disagree with everyone? Although english is not my first language but I think there's a well understood difference between "disagree" and "debate" and I am capable enough to understand the difference.

3rd line: This is a public forum and everyone has the right to start a discussion/debate. There's admins out here. You don't have to the police. You really didn't have to post something like "please move on"...there's nothing to move onto...its just an thread where discussions are going on....there are both sides in this thread (if you would go through through all the posts). If you don't like this thread, you didn't have to comment on it. :) Nothing personal...cheers!

Nicely put and I totally agree :) Forums are all about sharing experiences. Suppose someone comes forth and ask "I am buying a bubble magus, will it work" and someone posts "that's a piece of crap, buy a bubble king"...how helpful is that?

Yah I am a victim of that myself....I have been through lots of bashing for buying less expensive stuffs. I have heard "if you cant afford a refractometer, this hobby is not for you"...really??!! There's certain things that scares off many people, and "you pay what you get for" is one of them. I believe I have no less of a success in my tank with moderate end products than tanks with high end product. Isn't this hobby about taking it slowly? Not everyone starts with big pocket and certain people don't need to scare them off. In the end, its about the husbandry and not on how expensive the equipment are. You shouldn't buy an ebay HOB skimmer but you certainly don't have to buy a deltec.