If your house burned down...
 

And you were smart enough to have insurance that will cover the replacement of your existing display tank, what would it cost, retail, to replace everything in a $ per gallon number.
This comes from a discussion I had recently, and I did the math, which scared me a little :)
Sorry, you'll have to do some adding and dividing to get a number, but the results could be interesting. Or not :)

Where's the "I don't want to know" option?

After adding mine up, ya, should have added that option!

Over 7000 for a 70 gallon tank.

But if I had a 300 gallon tank all the same equipment would work.

I calculated mine at $64 per gallon makes me cry.....😭

You got off easy :)

Also, counting coral replacement. Don't forget, you need stuff IN the tank!

Compared to you and Kien I would say so but then again for anyone in this hobby who takes it seriously everything has a cost that they just don't want to be reminded of no matter if it's a 10 gallon or 500 gallon tank it all costs 😊😊😊

I added it up in my head and divided by gallons.... then thought nawwww, maybe I only have this much invested! The number didn't get much lower.

Exactly! And nevermind the compounded cost of the past (replacing equipment, consumables like salt and media, seemingly never ending livestock purchases). And don't forget those occasional times when you rip up money and flush it down the toilet like some sort of ritual sacrifice for the tank gods. Wait, everyone does that right?? Or is that just me ?

Sorry, now I'm getting off topic. I'm going to go to my happy place and play with my ponies now (that may or may not be little).

I've thought about this a couple times when I think about buying stuff and I usually let out a sigh but I'm in it for so much already what's another $1000......

Kien please tell me your not a "Brony" that would just be wrong so wrong.....

Honestly,

I would be out of the addiction if that happened. Take the $$ and run screaming in the other direction. Like I tell my non-reefing friends, a crack addiction would be cheaper. I just redid my 2' cube from reef into fw and total cost of the fw fish/plants, etc was about $100 and its fully stocked. That's like 2 corals or one really nice small colony and one frag at today's prices.

Anthony

I think your poll should have been more like:

<$50
$50-100
$100-150
$150-200
$200+

Probably, but I just didn't want to imagine that. I had enough sticker shock adding up mine. Thinking double would have caused heart palpitations :)

I don't know about other people, but if I count absolutely everything (tank, sump. controller, plumbing, skimmer, reactors, etc) I get something close to $ 1000/gal. Is my math that wrong?...

I'd say ya, unless you have a 10g with really awesome gear :)

ya i did the math based on my rough 140 gallons. but i would have bought the same gear for say a 55gallon tank.. then my cost per gallon would have been triple what i selected

Just to be clear, this is for brand new retail replacement. Not what you paid for used or otherwise got a deal on.

Oh boy then my numbers are way off. I am lucky enough to have great contacts and get most of my gear and livestock at wholesale. If I bought everything at retail my tank would be super expensive cause you'd have to throw in a divorce.

This poll is flawed in that it requires people to use math which, judging by the comments, is less than perfect. :lol:

My calculations are reasonably low until I added the livestock. Then it all went to hell in a hand basket.

I meant close to $100/gal. I was only out on "0".....

Everything I currently have based on prices I paid for them is just over $7200 replacement of everything brand spanking new which includes rocks, corals and live stock would be $18,200 based on today's prices before taxes

I could just cry

Wow! I looked at my tank and fishroom and ball park guess 10k. not including money wasted on obsolete odds and ends in boxes...

Me too, I get deals on everything ir make it myself. But if it all burned down, and insurance was buying new, what's a retail reef worth for you? :)

Ya, but everyone loves math, so we're all firing up the calculators (or auto sum in Excel :))
You need to replace the burned up livestock, empty tanks are a bit boring

Oh, then ya, bang on :) I sit about $102/g

Yeah I'm about $95. Thankfully I bought cheap fish.

If my house lit on fire I'd pick my tank up and bring it to the store

If livestock is included, I sit roughly around $100/gallon. Approximate number; too hungry to add everything up :redface:

~100/G here.

Likely I would get hosed by my insurance company who would offer me 20% on the dollar and need to buy used. The used items wouldn't come up fast enough and I'd get sucked in by a Groupon offering a great deal on an all inclusive in Tahiti. Buh-bye!

I think regardless, I'd be out of the hobby. I don't even want to think about what it would cost to replace my stuff, probably not as much as I'm thinking but still, it scares me to crunch the numbers so I'll just guess. I dont' even know what the retail prices are of half my stuff its so old (does anyone even sell Aquatronica anymore??) :razz:

Im about $40 per gallon, but we just finished our move so livestock is low

well 14 years ago it was about 50/gal average, so it is probably gone up a bit.

I think what we have to remember is replacing what you have is cheaper than building what you have the first time. when I built my 90 gal I spent over 15000.00 but I could easily have built that result for under 8000.00

this is because over the year you are building your tank, you buy this, then decide you don't like it so you buy something else, and so. corals die so you replace them, same as fish.

if you have a set up your happy with you can just spend money on what worked, instead of the experimentation, you also have the opportunity to look at that 2000.00 buck skimmer and say did it really work much better than the 800.00 buck one I had. I think personally if your not sure what you want and just start making something it could easily cost 100.00/gal and up, but if you know what you want and are smart about it you could build it for much less than that, say 50 to 70/gal.

also note the price per gal is about as useless as a watts/gal as the tank gets bigger a similar set up system will get cheaper/gal

Steve

My 265 isn't to bad on its own, but my stand pushes it way over the top.

I should purchase a Gem Tang and run the cost up a lil. :D I kid of course.....


Anyone have a Gem Tang at 90% off?

I voted in the 26-50 range but thats all used equipment that Ive gotten a deal on and rough guesstimate of live stock (still waiting to cycle). That being said if all equipment was new retail it would probably get bumped to the next tier 😒

Sorry to resurrect a dead thread, but has anyone actually tested the 'coral and livestock' question with their insurance company? I (un)lucked into a couple of tank failure threads on RC (tanks breaking, not what we normally call a tank crash) and not one of them got coverage for the coral or livestock. Fire, tank broke, tree fell on, the tank was covered as was equipment but never any of the living inhabitants.

Charles

I have enquired about it from a couple of insurance companies not one will cover the contents inside the tank if there is a tank failure or its damaged from say a child throwing an object and breaking the tank they will cover the tank itself and possibly any equipment damaged as long as it can be proven it was caused directly by tank failure.

As far as any livestock and coral you are SOL as fish and inverts are not coverable as they are not considered pets nor are they considered property the same goes for coral. With that being said you can get extra insurance on your tank to cover replacement costs up to a certain amount.

Hopefully our bright legislative minds will soon reconsider this, or we need a breakthrough lawyer with a slamdunk lol