I often think about this topic and have to agree with you Justin, it's a obscene amount of money for a fish tank.
I keep coming back to most if not all hobbies are expensive and most of the time they are as expensive as we make them. Unfortunately I have multiple hobbies, Boating, Diving, Photography....oh yeah Reefkeeping.
Back when I was getting into this if someone told me I would spent 10k for a fish tank I would have never done it.
Having said all that I keep planing my upgrade in my head.
