What's Your Average Monthly Expense for Your Aquarium?

So my wife has given me the go ahead to start planning for my next aquarium. I would love something large with a display of at least 1,000 gallons and most likely a sump of equal size. My question is what is a rough estimate of what you pay to run a similar aquarium size and water volume? I am not going to go too crazy. Would like to keep it old school with some new school touches. The aquarium will be lit with Radions and the flow by either Tunze's or Vortechs. Filtration will be operated by two skimmers. No chiller. Any assistance in budgeting would be helpful.

 

2000 gallons of water.... JaysLittleOcean, this is industrial level. You are 22.20 times out of my league, so cannot help you.
Good luck with it and hope to see it finished. Good part is that you can put in any tang you dream without space constraints

 

lot of variables... lights - LED or MH, Pumps, Chillers, Electric bill you will need a few months to get a baseline. Salt and chemicals you can budget to once it is up and running.
If you think you need X you need to plan for Y

Then is the Coral and Fish addiction!

For what it is worth I am pushing about 350 gallons right now. I think I am easily at $200-$300 a month just electric and salt.

 

Oh man now I want to do its just because of the tangs. I love tangs!

 

My names Jay and I'm an addict. (Sits down opens laptop and looks at corals on Reef Raft.)

 

Jay, seriously speaking, I dont think that consumption / expenses on small tanks can be just multiplied with 20 for such a tank.
Think on light - most lights are made for average tanks (wide and deep). Your tank will be probably not only longer, but wider and deeper than 99.99 % of tanks around. I think you will have to consider 2 lines of lights with deep penetration.
Flow - lot of people go with 30-50X flow regime (honestly I dont care if I have consumption of 3W or 6W), but at thousands of gallons this mean hundreds of watts extra - will have to plan it carefully. 10% water change as most of users do is a high cost for such tank as well. You should probably consider as natural reefing possible (live rock, macro algae, etc) instead of hundreds of pumps and reactors.
I dont afford it, but if I would, for sure I should build such a tank.

 

put it this way.. if you dropped a couple hundred on the floor is it worth your time to pick it up? You better have a big bank role

You are also going to need to consider placement within house.. 9000lbs of water not including tank etc.. he he Then add in sump hello!!!!
Ideally your house is slab or hopefully you are a structural engineer

I know this would be way out of my league even with the money.

You should talk to reefbruh. He has 600gallon might give you better idea of what you are getting self into.

I think some people are made for the bigger stuff and some are not. Me hell no, I would be stressed constantly and I know I would not do it justice.

Otherwise damn I hope we get to see this build

 

I can tell you now, running two skimmers on one system will lead to one skimmer doing all the work, and the other doing nothing. It's better to get one skimmer that is sized for the system.

There is plenty of used equipment out there (used too) for these size tanks. A friend of mine just set up a 1,000 gallon tub. Buying everything new is mind boggling. 1,000lbs of Rock, 1000lbs of sand, all the water, it adds up. He however was coming from 3 troughs and had most of the equipment needed. Once it's up and running for a few months I'll ask him what his monthly cost is roughly.

20% water change on a 2,000g system... That will add up quickly. Atleast $400 every time you do one.

 

Thanks for the recommendations. This is gonna need more planning then I originally thought.

 

Well the best thing is that I plan to put the aquarium in the family room/my home office which is a cement slab sitting on top of bedrock.