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The Money Pit: How much are you willing to spend on livestock?

The Money Pit: How much are you willing to spend on livestock?

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My freshwater adventure was more expensive so far than my saltwater, imagine that. Bigger tank, lower tech, I kept a school of 6-8 Bumblebee Puffers as a kid. That was a great time. I wonder if I'll ever recreate that same feeling with a reef tank, though I highly doubt it.

The most expensive saltwater livestock I've bought has probably been a rock with a ton of ricordea mushrooms attached. I'm not saying it was necessarily a screaming deal (or even really a good one at that) but I am saying I was not going to leave the store without them. 200 bucks for like 15-20 Superman Ricordea polyps (front left corner of the tank, next to the concrete statue). All my other corals have been half price or cheaper.

I guess my Bicolor Hammer was technically the most expensive, but it came with the rest of a turnkey tank. I'd call it 150 for a 20 head colony?

Other than that, I've been eyeing a tiny goby that's consistently 120-150 in stores. There's a few pufferfish I've wanted but don't have room for.

I personally cap out at about 250-500, but I will say I'm not opposed to livestock more expensive, I just do not have the setup at home. I'll gladly throw tens of thousands at the right equipment and livestock if given the opportunity thru work or other official orgs.
 

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Coral: I bought a $600 mini colony of a really nice torch. After the success of my dragon soul and fragging off at least 100 heads, I thought I could replicate the success to recoup the cost and then some. I was wrong :(
Fish: I'm a little more hesitant to spend big bucks because there's no potential to frag and recoup some cost so most are under the $150 mark. I have to reaaallly want it, like my Gem tang or jeweled leopard wrasse

I tell my wife everything was $20 though
edit: she knows. it's a running joke and she rolls her eyes every time
 
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CaseyP said:
Coral: I bought a $600 mini colony of a really nice torch. After the success of my dragon soul and fragging off at least 100 heads, I thought I could replicate the success to recoup the cost and then some. I was wrong :(
Fish: I'm a little more hesitant to spend big bucks because there's no potential to frag and recoup some cost so most are under the $150 mark. I have to reaaallly want it, like my Gem tang.

I tell my wife everything was $20 though
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I mostly make lot of trades unless it's something she likes than I have Premission to spend some.

No real expensive fish all well under $100 so far.

Now I have 2 more tanks to stock with fish so maybe if work is good I will get a little bolder and spend more on them.
 
Most I've spent on livestock is $400 (Todd's torch during the torch craze in 2022, "banana" torch). But they've grown like crazy and have/will able to share them in swaps or trades.

I try to mitigate my spending by winning Cali Kid and swap raffles. It's a proven strategy! (Full transparency, if I've sold you anything, I usually put it all back into raffle tickets).
 
I think getting "burned" (not really) way back early on has helped save me from spending too much money on any one piece of livestock. Way back when there was a local show, I want to say it was BAYMAC, I bought a coral from a vendor that looked fantastic, green, blue, purple, and it was a super thick acropora (not a thin tenuis type), and here's the kicker the vendor didn't try to give it a fancy name that literally every vendor does these days just told me "I think it's an acropora abh..." (can't recall the name), anyways, I paid $70 for that frag, that was the most I spent on a frag ever, even minicolonies I've bought never cost that much (kind of shows how much inflation has crushed it), and while I had a tank full of perfectly colorful acroporas I've gotten from various club members via swaps, this coral very quickly lost color and went brown, it stayed alive mind you, it just all the color that made me want to spend the money was gone. I'm not blaming the vendor or anything like that, it was just a rather large expense that backfired, and after that I stayed away from anything expensive on the livestock side of things. While I have paid more for coral, as a bulk purchase, never for any single item, I almost spent $90 on a Naoko wrasse back when that shop in SF existed (forget the name, it was too pretty to survive in the city), but it was mislabelled and actually was $220 and I kindly declined.
 
SupraSaltyReefer said:
Any way to hide this thread from our significant other and enforce a biometric multi-factor authentication with a DNA test before we disclose what we actually paid?
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$25 is the most I've seen anything sold for at an aquarium store and the most I've personally ever spent.


(Is she gone yet?)


Edit: Ok, I think I'm safe. Been looking at a biota yellow tang, but the large csb I bought for $400 and grew to 10+" and sold for $700 is my biggest exchange.

Edit #2: So the biota order was slightly more than planned, but guess who has a pair of mandarin goby's coming!
 
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Anyone remember when aussie acans first started coming in? Clint @ diamonds in the reef. I'd hate to think how much money I spent back then. I honestly cannot remember.
 
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