"Cheaper" aquarium equipment that performs well. Your opinions?

[revhtree]

"Cheaper" aquarium equipment that performs well. Your opinions?

Thought it would be good to start a list of aquarium equipment that is on the lower side of the spending scale that performs well for the price.

 

[Rob.D]

Ice melt (calcium chloride) for calcium dosing and Baking soda for Alkalinity dosing.


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[revhtree]

Good point. I was thinking more on the lines of equipment but good idea to add this!

 

[Bootstrap]

ReefBreeders LED's get a 5*'s from me

 

[herozero]

SWC skimmers, 120, 160 and BMK. the 160 for me was a steal for the price IMO.

 

[mike007]

I think some of the more economical equipment works just fine but i don't think it last any longer than the good stuff. Leds for example should not be overlooked for cheaper ones. Anyway us die hard reefers are always upgrading we like spending our money on goodies.

 

[Detroit_306]

I use the www.fishneedit.com 2 x150 watt MH and 4 x 4 watt t-5's, original bulbs since last June, the mounting kits were crap but I hung the fixture, and it looks pretty nice.

 

[impur]

I will second the SWC cone skimmers they are great for the price.

Another one is my Aquastyleonline.com LED kit on my biocube. Great light for the price

 

[chort55]

I'd definitely say Bubble Magus skimmers kick but for the $. I know I love mine!

Every 3-4 days I get a nice collection:

 

[navila06]

mrs wedges pickling lime and tea dispenser for dripping. under 20 bucks, does the job of a 200+ kalk stirrer. imo of course

 

[joeyhatch11]

SCA Skimmers. Bubble Mag knock off at an AMAZING price!! Love my 301. Also, I know people aren't a big fan but, Odyssea T5HO fixtures. I've have my 48" fixture for 8 months now. Just swapped my stock bulbs for ATI but even the stocks grew all my corals just fine. Before the 48" I had a 20" fixture and that ran great for well over a year, before the upgrade.

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[Daniel@R2R]

I'll bump this back up for more discussion. Let's see what people are saying in 2018!

 

[ReefWithCare]

AC return pumps and an old credit card (for algae scraping)

 

[shred5]

Aquamaxx CO-1 skimmer. Cheaply built, too small of a cup but boy does it skim.

 

[shred5]

SCA Skimmers. Bubble Mag knock off at an AMAZING price!! Love my 301. Also, I know people aren't a big fan but, Odyssea T5HO fixtures. I've have my 48" fixture for 8 months now. Just swapped my stock bulbs for ATI but even the stocks grew all my corals just fine. Before the 48" I had a 20" fixture and that ran great for well over a year, before the upgrade.

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People do not like Odyssea not because they do not work, they do not like them because they catch on fire and should not be sold. Another product that should be removed is the coralife digital power center.

 

[Raindog3030]

AquaClear HOB filters! Oh, and those Hydor Koralia power heads

 

[Fritzhamer]

Jebao return pumps. Anything from reef octopus although their stuff is a few notches higher quality than Jebao.

 

[jose hernandez]

jebao dct return pump

 

[joeyhatch11]

People do not like Odyssea not because they do not work, they do not like them because they catch on fire and should not be sold. Another product that should be removed is the coralife digital power center.

Ive owned several Odyssea products in the past and have never had a single issue with any of them. I believe what you are referring to were issues they had in the past with much older product. My current 4 bulb, 48" T5 fixture Ive had for the better part of 6 years now with zero issues.

 

[andrewkw]

Jebao powerheads. I do use a return pump of theirs on my less critical fowlr, but I probably would on everything except my main display. Part of that is my eheim 1262 has been going for almost 12 years straight less when I moved and the rare times I clean it. Every powerhead will fail. Every return pump will fail too including my trusty eheim. If one of my jeabo wavemakers breaks I'll get a new one in a couple of days. I got them after ecotech pumps failed. Bang for buck I think they are great. It's not just that they are cheaper the flow patterns work pretty good for me too. If it fails twice as fast that's fine when it's 3 or 4x cheaper.