What are some rough monthly maintenence costs of a reef aquarium?

Hi,

I have posted on here recently before and asked roughly how much as a ballpark figure should I be looking at to set up a reef aquarium, I got a lot of responses, and they have been excellent thanks!

Now setting these tanks up are wonderful, but the next thing I want to know is, roughly what costs are involved monthly to maintain the tank. (Assuming the tank already has a cleanup crew and has been running and established with livestock over 12 weeks plus)

Water Changes and use of other chemicals are being taken into consideration here. I know for example a 20% water change over 1 month (two 10% changes) will cost £0.35p ($0.53) a litre ( £14/$23.59 a month for all changes) which is fully treated and salted, just requires heating before replacing the lost water. ( I have also been told to run LED lights it can be approx £0.80 a day ($1.23) Based on a 200 litre tank.

Could you please give me an idea of what else needs to be taken into consideration? For example, do skimming elements or filter elements need replacing reguraly? Things like that.

I was told by a local specialist all he needs to do is perhaps wipe the glass once a month and do the water changes 2 weekly thats pretty much it.

Any more ideas or estimations on monthly costs would be great! I ask this obviously as setting up and added to the tank is expensive, but how much can I perhaps expect to spend to keep it in tip top shape! I am in the UK

 

Nice info by the way. Well, I do have a list of some things to consider when cleaning out your aquarium. For one thing, you may have a few tasks switched around in your info, but that's ok because i've got it all for you right here:

Every Two Weeks
*Clean filters as needed. Partially change or rinse the filter media on some filters, if the bioload is high, the media is dirty, or the flow is restricted.
*Change twenty percent of the tank water while vacuuming the gravel.
__________________________________________
Every Month
*Conduct thorough filter checks. Replace the filter carbon and rinse the filter media and components, as needed and depending on bioload.
*Clean the protein skimmer.
*Replace air stones as needed.
*Clean the outside of the aquarium, removing salt and calcium deposits, dust, and dirt.
*Rinse any tape decorations that suffer from excess algae.​

Now I don't know about expenses, you may have to adjust this info to yourself, but as far as I know, you'll just have to keep up on it and stay on task. If you do that you'll succeed. If you don't, then that's how loss of livestock, corals, money, and reward will go.​