About Us – Welcome to Simple Reefs

Welcome to Simple Reefs. I won’t bombard you with lots of chatter, here. I just wanted to welcome you to the website and elaborate, a little, on the mission, here. First of all, I should point out that we are not a shop. We aren’t trying to sell you anything. This website is made to give advice, product reviews, and recommendations.

A Little About Me and Simple Reefs

I’m a guy who has been keeping fish and invertebrates, in some form or another, for the majority of my life. My dad was extremely enthusiastic about fish so I was brought into the hobby at an extremely young age. As time went by, I dipped my hand into all different kinds of aquarium experiences.

Be it freshwater, ponds, marine aquariums, or species specific tanks. I have decades of experience in the hobby and now focus, predominantly, on saltwater aquariums. Unlike the majority of people, I have always strived to engage in these hobbies on a very strict budget and that is what this website is all about.

I suffer from bipolar disorder which means my life doesn’t tend to follow the same pattern as most people’s. I have less money, less options when it comes to renting, more day to day struggles, and less room for error. I am not saying that to make you feel bad but to emphasise the challenges that I faced when it came to running multiple marine aquariums.

Never would I be able to splash out on thousands of pounds of equipment. I would have to economise at every single step of the way. All I had when starting this hobby was a lot of enthusiasm, an old freshwater aquarium, and a bank balance that would bring tears to the eyes of the average person. I had to learn to adapt and I can help you adapt, too.

Reef Ownership On a Budget

On Simple Reefs, I want to prove that owning a marine aquarium can be both easy and affordable. After all, the prevailing attitude regarding this hobby is that it is exclusively for those who have big dreams and an even bigger bank balance. Despite this commonly held viewpoint, that simply isn’t true. You can own your own marine aquarium for only a small amount more than a freshwater aquarium.

It just takes a bit more planning; especially given the current social environment. In 2025, the cost of living is accelerating rapidly. Electricity costs are high, fuel costs are rising, rents are increasing. Everything, over the past few years, has gone a little bit pear shaped.

With that in mind, the prospect of owning your very own slice of the ocean can seem daunting. Especially when you start eyeing up the prices of premium equipment. It is easy to look at aquariums running into the thousands of dollars, lights costing a bomb, and all the odds and ends costing silly money, and think that the hobby is not attainable to you. The idea of staring your own tank can seem like an almost impossible dream. That simply isn’t true.

It Doesn’t Have To Be

Despite what so many enthusiasts and hobbyists might tell you. Owning a marine aquarium doesn’t have to be ridiculously expensive. There are ways to cut costs. Be it through smart new purchases or utilising old freshwater tanks that, otherwise, would have been wasted. Hell, simply having someone with some knowhow who can guide you in the right direction when it comes to equipment and consumables can help immensely.

Just reducing the beginner mistakes that you make can save you insane amounts of cash. That’s what Simple Reefs is here for. If you are one of those hobbyists who owns an 800 litre Red Sea tank with 6 high end LED lights and all the nicest, fanciest, most fragile of coral. You are probably in the wrong place and this site will have nothing to offer you.

This site is designed for people like me and is the type of website I would have wanted access to when I started out. I had nothing other than a repurposed freshwater aquarium and a dream of having a tank filled with colourful, vibrant, marine fish and rocks full of coral. I achieved that dream and, best of all, I did it on a budget. It took trial and error, but I did it and I am here to share that information with you.

Changing The Narrative

Visiting forums or other discussion boards. You constantly witness the elitism in this hobby. Whether it is people deriding others for not buying the biggest aquarium or the most expensive lights. Or, simply, people constantly reinforcing the need to use this expensive supplement or that. Or how you simply can’t run a successful reef without a fully automated setup complete with auto water changer and consistent parameter monitoring.

The marine fishkeeping hobby doesn’t need to be like that. Simple Reefs is a place absent of judgement and void of any form of elitism. The truth of the matter is, people were running marine aquariums and keeping coral decades ago. They didn’t have the expensive equipment on offer today. They worked with what they had and that experience is still completely valid today.

Sure, it may take a little more work and a bit more maintenance. But we can break the hobby down to the basics and make it, almost, as affordable as keeping a freshwater aquarium. And when I say break it down to the basics, that is exactly what I am going to do right here on this website.

Breaking Reef Ownership Down To The Basics

I am going to spend the next few months adding informative articles to Simple Reefs full of beginner guides to get you started. I won’t be sparing any detail, either. My articles are going to explore every nook and cranny of the topics at hand.

I won’t be throwing together 300 words explanations on how to cycle a marine aquarium. I will be offering you detailed guides with a variety of different ways for you to accomplish the task at hand. With each guide acting as a self contained article with all of the information you need at hand or available through links.

I aim to leave no stone unturned and I aim to answer every single question that I would have had when starting a new marine aquarium. I will also add detailed diagrams and Simple Reefs’ Cheat Sheets wherever possible that you can save to your phone and reference later.

Do You Want a Marine Aquarium on a Budget?

As of right now, the 15th of March, 2025, we are just starting out. Over time, however, we are going to bring to you a huge number of articles focused on building your own marine aquarium on a budget. We will have advice regardless of your needs. Whether you want a nano aquarium or something a lot larger. We will be here to help.

Don’t want a sump? That’s no problem, we have solutions. Have a freshwater tank you need to repurpose? Great! I have done that before and will help you do it, too. Don’t have a ton of money but want an entry point into the hobby? That’s perfect! I had very little funds when I started and I know how to make it work.

On top of that, we are going to offer budget solutions for existing hobbyists to enhance their fish and coral keeping experience. As well as giving a few budget solutions to tackling some of the hobby’s most aggressive problems, be it dinoflagellates, Aiptasia, or, simply, the uglies.

If any of this sounds like it applies to you, stick around and hit the bookmark button on your browser. Together, we can change the narrative on this hobby and show the elitists that it is possible to build a thriving reef on a budget.

Thanks for Reading, Richie