When setting up a new aquarium, it’s easy to fall into the trap of buying inexpensive equipment. After all, why would you want to spend hundreds of dollars on a product when there’s another similarly functioning product out there for a fraction of the cost? Well, the obvious answer to this question centers around quality and longevity. Inexpensive products are so cheap because of one of a number of things. They either have almost no research and development behind the product, or they use cheap materials or cheap labor, or some comibination of the lot. On the flip side, more expensive products tend to have more thorough R&D, better quality control, skilled labor, and lots of innovative ideas that are in the pipeline. All of these add to the company’s bottom line, causing the entire product offering to more expensive.
All that said, just because a product is more expensive doesn’t necessarily mean better quality. Inexpensive products can be workhorses for your aquarium, while some higher end goods could fail repeatedly. So, the above statements are obviously a generalization, though hopefully it prompts some to more thoroughly research what equipment they buy and what quality they would like to invest in. Additionally, sometimes it’s still more cost effective to go the cheaper route and have to replace items on occassion instead of spending more money up front.
