Getting out. Have a question

Im not sure this is the right area but anyway, Maybe some of the more experience people in this hobby can answer this for me. Is it better to sell your aquarium as a complete setup or sell the tank and stand as one and all accessories separate?

It will take longer to do it all as one, but it will land easier as far as having fewer people come to your home, but when you poece it out, parts of it will go quicker, you might eventually get more, but you might also end up with some pieces that take forever to get rid of.

Agreed, parting out usually faster

It's 125g with a 36g sump so I cant ship it, it would have to be local pickup which really cuts down potential sales. I was wondering if it would be better to break it all down and ship what I can and leave the tank and stand for local pickup? I agree some things might take awhile to sell than others. I have alot of high end stuff which I think shouldnt take to long to sell judging from how fast things sell on the forums.

It also depends on what you're looking to get. If you want to sell it for cheap, I'm sure it'll sell quick as a whole set. If you're wanting top dollar, then it'll probably be best to part out.

How popular is reefing in Holly Michigan if that's where you are? Saltwater crap is expensive. Overpriced if you ask me. So people look to get a big chunk back. But reality is the moment salt touches it, it starts its devaluation. Like a boat. Best day is getting it second best day is getting rid of it. If not better than the day of getting it. Especially one ran in salt.
Doesn't look like you've been in the hobby long. I could be wrong. So all the money spent is still fresh in your head. Don't know how much a month you spend in monthly maintenance. Some spend crazy money. Figure out what you spend a month for a year then figure that into sales price. Guessing you're a nutty one. Lets say you spent $1500 on your whole set up including fish. Right now others are laughing and wishing that's all they spent on just their skimmer or lights. Anyway. You spend $50-$100 a month. On the low side that's $600 a year. Saving $600 a year you already made half your money back. How much time do you spend screwing with it? Not enjoying it, messing with it?
Some consider "time" as money. There's a savings right there. Look at other systems for sale locally and price accordingly. Make people want to buy yours. Remember, you already made half your mony back if not more and the time you "spend" on it. Another thing to consider is you bought your frags for? $20 for 5 heads. Now there's eight. Big deal it's now worth more. You still only have $20 into it. But as others said. You may make most of your money parting out. Add your already mentioned savings and then dump the rest that doesn't sell for cheap.

I've sold three reef tanks. None of which were for sale. Bought by people either getting free coral or buying something from me. They just asked if I woud sell they whole setup. My answer was give me an offer. Good enough. Get it out. All at the surprise of my wife knowing I'd be buying more crap to build another. Mindless of the fact that the inhabitants have grown and become worth more. I look at what I actually have into it. What I got out it while I had it.

You are absolutely correct as I bought this in late October and it was running beginning November the price I have put into it is very fresh in my head lol!. I wish it was only 1500 also lol.

This is a list I started when I was putting the tank together.

Wow! That's the equivilent of my 13 years in the hobby I'm thinking. Why Why Why I try to get people to start slow when getting in. Start with junk and see if you really like it then move up gradually. And that's to people that have already been keeping fish for years looking to try Saltwater. Newbies never keeping fish even slower.

This hobby is for people settled in. Not hopping from residence to residence, or college to college. Or the emontinal.

I feel for you. Part out what you can. Get what you can and don't refuse decent offers. Realize your savings over the year by not having the tank and calculate that in your losses. Unless you know you're going to be settling down in the near future, hold on to the equipment and set it up later. Some guys take years building their hotrods or whatever. You might take years to set your tank up again. But you own it. Clean it and store it well.

Oh I'm settle in my house and I'm not moving. So here's long story short why I'm selling this. So I start off with a 10 gallon IM all in one, I love the couple clowns and shrimp and few pieces of coral. Well thats fully stocked right, I want bigger and I want to have tangs. So everyone tells me go with the biggest you can afford, so I do. I think I'm close to 10g's at this point (with all the little things you dont even think about at the time). So everything is going great I have a couple tangs, wrasse, clowns etc. Well the one tang breaks out in ich (I did QT him and I have multi QT tanks in my basement also) the tang dies and my whole tank is infested now. I didnt lose everything, my clowns and wrasse were ok. So I guess I should of pulled the clowns and wrasse out of the tank and left it fallow for 2 month or whatever but I didnt. So about a month goes by and I start replacing the tangs I had lost slowly not all at once of course. Everything is fine and BAM ICH again. So Im just done with tangs lol! I want my 10 or 20 gallon back with a couple clowns and call it good.

I would keep your current set up, just quarantine your left over fish,
And rid your DT of the ich. The 120 is Going to be easier to keep over any nano imo, specially in the Long run.
What your dealing with is part of the learning experience, just a speed bump on your journey to owning a successful reef tank.
Most of all reefers have gone through a similar experience.
Plus it seems like you have really sweet set up.

when my oldest son started high school i decided to purge 15 years of reefing. Most of the $ came from livestock. 40 feet of uhaul truck hauled off setups & high end equipment, some unopened, that went for 10 cents on the dollar, in a single shot. I was constipated for 15 years and was refreshed to push out all the crap. Im much slower to gather stuff now.

You should have started your post with this. Figure out your problem and keep marching. Problems you're having happen in any size tank. But if you want to down size, down size because you want to. Not because thinking problems will go away in a smaller tank. But don't think you're going to be happy with a little tank. Remember you weren't before thus the 120. So again. Iron out the problem and keep reefing.

I would part everything out. Its much harder finding someone to purchase a whole set up aquarium.

Yep. ^

I didn't post it on this forum but on a few others my build thread: "TOTM quality 6' SPS tank for under $1k? The 5.56 build thread; AKA a really bad idea"

Rules:
Any money I get from selling tank stuff can be spent on tank stuff without counting against the $1,000. Leftover materials in my garage will not count against the $1,000. My wife will be refereeing and the penalties will be harsh.

Anyways, my point. Many people asked: "why 30 months, you could do it a lot quicker" The answer is that I have been keeping fish and coral since I was 11 years old, less my last break 9 years and the one thing I know is there will be a crash, there is always a crash. Without a crash I could do it in probably 18-24 months but I need time to recover from the calamity. So far my biggest calamity was dinos. That and it's only been 6 months and I've spent $1,309.32 but I'm getting ready to sell a few frags soon so that number should go down.