also even if tarantulas WERE as intensive as keeping tropical fish, they'd still be an affordable pet.
I own a 190L tank and it costs maybe 10 bucks a month to run if I convert it to US dollars. Buy the additives in bulk, and established tanks don't need constant microbial balancing which tends to be the expensive bit.
Obvs I have to also factor in fish food on top of that but I keep only herbivorous or omnivorous species which happily eat algae wafers and slightly more meaty cory wafers, I have an established worm population in the detritus that supplements the omnivores food, etc. etc.
Fish themselves can be expensive but most small species live for at least 2-5 years, and big species can be up to 30 years, so if you're constantly having to restock, you're the problem.
My cat costs me 10x as much.
Also once you get the cleaning process down to a science it takes maybe 1-2 hours per week max. Not a big deal
I always love hearing about fish keeping. Love fish and their tanks, but the whole thing intimidates me and I'm terrible at it, so it's fun to live vicariously through you guys.
Tarantulas are so non-labor intensive it's almost perverse. They don't like to be handled and they don't like to be bothered, so we're talking "spot clean as needed, deep clean once every two years, maybe."
