I have three beardies in total so it's a bit hard to really explain a single beardies cost as I never had one beardie at one time (not counting the other two I had before).
(All these costs are literally just on the beardies, i have 4 other reptiles)
I dont know the cost of a 55 gallon as I already had one, but the cost of a 50 gallon was about 189.99-229.99 each. I bought two of those for my eldest two beardies once they were getting too big for the small 55 gallon.
I then reused that 55 gallon for my youngest beardie, I had her in there for quite a bit before downgrading her to a 20 gallon that i had (Needed to upgrade my BTS), she was not happy about the small space, but learned to get used to it.
A few months later I upgraded her and my adult female to 75 gallons so that was about 97 for one tank and then 200+ for the other. There was a few months in-between and the sale at petco ended so I ended up getting another 75 gallon at petsmart.
Currently my male is still housed in a 50 gallon, luckily I will not have to buy another tank as I will be reusing a third 75 gallon that currently houses a juvenile tegu.
When I first got my two eldest beardies I was feeding them mostly superworms till thats all they would accept for about 10 months of their life. That was about 20 dollars every 3 weeks to feed those two.
Then I finally got them to eat crickets and that was around the time I got my youngest so I was getting about 2,000 crickets every 2-3 weeks to feed all three of them. And that was about 25 each time I had to buy them.
Crickets are what I mainly feed them, however I do feed dubia roaches when I have enough (I have a colony so that doesn't cost anything), and then I also feed BSFL when I can get them and thats about 20 dollars more for 2,000 of them. With about 4,000 feeders that can last me up to a month.
I spent about 20-40 dollars on a zoomed 10.0 compact bulb thinking that was a good idea when I first got them, but ended up only using it for a week until my tube light came when I learned it literally was worthless.
Tube light was about 20-30 dollars, fixture I know for a fact was about 40 dollars.
Every 6 months it costed 20-30 each dollars to replace the reptisun T5 HO 10.0 46" tube light, now it costs me every 12 months probably around 40-50 dollars each to replace a Arcadia T5 HO 14% 46" tube light.
Luckily substrate costs aren't much other than a role or two of paper towels. I use both tile and paper towels, I believe the tile I got is about 20-60 dollars each. I have 4 pieces of tile, two in the youngest's enclosure, and one each in the female and male's enclosures.
Although when I first got my two eldest beardies I think i spent at least 40 dollars on a sand mat that I ended up throwing out and switching for tile and paper towels.
As for heating, I spent around 12 dollars on a worthless red 150 watt bulb on the first night thinking it was too cold for them. I have yet to apologize on forcing my grandma to take me to the store for it.. I only used it for a single night before throwing it in the closet.
I bought a 150 watt regular basking bulb for 8 dollars for during the day. Ended up getting another when I got another enclosure to seperate my two eldest beardies, they both lasted about 6 months on a 14 hour on and 10 hour off schedule.
So thats about 8 dollars every 6 months each on a reptile 150 watt branded basking bulb.
Now if anyone thinks about breeding at all, thinking you have at least enough money to setup tanks, I advise you not to unless you can really, really afford it all.
I now have 27 eggs in an incubator, so I'm about to buy 9,000 food items when they get close to hatching to at least last me maybe a month? The cost came up to about 115 which is cheaper than I expected but for however long I have them I'm going to have to spend 115 dollars monthly on just food. Which is 5,000 BSFL, 3,000 crickets, and 1,000 dubia roaches all in small sizes. As they grow the food items have to be larger which costs more.
(By the way this is only one clutch of eggs, they can have up to at least 6 clutches however because they bred over a year ago I'm guessing the sperm wasn't as effective in creating a lot)
Also another thing I'd like to mention, if you want two beardies and think you can save money having them together for at least a few months and their opposite genders just know you risk what ended up happening to me a year later after they bred at only 6-7 months of age, you also are risking aggression, and biting, and laying on top of each other to get the best lighting and death no matter the gender.
