You can pickup a 10 gallon tank, heater, air pump and a couple of sponge filters for around $40 or so. You either need to have a somewhat decent setup for breeding/raising fry, or just stick to adult fish. It would be hard to use a 1 or 2 gallon setup for breeding since it would become crowded easily and would be hard to keep heated, etc.
You maintain it by keeping that extra sponge filter going in your established tank. That sponge filter will be cycled and ready for your 10 gallon whenever you need it (assuming it's been running in the established tank for 2-3 weeks to get bacteria growing in it). You can leave the 10 gallon empty until you need it, just set it up and use that sponge filter and it's ready to go.
You also should find out if you can sell/trade your fry to your LFS. Once you are successful at breeding them, you will have too many to house yourself and will need to get rid of some of them. Some stores will give you store credit and some will straight out buy the babies from you, just need to ask around and see what you can work out.