what drew you into marine tanks?

[Invigor]

for me, it was the clams.. I saw a clam in a local's tank that sucked me in like a vortex.

[christyf5]

For me it was a marine betta at one our local stores. Eventually I realized he wasn't the fish for me but I still love them.

[snaggle]

for me it was the challenge and the clown fish. but nemo ruined them for me :evil:

Brad

[Coldwater]

The morays dragged me in.

Matt

[Willow]

regal angel.

[Murminator]

Coral did it for me :mrgreen:

[Willow]

Coral did for me :mrgreen:

i would like to have said coral but when i started keeping marine tanks there wasn't much reef type stuff available to the general public. i think feather dusters and cleaner shrimp were considered out there.

[AJ_77]

For sure the FISH - hypnotic, dazzling, astounding, a stoner's dream. :mrgreen:

[Cap'n]

I had been without a fish tank for many years when a guy I worked with told me he would sell me his complete saltwater system. I had no idea it was now so easy to keep marine fish, so I jumped at the chance!

[takphan]

after a visit to Sea World and Birch Aquarium at UCSD's Scripps Institute, they gave me the nudge to jump from fresh water to salt water.

before that we are just contend with cichlid and angels

very glad that the coversion took place :)


Tak

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Seeing live seahorses & yellow headed jawfish at the Vancouver Aquarium, in the 70s. Kept 7 f/w but loved my 2 s/w tanks more in the 80s & early 90s.

Then, watching "Finding Nemo" with my wife Irene a couple of years ago. Back up to 4 s/w tanks. :biggrin:

Anthony

PS. Now I have pairs of seahorses & yellow headed jawfish! :multi:

[Ken]

Hi, I was always fascinated with aquariums at an early age.I started the hobby with freshwater in 1970 not knowing saltwater existed for aquarium. By 1980, I considered myself, bred many freshwater fishes and was quite successful, I needed to move on, with the next level of aquarium world. The salt attack was on offically in 1983. Dead bleached coral was the look for aquascaping back then. By the late 1980 early 1990 the first so called Dutch mini reef as they called it then was what I achieved. Built with the first introduced George Smit Wet Dry Filtration System. Anyone still remembers him? My first Metal Hadlides 175 watt 5500K Coralife bulb. Books by John Tullock, Dr Cliff Emmens, Albert J Thiel and Hans Baensch. These aquarist hobbyist themselves are selling and promoting their own products.A 6500K bulb was consider a WOW back then. Good memories, a lot of uncertain future of this hobby for the survival of these wild creatures. But look at us now 2005, propagation, growth and thriving aquariums from dedicated aquarist as yourself. We should be proud of our achievements. I haven't look back at freshwater since the 70. Can someone tell me if guppies thrive in pH of 7.89 or 7.23? Regards Ken

[EmilyB]

I guess really the mandarin. I saw one and couldn't get over the paint job... :eek:

[j83]

The saltwater section always looked better than the f/w section. The fish are 100x more interesting to watch. Always thought they were more difficult and more expensive until I started reading up on it . . . although the expensive part is still true! If I threw the same amount of actual money into an empty box that I've spent on this hobby I would have a beautiful DSB of loonie and toonies and a nice sea of blue, green, purple and red bills that I could dive into :lol:

[Beverly]

In the mid-90's, there was a lps five blocks from the first house we lived in. We would walk over every so often to oogle the fish in their fishroom, especially their exotic marine fish and corals section.

After we moved to a larger house, set up a successful 110g indoor goldfish pond and a 180g planted tank that failed. The 180g then went to keeping oscars. Kept going back to that lps, really the only one we knew of that kept marine stuff, to oogle the marine fish some more and to talk with the nerdy guy who ran the place. He actually taught as quite a bit, though his knowledge was rather limited to the equipment he had in the store. Found a marine newsgroup and read everything I could and talked with as many people online as possible. Within about a year and a half of moving, set up our first reef, a 75g.

Moved to another abode, sold all the fw stuff and set up the 180g as a reef. Haven't looked at freshwater fish since :biggrin:

[Reefhawk1]

I have kept fish since I was very young. I started with fresh water housing gold fish, piranahs, Cichlids and over the years went through almost every freshwater fish out there. When a new fish store opened up in my old home town he started to bring in some exotic saltwater fish and that is what got me hooked. I belive it was a blue devil damsel that cought my eye and what hooked me was a blue Madarin Fish. And now folks I am addicted :mrgreen: Damn Saltwater Hobby :eek:

Stan

[whaase]

I have to thank CanadanMan :biggrin: I saw his tank and I was mistified by all the life in a SW tank. And so my expensive hobby began.

Walter

[Zerandise]

A snowflake eel got me into the hoby in the 80's with my undergravel filter and shop light with bleached corals. The bugs however got me into reefs. The crawlers. Man i just cant get enough of them. from pods to red eye hairy crabs. makes no matter. If it were up to me my rocks would be crawling with critters and nothing else. Did i forget the worms? Yup its the bugs....

[BMW Rider]

The colours, definitely the colours. Freshwater fish seem so plain and dull compared to the vibrant colouring of marine fish and corals.

[danny zubot]

Wow! I share many of the reasons as so many others, but I must agree with Deb about the Manderine. I had FW tanks growing up and when in my early 20s found African cichlids to be very cool so I stuck with them. Although I still love African's I needed to move up in the world and it was the Manderine they had at Tanks'a Lot that persuaded me to start thinking about marine life. It was a couple of years before I took the plunge but I'm glad I did.

[Samw]

Deuce Bigalow

[Willow]

Deuce Bigalow

that was a sweet rig :mrgreen:

[TAZ]

My wife and I got married on the beach in the Bahamas. Every single day we spent snorkling around the reef just outside our hotel. As soon as we got back home we started doing research on SW tanks.

[BCOrchidGuy]

I like the taste...

Doug

[megatron_55]

Hey all . . . Finding Nemo was my main reason . . .but after I went to a LFS to buy "Nemo" . . . I saw corals and I was like . . . WOW!! :onfire: