What got you into reefkeeping?

[Leah]

Originally Posted by leezard

I watched "Finding Nemo".

*coughcough*

Ok, just kidding. Couldn't help it.

When I was little I wasn't allowed pets -- no puppy, no cat, no mice... we had a guinea pig for a little while, but one little fight with my sister and he was gone. That was the last of pets, despite my love for animals.

My dad just didn't want to spend the money on pets of any kind. One day, though, someone gave me this nifty bubblegum fish bowl and a betta. To my happiness, Dad let me keep it.

And he found a matching fishbowl for the other side of my head board! Awesome!

These guys were alive for about a year and my mother bought me a little 5 gallon fish tank. I never asked for help with any of these, and found out what I needed to do on my own. They were allowed to stay!

Fast forward five years, and I still had the tank and betta bowls. Granted, different fish, but they were still part of my life.

Fast forward another five years, I was living with my mom and my five gallon turned into a 10 gallon.

Fast forward ANOTHER five years, and the 10 gallon now held a gecko. Reptiles took over my life at this point, but I still had bettas.

Life got busy, reptiles abound, and when we moved to Wetaskiwin a year and a half ago, someone was selling her freshwater tank with all supplies for cheap, so I figured I'd give the fish community a try again. I had always admired salt water tanks, but knew little to nothing about them.

Last December a friend of mine was looking to give her 20 gallon saltwater tank away.

Here I am. Not much, but as much as I can have in the space we've got! I don't have the reef part of it, yet, but it's slowly building..... we need a light, first. And I'm still learning a whole lot, but I have the "one day" dream of a much, much larger saltwater fishtank.....

(So, really, Nemo had NOTHING to do with it. And Dave has named our percs "Bill and Ted" anyways, despite one of them being a female.... )

Opp's hit the wrong button, Good time to admit I am blonde.
But I have never laughed harder then when I read the part about your sister,
the fight and the untimely departure of the guinea pig as a result.

I have a brother so I can truly relate, I am still laughing. My parent's were
not nearly as clever as your's. If they had only thought of that!

[leezard]

If they had only thought of that!

It was literally a small argument of whole was going to feed him first.....

until I tripped up the stairs and got a nose bleed, anyways.

(Yes. I STILL trip up the stairs. Shhhhh.)

Dad wasn't too fond of pets, though..... loves them now, and will play with all of mine whenever he comes over.

[brizzo]

By some unusual course of events I ended up at a friend's cousin's house 3 cities over... lo and behold he had a very amazing 55 gallon reef setup.
Seeing a reef tank in person was the bug that bit me .. so it was fate!

[Leah]

Still laughing! And I won't tell anyone about the stair tripping if you don't!
I guess my parent's thought if I was bringing home stray's, I was far to busy to do
or try other stuff. So when my daughter wanted Discus and 5 mice I said sure honey.
She is growing up! ~ Not I, maybe tommorrow.

[Mrfish55]

Originally Posted by Leah

Still laughing! And I won't tell anyone about the stair tripping if you don't!
I guess my parent's thought if I was bringing home stray's, I was far to busy to do
or try other stuff. So when my daughter wanted Discus and 5 mice I said sure honey.
She is growing up! ~ Not I, maybe tommorrow.

Discus and mice? I know mice can swim and all but still, what an odd combo, carefull who you tell this too there is another member getting ripped right now for putting cichlids into saltwater.

[Leah]

OOPS! I forgot how clear you need to be here! LOL
She had the fish in a tank. And the mice in a home of their own, which reminds me of the
mice I had as a kid. I promised my parents they were brother and sister and could not
have babies!!!!

[fishoholic]

It's kinda odd that I'm as addicted to this hobby as I am.

As a young child my Uncle had a FW fish tank. I thought the guppies were pretty but sort of boring, and I always thought what good is a pet you can't pet. As a young teenager one of my best friends had a FW fish tank in her bedroom and I always thought it was the loudest most annoying thing ever

Fast forward to when my boyfriend moved in with me and he wanted to bring along his 10g FW tank. I told him no way fish tanks are annoying and noisy. After a few months though I felt bad for saying no to him and we bought a 20g FW kit to set up. After it was set up for awhile I started to realize that the fish were sort of fun to keep. So we set up and kept a few small FW tanks while we lived in my condo.

After awhile we sold the condo and bought a house. We kept the 20g FW tank for awhile but after a few trips to Big Als and admiring the SW section we thought about setting up a SW tank. We held off for a bit thinking it would be to hard and expensive (if only we knew then how expensive it would really be) but we ended up getting a good deal on boxing day on a 60g tank and we started our journey into SW.

Well shortly after getting into SW a friend of mine told me about canreef. We lurked around on the site for awhile at first then Steve started up his account and I would just use his account if I wanted to post anything. Then I thought I'd better create my own account. After reading a lot on here and getting very addicted I thought to myself that the 60g wasn't enough so we set up a 15g. The 15g wasn't great so we turned it into a nano cube. Well the nano cube wasn't big enough so it turned into a 30g cube. Meanwhile a lavender tang followed us home from the LFS and well a 60g isn't big enough for a tang, so that tank turned into a 120g with a sump. But guess what one tank is easier to take care of then 2 different tanks and really a 120g isn't big enough for all the fish I wanted so..... the 30g cube and the 120g turned into a 230g reef.

Well the 230g reef is nice but what's better then a 230g, two 230g So here I am 4 years later after first starting into the SW hobby, with many canreef friends, a heck of a lot of posts and two 230g tanks.

[Lydia]

I can't remember if I wanted a tank when I was a child, but I do remember always liking seahorses. Growing up I was allowed to have gerbils, but there was no money for anything like an aquarium. I moved around a bit after leaving home, finally settling in Alberta in a newly purchased house in 1992. 6 months later I took my young children into Pisces to buy a handful of colorful gravel for a cactus plant. And came out with a 25 gallon tank. It was on sale! And so it started... A few years later a 10 gallon fry tank came along. Both were FW, and I fell in love with livebearers (even brought some Endlers home on a plane from Ontario one year). And every trip to the LFS had me looking at the seahorses, whenever they were there... I knew that one day, when I had the time and the money, I would keep seahorses...

Well, that time came September 1st, 2007 - the day I made my last truck payment I got tank #3 - a 55 gallon bowfront corner unit. A real beauty. I quickly found out that captive bred seahorses were few and far between, so after a few months I bought a Royal Gramma to hold me till I found the right breeder. When that time came, a year after I had the tank set up, I bought tank #4 (20 gallon hex) to house the Royal Gramma (who I knew by then would be too aggressive with the seahorses). The seahorses were great! But they were not practicing safe sex, so I knew I had to separate the males from the females. Along comes tank #5 (25 gallon tall)... A bit of shuffling saw the Gramma moved to the 25 gallon, and the female seahorses into the hex. And since one should have a QT, tank #6 has been kicking around for awhile now, too. It currently stocks a peppermint shrimp and a clownfish (ha! Got a Nemo jab in here - LOL) that will eventually go in with the Gramma.

Tank #7 will be a much bigger tank, for now I think I want to keep a "Dory"... But shhhh, we don't talk about tank #7 just yet