What got you into reefkeeping?

[digital-audiophile]

Not sure if this has been talked about before, I'm sure it has but my attempt to find anything through the search engine were a failure.


Anyhow... It would be interesting to hear how other people got into this hobby. Cats and dogs are cute and fluffy and you can hold and play with them, but fish? Not very soft, not able to cuddle, don't really do tricks.. yet we spends thousands upon thousands of dollars to keep fish and coloured calcium sticks in our homes.

Myself? well...

When I was about 10 I had a small plastic hex tank that I had a couple little fish in.. I don't even remember what they were now. It didn't last that long because in the old school days every week I would help my dad scoop the fish into a glass of water and then we would empty the tank and rinse out the gravel and plastic plants.

That was the last of my fish experience until about almost six years ago now.

Strange story but I ended up in the hospital with pancreatitis.. long funny series of events around this but the rockyview hospital actually sent me into the alcoholics ward.... the main medical cause of pancreattis is alcoholism.. and even though I told them that I don't drink that much they didn't believe me (although all alcoholics say they don't drink much so I cannot blame them) Long story short two days later after a bunch of tests they found that my cholesterol was through the roof and that was because i was doing the Atkins diet at the time... great thing.. I lost over 40 pounds doing it but eating nothing but meat was killing me...

Anyhow.. not to ramble, but I got lots of flowers and goodies from Friends/family/coworkers and there was one really nice vase that I got. I had seen Beta fish in stores in vases with peace lilies so I thought I would give it a try! After about a week after I started this I read that lillies are poisonous to cats so it had to go.. so my wife took it to work for her desk... but by then the bug had bit!!

Instead of creating a fresh water tank however I thought I would try saltwater because when I was in big Al's to buy the beta I saw the salt section and was blown away that you could actually keep animals from the ocean in your own home.

So within a couple days I was at home with a 10 gallon AGA a coralife PC light and a couple pounds of live rock and a bag of sand.

About a week after this was set up I was luckily home at the time because I heard water dripping from across the room and saw that water was oozing out of the tank... I picked the whole thing up and carried it into the bath tub... this could have been the end of my adventure but instead I brought the tank back and got a new one in replacement.

Well here I am a number of years later and many gallons bigger (and thousands of dollars poorer) and still going strong! I love this hobby and have learned so much. I owe a great debt of gratitude to Canreef and many of the members here. I have had the chance to meet many cool people over the years and am thankful for all the advice I have got over the years. I am grateful for the vibrant reefing community in Calgary and the great LFS that we have in this city. I cannot tell you how nice it feels to walk into a store and be greeted by my first name... To have an owner to make time to stop what he is doing to come shake my hand and thank me for my business. I love nothing more that people in these stores know my daughters name (she is 22 months old). Heck I have been bringing my daughter to the LFS in Calgary since she was a week old... I will never forget one time when she was about three months old and my wife went into one of the stores and instead of having to carry he around the owners wife wanted to hold her and play with her while we were shopping... how many other hobbies could you find this kind of camaraderie!!!

I've met so many nice people that are passionate about reef keeping.. from starving students with hardly two pennies to rub together to people living in million dollar homes.

Please feel free to share what got you into this and what keeps you going.

[karazy]

good topic

well, it all started one day when i was nice and warm, but kinda squished up.
I then saw a bright light and before i knew it i was being held in a doctors cold hands.
I was taken home, and to my delight there was a fish tank set up

the point of this story is i've been around freshwater fish tanks for my entire life (thanks to my dad) and always enjoyed them.

my true story though starts when i was about 9. I was getting more and more interested in our 20 gallon, and then my dad finally gave me his 10 gallon which he had no luck with.
It was a 10 gallon "kit". pink gravel. plastic plants. also known as "the works"

so i started looking at fish stores (petland) for fish i liked. i wanted something carnivorous,ferocious, and mean.
First i wanted pirahnas, but knew they would outgrow the tanks. then i really wanted green terrors finally i decided to get a blue crayfish.

We set up the tank with white and pale green gravel, a lil castle, and some plastic plants. we got our crayfish, and brought him home.

Most would say i was bit by the bug by now, right? Wrong.
dont get me wrong, i loved my crayfish(named zoidberg) but i just wasn't crazy bout fish.

then it happened. I wanted a tank at my moms. i had kept bettas in bowls before at my moms but never any what i thought to be "real fish".

I was 11, and i wanted a goldfish bowl at my moms house. I really did. So my mom said could. But first i wanted to check if i could, so i went on a forum, and BAM! i got bit.

that goldfish bowl i asked for all that time ago never happened. why? because i kept changing my mind to bigger and better things.

My "goldfish bowl" is now a 29 gallon reef in the works, and im more obsessed than ever.



that's my story, and its all thanks to my dad, people like you on forums, and the wonderful LFS owners of Calgary

[sitandwatch]

First I hope I don't read the words "Finding Nemo"

My parents had a freshwater tank so that might be part of it but I think my scuba adventures are what really got in intersted.

Getting bitten by a Damsel at 100 feet under water made me want to catch the little bugger and take him home.

[christyf5]

I started a freshwater tank a number of years ago, and really got into cichlids for awhile. One of the local stores I started going to had saltwater, I ended up working there for awhile to help the owner out was to receive a saltwater setup in payment. When the store ended up closing before I could get it fully setup, I got the tank and was rushed into the hobby by the owner who suggested I take a couple of butterflies to cycle the tank. Unfortunately I haven't done enough reading and took them. On about the 5th day, I had read enough and realized the stupidity of what I was doing and gave the fish to a friend who had a bigger tank.

Left without a LFS I then started shopping at Petcetera. Well need I say more about that? I soon stopped.

About 4 months later I realized how my 48 gal cichlid tank would look so much better as a reef. About 6 months after that I found a great deal on a badly scratched 90 gallon tank.

I've fought through, dinoflagellates, various algaes, red bugs, monti eating flatworms, caulerpa and the most evilest of plagues, the sandbed .

If it weren't for the internet, Canreef and a myriad of reefers meeting I don't think I would have continued. Luckily I found you guys early on and I'm hooked!

[banditpowdercoat]

I like being different. And I allways liked aquariums. Never liked fishing, but could watch tanks for hrs. About 10 years ago, I tried FW. jumped in, over stocked, etc etc. After a coulple years I gave it up. FW just were not that interesting after a while. Not as colorfull, and just plants. A few years ago I resurected my old tank. mainly for our daughter. I figured maybe she would get interested, and have a 'pet' or 20 LOL. Well, then I figured I was at a point in my life that maybe I could afford a marine tank(Boy, was I wrong LOL) But I soon after, found Canreef and the rest is history.

[Myka]

I started with freshwater when I was a kid. I went with my mom on various occasions to the library, and always checked out their fish section. I noticed the saltwater books, and started reading those. The Conscientious Marine Aquarist is one I remember specifically. I would special order my saltwater fish and inverts at my LFS because they only carried freshwater, but would order something for me if I picked it up when it arrived. I also went down to the US (closest saltwater LFS to me) and spent my babysitting money there. It just kinda went from there.

[Lance]

Back in the late 80's I was into freshwater for quite some time. I tried them all: community tanks, cichlid tanks, Africans, breeding, etc. Saltwater was just starting to take off at about that time and I was thinking of trying it out. But before I got a chance we took on a new business and between trying to get the business off the ground and babies that kept appearing I just didn't have the time for the hobby anymore. I gave away all my tanks and was away from the hobby for a long time. Then a couple of years ago my son got a FW tank and I got the itch again. But this time for SW. Now that I've experienced both I could never go back to FW again. This forum and the people on it make this hobby even more enjoyable.

[justinl]

I got into reefing because I heard these grow ops could make you a bit of cash... boy was I wrong.

alright, so now that the mandatory reefer pun has been said and done with, the actual reason i got into this (and I am aware that a lot of people won't understand this) is because I wanted to keep a mantis shrimp. coolest bugs ever. maybe this'll help...

[mark]

As I said in this thread, was a trip to the Philippines.

[Ian]

OK so I was visiting my niece and we it was a crappy rainy day and we needed something to do. So she decided to watch a video. It was this cool movie about a clown fish and well it was actually animated you may have heard of it....Finding something I think was its name.........

K honestly I have had fresh water tanks for the better part if the last 25 years and they have always facinated me but SW seemed way to hard to do and way to costly. about a year and a half ago I got the itch again to try SW and started to read up. After reading and showing my wife everry pic. and article I found SHE finally told me to do something about it. So now I have a 30 gallon bio cube and am about to start a build of a 90 gallon plus sump system...and my wife......well she is just starting to realise how much this hobby can actually cost