What got you into reefkeeping?

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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.