Bob Lauson
Active Member
- Joined
- Oct 31, 2017
- Messages
- 432
- Reaction score
- 757
- Location
- Ada, MI
- What state or country do you live in
- Michigan
I picked out the aquarium and negotiated for its location in the house. I select all the equipment and my wife is a little involved in picking out corals but it's mostly me. I do the maintenance. If there is an issue with the tank like a leak, it usually occurs when I am out of town. I am not sure I could sustain myself in this hobby if I was on an island in my own home. So the question is how do you keep your family involved in your obsession when almost all of the emotional investment is yours?
My wife enjoys looking at the life in the tank and she and I will spend time talking with the TV off and glass of wine around the aquarium. She enjoys some of the flowing corals so I make sure those are incorporated. I try and make sure we at least discuss some of my aquascaping thoughts before implementing.
My grand kids (ages 1, 2, and 4) live far away so they are only at the house two to four times a year. So when they come I want to make sure they love the aquarium. I like keeping the glass clean but with the grand kids are here they splash a little bit when I let them feed the fish or they just pretend they are going to look down from the top and then go for a hand splash. My 1 year old grand daughter just likes to soak her hand in the water. In my sump room, my 2 year old grandson likes to stick his hands in the filter socks, my 4 year old grand daughter likes tasting the salt in the bucket or from areas of salt creep. We talk about the smelly fish poop in the skimmer.
There's other things I do, but am interested in what everyone else does to engage your families.
My wife enjoys looking at the life in the tank and she and I will spend time talking with the TV off and glass of wine around the aquarium. She enjoys some of the flowing corals so I make sure those are incorporated. I try and make sure we at least discuss some of my aquascaping thoughts before implementing.
My grand kids (ages 1, 2, and 4) live far away so they are only at the house two to four times a year. So when they come I want to make sure they love the aquarium. I like keeping the glass clean but with the grand kids are here they splash a little bit when I let them feed the fish or they just pretend they are going to look down from the top and then go for a hand splash. My 1 year old grand daughter just likes to soak her hand in the water. In my sump room, my 2 year old grandson likes to stick his hands in the filter socks, my 4 year old grand daughter likes tasting the salt in the bucket or from areas of salt creep. We talk about the smelly fish poop in the skimmer.
There's other things I do, but am interested in what everyone else does to engage your families.
). I do all things related to maintenance but she has a spreadsheet (school teacher)she set up so she knows exactly what to do if I’m gone on a fishing trip for more than 2 days. My 21 year old is keeping a 10 gal freshwater tank in her dorm at UCSB, with a cichlid, catfish and pleco. My 25 year old took my 50 gal I had stored in the garage and set it up as a cichlid tank along with a few catfish and a pleco. The 10 gal has been running for a year now and the 50 gal has been running for a few years now before that she had a couple 10 gal tanks. The amazing thing to me is they haven’t had a fish die in over 5 years, they must have been listening to me when I would give them tips throughout the years. My older daughter just brought to my attention the other day she’s thinking of going salt as she would like to have the colorful fish and corals she sees in my tank and at the lfs’s display tanks, plus she said she can save money by having me give her frags of my corals
. My wife actually brought up getting a bigger tank to replace the one in our bedroom, I said we really don’t have the room but I guess she’s been analyzing this because she said we can mount the tv up on the wall and move the dresser the tv sits on outta the room and the new tank can encompass that entire area, I’m thinking a 225 gal should fit, now she’s got my brain thinking about it but I’m content with my 92 gal Cadlights right now. Here’s a pic for reference of our setup currently.
