What got you into keeping a reef tank?

[pgr11]

I had a FW tank growing up. Kept it all through high school untill a mass disease wiped out the entire tank. Bummed me out pretty bad and I thought No more tanks for me. My wife ( fiance at the time ) had loved the tank as well and was bummed I wasn't going to rebuild. I had thought about SW back then but not for a no cash kid. Fast forward 17-18 years My wife had been wanting a tank again. She bugged and bugged me to set something up but I kept saying no and finally she stopped. Then The more I thought about it I wanted one. So I started looking at tanks and setups to see what had changed in all these years. Funny thing is now my wife was like no not goona happen. Well I decided to go to a lfs that was close to ask about the new things available. They had a nice reef DT that I could not stop looking at, so I asked "How hard is it to really keep a reef tank?"
She told me that things had progressed soooooo much that it was almost easier then a fw setup and no real cost difference. Hahahahahahaahahahaha She lied. She quoted me a price on a reef setup but I decided to hit up cl and found some forums. Found a 40t tank on cl with almost everything fo 50 and bought it. I then started to realize that most of the info this store was giving me was wrong so decided not to return. meantime the 40 seemed too small my wife was thinking it was too big LOL. The 40 never even got wet when I fould a 60 and brought it home got it setup and started cycling. My wife was now coming around and started to get very interested in the different fish we could keep and coral as well. Even then I knew some day I would want to go larger but figured pushing thing now would not go well with her. We were learning alot from the boards and some books we got to read up on reef tanks. Then It happened she said one night I could see us going bigger........... Off to the computer I went to find a 120. The 60 had just finished cycling but we decided to transfer everything over to the 120 and start cycling over. This tank was great and we soon had a thriving tank. ( with some set backs of course) The tank started to look a little cramped and my wifes love for the hobby is now huge and she is buying different coral and placing them all over the place. We soon realized that our tank was going to be too small for what we ultimately wanted. Tax return came in and it was time for our dream tank. A custom 265 gal was decided on with led lighting steel stand The whole 9 yards everything new from top to bottom. So now we have a gorgeous custom tank in our home and my wife and I are in heaven. We have tons of space to fill and plenty of room for all the fish we want. Oh did I mention this all started last may With me walking into a lfs. What a difference a year makes.
The other good thing is we found a store that is awesome gives tons of great advice and is more interested in your tank thriving then making a sell. Plus he's a neighbor and makes deliveries when I need stuff. Awesome

 

[Cherub]

My eyes always wandered to the salt section at LFS's. The colors were a thousand times better than my freshwater tank... So I googled saltwater tank startup and here I am a year later lol

 

[srusso]

I had a FW tank growing up. Kept it all through high school untill a mass disease wiped out the entire tank. Bummed me out pretty bad and I thought No more tanks for me. My wife ( fiance at the time ) had loved the tank as well and was bummed I wasn't going to rebuild. I had thought about SW back then but not for a no cash kid. Fast forward 17-18 years My wife had been wanting a tank again. She bugged and bugged me to set something up but I kept saying no and finally she stopped. Then The more I thought about it I wanted one. So I started looking at tanks and setups to see what had changed in all these years. Funny thing is now my wife was like no not goona happen. Well I decided to go to a lfs that was close to ask about the new things available. They had a nice reef DT that I could not stop looking at, so I asked "How hard is it to really keep a reef tank?"
She told me that things had progressed soooooo much that it was almost easier then a fw setup and no real cost difference. Hahahahahahaahahahaha She lied. She quoted me a price on a reef setup but I decided to hit up cl and found some forums. Found a 40t tank on cl with almost everything fo 50 and bought it. I then started to realize that most of the info this store was giving me was wrong so decided not to return. meantime the 40 seemed too small my wife was thinking it was too big LOL. The 40 never even got wet when I fould a 60 and brought it home got it setup and started cycling. My wife was now coming around and started to get very interested in the different fish we could keep and coral as well. Even then I knew some day I would want to go larger but figured pushing thing now would not go well with her. We were learning alot from the boards and some books we got to read up on reef tanks. Then It happened she said one night I could see us going bigger........... Off to the computer I went to find a 120. The 60 had just finished cycling but we decided to transfer everything over to the 120 and start cycling over. This tank was great and we soon had a thriving tank. ( with some set backs of course) The tank started to look a little cramped and my wifes love for the hobby is now huge and she is buying different coral and placing them all over the place. We soon realized that our tank was going to be too small for what we ultimately wanted. Tax return came in and it was time for our dream tank. A custom 265 gal was decided on with led lighting steel stand The whole 9 yards everything new from top to bottom. So now we have a gorgeous custom tank in our home and my wife and I are in heaven. We have tons of space to fill and plenty of room for all the fish we want. Oh did I mention this all started last may With me walking into a lfs. What a difference a year makes.
The other good thing is we found a store that is awesome gives tons of great advice and is more interested in your tank thriving then making a sell. Plus he's a neighbor and makes deliveries when I need stuff. Awesome

Great story, thank you for sharing.

 

[srusso]

I would have to say that keeping FW discus and my brother who pushed me over the edge. I had researched it a few times when I had a beginner planted tank running... A few years later my brother switched over to SW before me, he hardly got his tank cycled and I had sold off my discus and 55 gallon tank. I would have kept both if I could...

 

[reefsandrotts]

1 more thing to add to the list of things that stress me out....LOL

 

[Braves Fan]

I had a 55g Fresh Water tank and had been telling my wife that I was growing tired of the tank. The fish all looked bland, fake plants, a scuba diver that had air bubbles coming out of his head a chest on the bottom with air bubbles coming out of it. Then we went to the wife's Nephew's house for Thanksgiving dinner and BAM. He had a 20g Saltwater tank The fish (Damsels lol) were beautiful, the cleaner shrimp were awesome, real plants zoas, a Colt coral and a Clown Fish. Two weeks later I gave the 55g to the son in law and bought a 125g saltwater tank. I was kinda afraid though, the wife's Nephew said his tank cost him a bunch of money and everything he bought died, but that didn't deter me, I was going to have it. After getting into the hobby, I understoood why the Nephews stuff all died, he was doing nothing right. I have never been happier and can't get enough of this hobby.

 

[BarbH]

Really love reading everyone's stories.

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[Reefkeeper14]

Just a few years ago i convinced my parents to let me get the old 20gallon(which i thought was an absolutly huge aquarium) from the attick. after keeping goldfish for years i wanted to do neon tetras and so i got into tropical freshwater fish. the next summer me and my mom went garage sell shopping and found a 35gallon hexagon with filter for 50 dollars so we bought itand i decided i wanted this one to be a saltwater fish tank. it was at this time that i started getting into some reefing forums and seeing all the amzing corals and what not. So the next year for christmas i persuaded my parents to buy me a used 210 gallon fish tank on craigslist it was a great deal it came with fish filters and everything else for just 750. since then i have upgrade the lights to leds and am now starting to keep corals and clams and everything else. its such an awsome hobby im so glad i am able to be involved in it

 

[feh]

When I bought the rimless tank my original plan was to use a wet/dry sump with the overflow in a planted tank. I had seen a tank I liked quite a bit set up this way and was it was very sucessful. I liked the surface skimming ability of the overflow and the better gas exchange you get from using a wet/dry sump. Plus the ability to hide all the equipment in the sump without having to buy specialized inline equipment which kills the flow on canister filters. The added benefit of a sump making things easier to work in for maintenance was also appealing. So after I bought the tank I picked up a 4 bulb Tek and several bags of ADA aquasoil and started looking at what kind of scape I wanted to do with the tank.

Well anyone thats seen the Deepblue Edge rimless tanks knows how huge the overflow box is and I had special ordered mine only seeing pics. I had a hard time figuring out a way to hide the overflow without killing the chance of a nice scape. So I started looking at reef tanks for ideas on how to hide the overflow box. The more I looked the more I wanted to set up a reef tank which I had been wanting to do for about a year before I bought the new tank, but usually talked myself out of it. I had been reading / researching things on several of the reef forums since 2010. Pretty much reading anything I could get my hands on to do with lighting, flow, placement, chemistry, etc. So between the bug really biting me hard and having issues with figuring out a nice way to scape the tank I changed directions and started researching and buying equipment for a reef tank. Few months and a few grand later I had a tank filled with dry rock and saltwater and a few pieces of rubble so seed the tank with along with a piece of shrimp to help the cycle. So 5 months later I've got about 16 frags and a few fish. All of which seem to be doing well aside from the blenny incident.
I don't regret changing my mind at all. To be honest I find reef keeping less work. When things go wrong its about the same amount of work. I also think part of the success with this tank is several months spent researching reliable equipment before I buy it and designing things to make it as easy as possible to maintain.

 

[Steelerfan747]

I had a freshwater tank and walked into a lfs that had fresh and saltwater tanks. I saw their display tank that was filled with such beautiful fish and gorgeous lps corals. Within a week I was switching it out for a saltwater system and never looked back since.

 

[steamer51]

I've been interested in aquatic life as long as I can remember and I'm pretty old so this may take a while. As a small child vacations were always at the lake and there was a creek close to my house so I spent a lot of time wading and catching crawdads, freshwater clams and minnows to bring home in a bucket and keep alive as long as I could. When I was 12 my grandmother got sick and my mother and I moved to California from Ky to help take care of her. Lived in LA (Canoga Park about 10 miles from Hollywood) for the next five years and my explorations and collections moved to the beach (Malibu, Zuma etc.) but nothing lived very long without fresh saltwater so I concentrated on discovering and studying what I could find while it lived in tidepools, rock formations and the surf. My parents were divorced when I was 8 so every summer my dad would send me a plane ticket to fly back to Ky and spend the whole summer with him so I was back to collecting at the lake and creek. Things were a lot safer back then and I doubt if they would let a 12 year old fly across the country by himself now but it was no problem. For those five years every time I got on a plane one of the stewardesses would introduce herself and tell me if I needed anything to let her know. I would wait on the plane until all the other passengers got off and the stewardess would walk with me to make sure I got on the next plane OK or deliver me to my dad if it was the last stop. I am still ashamed of the thoughts a young teenager has about attractive stewardesses.

When I was 14 I started keeping a 10 gallon community freshwater tank that my mother would feed while I was in Ky every summer. High School in California at the time required you to have a major just like if you were in college and I chose to be a Science major. Most of my interest and efforts were in the life sciences and I learned a lot about freshwater and saltwater life because I wanted to. Being a teenager in the late 60's in LA (yes, I remember most of it) I can't say I was a model student but the things that really interested me I applied myself to. Didn't do anything fancy with the 10 gallon, just kept as many different kinds of small fish that I could and learned the basics of water chemistry, maintenance and simple equipment operation and repair.

The summer before my senior year of high school we moved back to Ky for good and the fish were given away. I didn't keep anything other than a few things I collected at lakes and the creek my senior year. After High School I joined the Navy and was sent to Pensacola Fla. for six months of advance training and spent a lot of time on the beach looking for different things in their water. Did a little snorkeling that I learned in the lakes of Ky and Tn and enjoyed the different life I found there compared to California beaches. I left there for a year and a half on a ship in the Mediterranean traveling around Europe and North Africa and exploring their beaches as well as other sight seeing. Ships normally take a six month cruise to the Med and then come back to the states but the ship I was on carried the Commander of the Sixth Fleet so it stayed over there all the time. Most ports that sailors visit once on a cruise I was able to visit three or four times. Great time of my life but no aquariums on board a ship.

Didn't keep any aquariums for a few years until after I settled down and got married at almost 24. Adult and free to do whatever I wanted I started picking up small aquariums at yardsales and learning about different freshwater fish and their requirements. I am still a tank hoarder and own many tanks that I picked up for a song and haven't set up yet. For quite a few years I would set up another tank when I saw something new that I wanted to keep and put other things in there that had the same water requirements. Never any large tanks, 10's, 15's, 20 long and highs and some 29's. Livebearers only, small Amazon tetras etc, Australians, Rift Lake (African) Cichlids, small South American Cichlids, small Discus planted, Brackish, Vivariums with a land and waterfall planted area for salamander newts with some small fish and one with a sandy beach for mudskippers to crawl out on. I also collected darters and other small native fish and clams from creeks nearby and even tried bluegill, sunfish and a small Kentucky Bass. I tried some Killifish for a while but never could get them to spawn and since most only live for a year they died out. I tried to match the natural habitat of each tank with decorations and water chemistry. Low PH fish had peat moss filters to keep it down and I didn't have to do much for higher PH livebearers, just a touch of salt, since our tapwater here comes out about 7.0.

By the time I was in my mid 30's I started working part time at an LFS for four years. Whenever I got off from my regular job (sometimes overtime) I would go there and work until they closed at 9:00 pm actually leaving about 9:30 after closing. My love of all things wet hit the jackpot. I very rarely received any cash on payday. The owner told us anything we wanted to just take home and write it down and every two weeks on payday he would subtract the wholesale price of livestock and equipment and pay us what we had left. Sometimes I would have taken home more than I made and I'd tell him I would slow down for the next two weeks so he could take the rest of what I owed him out then. My seven tank fish room grew to twelve tanks including my first saltwater tank. A few fish (the wrong ones for such a small tank), snails, crabs, pods that came with the macro algae I put in there and even an anenome that didn't last long without the proper lighting we know now is necessary. Undergravel (with powerheads not airstones) and HOB filters, crushed coral substrate and coral skeletons for decoration. I didn't know about live rock back in those days (mid 1980s) and didn't spend the ridiculous amount of money they wanted on the newest filtration technology, the wet/dry filter. $400-$600 to set it up for a 55 and you need to keep in mind that at that time minimum wage (my pay) was $4 an hour. I would spend $25 on a $50 fish (nice discus or synodontis catfish) but no way was I going to spend that kind of money even at half price.

By the 1990's I was no longer working at the LFS and as each tank died out it was broken down and stored in the attic. I went many years without a tank except for short term set ups to keep what the kids came home from the creek with. In 2005 my youngest daughter asked me to set up a tank for some fish a friend gave her so I had a 29 to take care of for a while. Water worked it's way back into my blood with that tank and I started researching what it would take to set up a reef tank. I love to read about things I'm interested in and have spent as much as 18 hours straight in front of the computer leaving only for bathroom breaks and to get some food to eat while I learn about different water requirements and what corals and fish are compatable. My 55 was finally set up in 2006 and my research now is planning what to put in future tanks I haven't set up yet. My tank is not the typical reef that is the center of the decor in the home. It is a raw bones basic setup with some easy corals and fish that resides in our basement unfinished laundry room easily accessable to the RODI unit on the wall behind the washer and right next to the drain in the floor that goes to the sump pump under the house in case I have a spill or overflow. What I love about it most is all the little things that show the diversity of life in water that I searched for so much as a child.

 

[revolution]

I have always had a fishtank. And I loved how it always relaxed me. What got me in to the saltwater side was the refugiums. Seeing all the life that happens after the lights go off is very intriguing to me. I love corals, but what I really love is seeing everything 'come Alice's when the lights go out.

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[revolution]

Alive! Stupid auto correct

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[lightsluvr]

Two words: Finding Nemo.

LL

 

[BarbH]

Who else would like to share what got them into this hobby?

 

[Reef.Diver]

Grew up near the coast and learned to scuba dive as a young teenager. Seeing a living reef in person is a life changing experience that i credit with sparking my interest in keeping saltwater aquariums. Started with a 55g FOWLR tank when i was 13. set up many tanks in the 10 years since the original. Began with softies then LPS and in the past couple years have really become interested in SPS. Living on a college student budget makes this hobby increasingly more difficult to maintain. Against all odds, i'm currently cyclying my dream 120.

 

[BarbH]

:bump: who else would like to share how they got into the hobby

 

[BarbH]

Since we have had quite a few new members join recently thought would give this a :bump2: to give our new members a chance to share what got them involved with reef keeping

 

[Built347]

Well I've had freshwater for 7-8 years... my interest in freshwater was slipping.. I had been curious about salt for a long time... just scared of it... people hype up the difficulty of marine tanks for sure.... anyway.. after a nice bonus from work and buddy willing to take giant cichlids I added salt to my first 125... then came lights and then came rock... then some softies ...boy was I lost... funny looking back at it.. lol.. anyway.. 530+ gallons later my house stays fairly humid and I smell salt always... hahaha .. I love it..

 

[dmatt88]

I kept cichlids in college n bred them. Then after getting outta the hobby for a number of years I saw a buddy's fowlr tank. Had a Picasso trigger n I was hooked. Kept fo for a long time n a few years back I started adding corals. Its been an obsession since.

....... I'm Matt n i have a reef obsession.