!!!! WHY OH WHY !!!!

Diesel · Jan 10, 2017

Simple question I would think............. that can bring up some interesting stories

WHY OH WHY you got in this hobby?
With many new members and of course the diehard members can answer this as well.
Is it because of your neighbor or work, maybe your life partner or boy/girl friend or perhaps your dog?
Can it be because this AMAZING site R2R or is it you local forum group/FB?

WHY OH WHY you got in this hobby..............

dricc · Jan 10, 2017

My brother is sixteen years older than me. When i went to his apartment in the mid to late seventies he had two domino damsels and two blue devils and i couldn' t believe these amazing fish were from the ocean. My dad and i were hooked. Previously to this we had tropical freshwater fish. That started when we won a goldfish at a carnival and that led to the tropical fish.

dricc · Jan 10, 2017

Reefing is because of forums like this and this forum in particular. The info here is amazing. This is the internet at it's best.i. am almost ready to resume marine and am trying a reef tank for the first time.

Lowstorm · Jan 10, 2017

Back in 2002 I was heavily into planted tanks, migrated to brackish for a puffer...
I saw some pics of reef tanks, wanted to try something new. My first saltwater fish was a fuzzy dwarf lion in a 29 gallon.

d2mini · Jan 10, 2017

I'm a glutton for punishment and don't believe in saving for my kid's college education.

Nah, i just had fw as a kid and always wanted sw some day. Once I could finally afford it I jumped in and have been hooked since.
It's not only more interesting to me than fw but more challenging.

Diesel · Jan 10, 2017

Great stories so far.

Matt Miller · Jan 10, 2017

Lots of fresh water tanks growing up, always dreamed of saltwater.

Got into tool and die apprenticeship program and told myself I would finally do it once I got my certificate.

Couple years late but got my tank setup and working on it now.

RamsReef · Jan 10, 2017

I looked at my bank account and noted I hadn't made any foolish purchases in a while.

rayn · Jan 10, 2017

My daughter was born! I'm a gear head and have always wrenched on cars, mostly old air cooled VW. I would spend hours in the garage and the wife did her thing. When my daughter came along I finally jumped from fresh to saltwater tanks knowing I would send more time inside with the tank/s and her teaching her about them.

Still in it to this day and she knows the fish and corals as I do. Her favorite fish so far are dwarf lionfish, though she can pic out many more.

TRPlacek · Jan 10, 2017

My son is the main reason. I was working out of town for a long period and told my son when I got back that I would buy him his fish tank that he wanted. Now I was originally thinking a small freshwater fish tank buuuuutt then my neighbor talked me into going saltwater and my kid loved the saltwater fish. I said this was going to be a fowlr tank though as I didn't want the hassle of trying to grow coral as I have never been good at growing anything.

Weeellll about 2 months after tank being setup my neighbor brought over some frog spawn and a few different digitata. I told him they were just going to die. But to my surprise they not only stayed alive but started to grow... annnd i along with my son and wife were hooked!

happyhourhero · Jan 10, 2017

Started in freshwater and as a kid, any time I would see a saltwater tank I would run over to it and stare until I got pulled away. Finally when I was in college, I started up a reef and had marginal success for a few years. Life then happened and I didn't have a tank for a few years.

Now I'm married and needed a hobby so here I am.

Branespikin · Jan 10, 2017

Lived by the beach last 15 years in Croatia. Moved to NY and missed the smell of saltwater and sand. So this is my little piece of the ocean in my apt!!

Waters · Jan 10, 2017

My dad got me into them....he always kept tanks for as long as I could remember

jenreefer · Jan 10, 2017

I was always an avid scuba diver, found the ocean to be the coolest place ever.

Also, it fills my obsessive/ compulsive needs very nicely.

Reefrookie220 · Jan 10, 2017

My wife and I had a ...terrible habit.(takes some longer than others to grow up)

After our first child and repeated broken vows to break this habit, I decided to replace said habit with a hobby. Walked into an LFS on a whim and it was game over.

2 days later I found a 220g tank on this forum for sale and jumped in feet first. Got overwhelmed, and sold it for something smaller before it ever got wet, but I've been sober and salty since.

My family is thankful for this hobby and the knowledge it has brought not only me, but also my children. It thrills me to watch my 4yr old son walk into an LFS and start naming the fish and corals by there names.

Long story short, I owe a lot to this group of people here at R2R and am ever thankful.

thabizness · Jan 10, 2017

I have always kept freshwater tanks. My expensive hobby before reef keeping was amateur astronomy and astrophotography. I moved a few years back for a better school district for the kids and the new house was in a heavily light polluted area so I had to give up the hobby (I'm not one to packup a scope and equipment and go hours outside the city to shoot all night.) I always wanted to try saltwater so I sold off the equipment and got into reef tanks. Fast forward thru a few years of reefkeeping and now I'm I find myself getting into microscopy along side the reef keeping. Instead of the universe, a telescope, and a camera its a reef tank, a microscope, and a camera.

Broadfield · Jan 10, 2017

It started when I was 6 years old and it gets weird...

My uncle opened up a unique pet store that sold mostly fresh water fish. But he also sold various birds... typical stuff, but also a lot of parrots and even toucans. Strangely enough he even had spider monkeys. My mother worked there as a professional dog groomer... so in the summer, I would go in virtually every day and hang out from 9-5. I would help my uncle with everything and learned the craft quickly... I was drawn to the fish side of it. I continued to go in there every summer until I was 10 years old. At that age, I knew enough that regular customers started to value you my opinion. My uncle would pay me here and there and give me free fish and supplies. Then the summer after my 5th grade year(1985), my uncle got caught by the FBI growing mass amounts of marijuana hidden in Illinois corn fields. It was valued at over $2 million back then.... so it was a lot. Now with nobody to run the pet store, my grandpa turned to me to run it until he could get someone in there that wasn't 11 years old lol. I ran it for about a month that summer, under my grandpa's guidance, and did pretty well.... we kept it afloat! I didn't think anything unusual about it at the time. But now looking back, I can't imagine what some customer's thought about an 11 year old making this place go, handling the register and their money, knowing everything there is to know about freshwater etc. And I have been hooked on fish ever since!

BigJim · Jan 10, 2017

I took over my older sister’s freshwater tank when she went away to college. I was 10 years old but did a pretty good job keeping up with it. I lost interest as a teenager and didn’t start another freshwater tank until I was in my thirties.

I bought a 46 gallon bowfront and put some tetras, cory catfish and plecos in it. I remember looking at the saltwater fish at the LFS and wondering what kind of crazy person would pay that much for a fish. The tetras just hovered in one spot and I only saw the cory catfish if they didn’t know I was in the room. After being bored with the freshwater tank for about a year, I realized I was the kind of crazy person who would pay that much for a fish. Six years and many thousands of dollars later, I have a 155 gallon reef tank in my basement. So I basically got into this hobby because I am crazy.

RamsReef · Jan 10, 2017

Branespikin said:
Lived by the beach last 15 years in Croatia. Moved to NY and missed the smell of saltwater and sand. So this is my little piece of the ocean in my apt!!

The real question is your tank knee high and do you Slav Squat to look at it?