what got you in the hobby?

[boxfishpooalot]

Who or what made you get into the hobby?

For me it was a 6foot reef tank. It had 6500kelvin lighting, wich I thought was beautiful , and a really fancy dump bucket to produce the coolest looking wave across the tank. The dump bucket got me into the hobby. I noticed how the waves from the bucket moved all the caulerpa back and forth that was growing along the backside of the rock wall.

Till this day, I still dont have my dump bucket, but do have a wavebox.

Whats your story?

 

[A sea K]

As a newlywed (20+ yrs ago) my wife came home from a garage sale with a 10gal tank. That was it for me. It started a lasting devotion to keeping aquaria but I was nervous of saltwater set-ups and spent many years dreaming of the day I would make the switch. After a failed attempt and many dissapointments with a 65 gal set-up I got my head in the hobby, found RC, started over with the tank I have now and have been very pleased with my accomplishments. Still have a lot of learning left to do and am already thinking of my next "improved" system.

 

[mrpenguin]

I used to be a Scuba Diving Instructor back home in South Africa where I was born, I moved to Canada and missed the ocean so much that I had to get myself a Reef Aquarium ... My tank is the only thing that keeps me sane !

 

[patsfan1130]

Finding Nemo

Seriously though. When I was 19 I chaperoned my newphews school field trip to the New England Aquarium. I was in awe of how they took a slice of the ocean and produced it indoors. That's all it took. I researched and read and failed a few times. 20 years later I am still in awe.

 

[landlord]

Back in 1998 there was a pet shop down in the south part of Bellevue, WA with a 20 gallon clam tank. It had an MH pendant over it. I was hooked! I was actually buying ferrets that day... Alas I no longer have the ferrets but still have the tanks.

 

[Flightpipe]

Diving

 

[klm2500hd]

A wicked evil friend who wanted to go reef and had fish to get rid of. Offered to help me set it up and everything. You know, free. So I set up an unused fw tank for the fish. Then I saw his reef, so of course I needed another tank. Moved into my house so now I needed a bigger tank. Went MH ans SPS 1 year ago (free has been out the window for awhile now). That tank started leaking 10 years later so I needed an even bigger tank. Now I have a better setup than him and he drools when he comes home to visit. So now I am the wicked evil friend to another and gave this friend a 30g with fish skimmer and lights, you know free. His 125 is up and running lol. The cycle continues.

 

[Tangweed]

Shark Week on the Discovery Channel.

 

[VengefulSakhmet]

I got into saltwater tanks from helping my Dad with his. I always loved fresh water, but after the many visits at Absolutely Fish in Jersey, I was floored by the angels there and had to continue the family tradition.

 

[nauticac4]

A neighbor who was setting up a 125 gallon tank. Didn't even have water in it, for some reason I was hooked. Had a 10 gallon FW tank and a 50 tall Cichlid tank. They quickly went to a 120 Reef and a 20Long nano

 

[LobsterOfJustice]

I started keeping all kinds of pets when I was young... snakes, turtles, frogs, lizards, FW fish, newts... really anything I could find outside or in a pet shop. In high school my friend worked in a grocery store and they had a 13 lb lobster. We were going to buy it so we started researching how to take care of it. I joined the forums at MarineDepot.com to ask some questions... we realized it would take a massive chiller to keep the lobster tank at the proper tank. But while I was doing this research, I saw that all these people were keeping live corals in their tanks. I remember thinking "that's kinda cool...". My friends lost interest, but I kept doing my research. Looking back, I kind of had it coming... when I was younger, every year when my family went to the beach for vacation I would see how many fish I could catch, keeping them in buckets in the shade and changing their water every few minutes. So now here I am in a biology class for my marine biology major.

 

[Jflip2002]

I kinda always wanted a tank. So I went and bought a cheap 10g tank from walmart, which I thought was a good size. I was going to keep oscars and chichlids in it... so I thought. I went to go buy some, and the guy at the first LFS said that size was useless, and NOTHING besides a goldfish can be kept in it. So I went down the road to the other LFS, where they also confirmed I couldnt keep my oscars or chichlids in it. But they suggested setting up a nice little nano saltwater tank. So a bag of sand, salt, 2 small rocks, a heater, and $180 later (I got ripped, I know now) I was on my way to the addiction. From 10g to 190g in about 3 years.

 

[pelochas]

im an avid fisherman but when i was a kid and went fishing with my dad out in the coast, i wanted to bring all the neat little fishes i caught and put them in a tank at home and feed them fresh shrimp. some of those fish were small pogies, mullet, trout, catfish (hardheads), croakers, and of course small sharks..wondering how it would of turned out if i did put all those guys in one tank..probably not a good sight

 

[TXAlbert]

A tomato clown

 

[Orvis]

Had a ten gallon when I was young, back in the days when we thought you had to completely clean the tank by taking out everything, washing the gravel, tank sides, the whole works! Well my dad and I got tired of doing this and eventually lost interest.
Thirty years later my brother decided he didn't want the tank he had gotten for his kids any more and asked me if I wanted it. I took it, read up on the hobby to get myself current again and have had many tanks since. To the point where I opened my own LFS with over 100 tanks. The store lasted about four years till the economy took a crapper in my area, but I still keep fresh water and salt water tanks.
Would like to start a reef tank soon. Gathering info and doing my research!

 

[Dino]

Ever since I was little I've had tanks, parents always thought I'd outgrow it - I haven't :lol:. So it was kind of a natural progression, I started out with various different freshwater systems, added some lizards into the mix, made the jump to some brackish fish for a while. Then in HS I took an aquatic biology class right when I was giving thought to making the jump to saltwater. Teacher had a few different saltwater tanks which really got me hooked. The first semester was focused on freshwater ecosystems and the second semester was all marine - by second semester I had my own tank going and was the only one allowed to do anything with the salt tanks (teacher also kept and bred african cichlids and part of the class was taking care of your own tank). Its only gotten worse since and I still keep up with the teacher, in fact just a few weeks ago I donated a clownfish I didn't have room for anymore to one of his tanks .

 

[Feif]

In high school, we set up a tank as a class project for AP Environmental Science. It turned out really well (until the next year's class ruined it).

 

[FishNFun]

When I was a kid the wife of one of my dad's friends was big time in to FW. We'd go over to their house and I'd spend most of the time just looking at her tanks. One day she sent a 10G tank and stand home with me and told me how to set it up. I've been hooked ever since. I still remember the day I found my first baby mollies in the tank. I kept FW for a long time (big ones like clown knifefish and such) and decided to try SW in college. My tank was going great until my live-in girlfriend and I started having problems. Then, mysteriously, my fish started dying off. Come to find out she'd been squirting Windex in the tank. Don't have the girlfriend anymore (I upgraded) but I still have a tank (that's been upgraded many times). Now my kids are really in to the hobby as well. My daughter keeps a running tally on the baby snails in the tank.

 

[cdness]

well keeping many different pets from turtles to frogs, bearded dragons, chinchillas, now to the marine tank. A friend of mine got me hooked on his tank, but I always thought it would be cool to try. He had the deal for me so I thought why not now... Now all the neighbors come over to watch the fish and shrimp. They really like to watch the corals eat too .

 

[zambavi]

Scuba Diving on a couple of impressive reefs in 1993 and 1994. I then spent the next 10-12 years drooling over but not being able to afford to set one up. Then finally a steal on an established 75g reef tank on Craigslist was our door in.