Your first tank (a.k.a. the start of the addiction)...

[DMBillies]

I'm fairly recently started in this hobby and the one thing that has amazed me, aside from all of the beautiful tanks, is the amount of time and money that many people devote to their tanks. I've also been amazed (in retrospect) at my own investments. I thought it would be cool to hear some stories about how people got into this hobby in the first place and what keeps you (personally) interested in it. I hope this isn't too floofy of a topic, but I'm always up for a good story.

 

[aquaman67]

I started my first tank in 1998 after I got out of the military. It was a freshwater tank. It would have been too hard to keep a tank while in the military, too much moving.

My sister in law had a tank, a 29 gallon with a stand and strip light. She kept killing stuff. One day her basement flooded and the half full tank had to be moved to replace the carpet. The tank was green and full of gunk. She gave it to me, just to get rid of it.

I always wanted a tank. My dad had two when I was growing up. He kept Angles and Jack Dempseys. I remember watching him fool with all the gadgets. He used a diatom filter now and then.

Anyway, Everything went good with my first tank. Then got another, and another. I did the African Cichlid thing. Even rasied babies.

The local fish shop started carring Saltwater stuff in about 2000 or 2001.

I was way too intimidated to even think about trying saltwater. Too much money to mess up.

I was on Aqualink.com and Grumpy Old Vet linked a thread about Southdown sand to Reefcentral.

I started reading here and decided I could to saltwater.

My first post here was 7/19/2002.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=100570

It still took me until October 23, 2002 before I started my first Saltwater tank.

I remember being nervous mixing saltwater for the first time. I think I added a teaspoon at a time in a 5 gallon bucket.

Add, test, add, test.

Now I just dump cups full and I can usually hit 1.025 everytime.

I started with a DSB and Tampa Bay rock. It's a reef tank now.

I started a FO tank in Sept. I realized I'm a fish person. Corals are cool, but I like fish.

 

[Sk8r]

1949 or thereabouts: a 5 gallon metal-frame with tar holding the glass sealed, no light, no heater, no pump or filter, some floating freshwater weed, a few pounds of gravel, a ceramic grass hut, three zebra fish and a couple of small aeneas cats. This saved my father having to delay at the hardware store (the first fish tank I ever saw) while I watched the fish in their tank.

 

[theop]

My current tank (which you have seen) is my first saltwater tank, although it originally started out as a 29g setup. I had kept FW for a long time and was getting bored with it.

The great variety of fish and corals started my interest into a reef tank and has maintained my interest thus far. When I set up this tank after my move I think I won't mix and match corals as much. I think I have had some problems with trying to keep too many different things in the same tank: mushrooms, polyps, zoas, leathers, LPS, and SPS all in a 37 gal tank.

 

[Countzer0]

Sk8r its cool you mention those old Metaframe tanks. I am in the process of setting one up using all vintage equipment. I guess like everyone i have always had the typical freshwater fishtank with a Noah -"esk" selection of fish, 2 of one type and two of another ect ect... I got into Saltwater about 4 years ago. I bought a Azoo nano system. The Nano Cubes had been talked about but were not for sale at that time. I ran a sucessfull nano reef for 5 months or so before i had to have more. I went from 7g to 10g to 12g to a 28g bowfront... having all these tanks set up at once. It got so bad one time i had rented a studio appartment on west end and had to move my bed into the closet keep my clothes under the aquarium stands that lined all my walls!!! Thats when I came across Emerald Bay. I was working at Comcast but spending all my days off at the LFSs. Finally about 3 years ago i quit my nice high paying job to work retail a descision I never have regreted. I love getting up in the morning and going to work. I find my self hanging out at work on my days off ect... It gives me a chance to explore all new acspects of the hobby.. and also interact with fellow hobbiest as well as introduce new ones and seeing their new addiction unfold is the true payment!!!!. Personally at home I have switched back over to all freshwater focusing on old tequniques and vintage equipment. Currently I have 4 10gs breeding livebearers, 3 planted tanks (2 28gs one 40g set in an old victrola TV frame) with diffrent types of co2 systems a 125g. Plus my little metaframe slate bottom tank that i am getting all the parts ready to set up.

thanks for letting me drone on.

Jason

 

[fischcrazy]

my first tank (that i kept up) was in 2002, when i got two goldfish from a fourth of july celebration. My dad used to keep a tank when i was a baby, so i used his old 10 gallon. I had only the tank, fish, and a bubble maker and the fish ended up dying in a few days. then, the owner of all pet, a really weird dude, told me what i had done wrong and i went from there.
about six months later, when i thought waterchange meant clean the tank completely, i was rinsing out the tank in cold water and added hot water, the tank broke. The next day, i went to petsmart and picked up a 20 gal. starter kit. the only fish left was a black molly with an orange belly. I became obsessed shortly after aquiring that tank and decided no do something more exciting, so for christmas of 03 i got my 55 gal. (now display tank) and set it up for cichlids. thats where i made my big mistake.
I had done reasearch on cichlids and preferred malawiian cichlids and did my thing for about a month, and then a very bad thing happened..... I knew that cichlids were avid feeders and that they must be fed alot- i fed daily. the food i used had in ingrediant in it i didnt really like after a while because they started growing in my tank-- Brewers yeast. my tank was beer colored for about a month until i went to my science teacher( i was in 7th grade) and asked what killed yeast. i told him that i had alot groweing in my tank. My science teacher didnt know, so he took me to one of the biology teachers, who happens to be my teacher right now(9th) and gave me some iodine and said this would kill it, but in retrospect he didnt say anything about my fish. I put all of the iodine in and my fish started dying. 8 cichlids (well 9 including one that i thought was dead for a month).
After the extermination of my cichlids i went to saltwater. i had 2 dart gobies in there for about a week until the nitrate killed them (i knew not about cycling) and not knowing where i went wrong, i started up my 55 gal. as a saltwater. everything went fine from christmas break until summer-when my neighbor overfed so baldy even my clowns died.
I was about to quit keeping fish until i saw a very odd fish at EB- a mudskipper. With my 20 gallon still running as a saltwater tank with nothing but a small clown goby, i put the mudskipper in after taking some of the water out, so that rocks were exposed. my mudskipper ended up killing the clown goby and i had him inthere by himself for a very long time. the next summer, the mudkipper somehow climbed out of my tank and i had lost him (literal in both ways) just the dead lost unknownst yet. when i told my sisters and parents that it had escaped, my mom and sisters started screaming as if hey had seen someone murdered (they hated the poor thing). i eventually found him on the other side of my room. two years have passed since then and nothing bas has happened yet...

 

[fishdoc11]

Great idea for a thread! I will post my story when I have a little more time to type.

 

[CKreef]

My first tank came from my uncle. My dad wasnt big on the idea. It was a 29g with some africans.I was soon consumed with aquariums and got a job at wet pets in Bellvue. I soon trded in my 29g for an oceanic 55+. I kept africans in it too. i had frontosas brichardi and some julidichromis m. All of these were breeding but I had to give it all up when I went to the army. So after 7 years i bought a used 58 oceanic rr and well the rest is history. Once again I have the fish fever!

 

[Sk8r]

Metaframe. I'd totally forgotten the brand. And eventually came those lovely little corner filters with glass wool and charcoal: we were really high tech, then!

 

[fishdoc11]

Ok DMBillies you asked for it
My love for fish and aquariums started pretty much when I started. One grandmother had a 10 gallon full of guppies that she had moved back to her house from when she retired form teaching. My other Grandmother had a 29 gallon(that I still have and it still holds water) mixed tank and grew the biggest tin foil barbs you ever saw. She would grow them up to 7 or 8ââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ and then trade them in and grow up another pair.

My dad started keeping fish when I was about 7. He started with a mixed tank and eventually moved up to a 55 with an Oscar, Jack Dempsey, Bristlenose Plecostimus, fire eel and few other things I canââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t remember. One of the coolest things my dad did was get a tadpole and stick it in the mixed tank. It was the neatest thing to look at the tank everyday and watch the tadpole grow into a frog over time. When he needed to get out of the water we let the frog go in the pond on 100 near Percy Warner Park. My favorite pastime was when dad would stop by the bait store on the way home and get a dozen minnows and feed the Oscar. I also remember he had a Creature from the Black Lagoon bubbling figure that kept breaking. I would always talk him into fixing it and putting it back in the tank. It wasnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t until years later that I realized he must have really loved me to stick that thing in his tank :lol: By the time my dad died he had a full fledged ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œfish roomââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ with a breeding pair of Jack Dempseys and a pair of Oscars that were called mine but Iââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢m sure that was just another excuse to get another couple of fish Mickey(The Fish Bowl) and his dad took all dads fish after he passed away and had them on one wall in their store on 51st and Charlotte when a teenage girl without a license ran into the side of the building and knocked over all the tanks on the wall with dads fish.

When I turned 18 and moved out on my own Grandmamma gave me her old 29 that she didnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t use anymore and I started into fishkeeping on my own. I bought an Oscar and a plecostimus and raised them until they could barely fit into the tank. Then I traded them in for some African Cichlids. I lived in Atlanta at the time and a fish store on Piedmont had the Africans setup in tanks with crushed coral and bleached coral for decorations (similar to how AC has them setup now) and I thought they were just the coolest looking fish. The same store also sold reef stuff like Caulerpa and Condylactus anemones that at the time for me was about as alien looking as it gets :lol:

When I moved back to Nashville my Africans came with me and I set up a few other tanks and kept a variety of freshwater fish. At one point I worked in a fish store for a few months and at that time started keeping saltwater. My first tank was a 20 high with a Whisper 200 and an undergravel filter. It contained a piece of live rock, some caulerpa, a firefish, a clown and a chocolate chip star. I still have pictures of me drunk with the starfish sticking to my foreheadââ"šÂ¬Ã‚¦.donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t ask I also kept a few wild Discus at that time in the same old 29. This was about 1989 or so. After that I kept a few easy to keep saltwater fish in various small tanks.

Eventually I finally bought a 55 gallon and had Africans in that and kept an ocellaris clown, tomato clown and a yellowtailed blue damsel in the 29. I had this basic setup for about 7 years. Then I got married and started thinking about a reef tank. I ended up setting up a 75 Perfecto with 2 Rio powerheads, a Prism skimmer and a JBJ PC lighting setup. Basically what the Critter would have sold you at the time for a reef tank. It eventually grew into this tank.

I moved the 75 into my 90 the summer before last and it looks like this now:

thanks, Chris

 

[Rendos]

1977 - I bugged my mom for a fish tank...so she got me a book. She said that I had to learn about keeping fish before she would buy me the tank. At 11 years old I had to convince her that I would take care of the fish myself, and after reading the book (not sure what book) she agreed to buy me a tank. A 20 gallon high. This was a freshwater tank with corner sponge bubbler filter. I wanted tetras, angels, etc...community tank. I added 14 fish the first day (knowing nothing about a cycle)...a week later only 2 fish remained. So I thought I was doing something wrong. I removed all the water, all the gravel, plastic plants, etc. washed them, and filled the tank back up. Went with mom to the pet store, and bought more fish. Basically same thing happened again. Went back to the pet store, and asked "why do my fish keep dying?". The pet shop owner explained to me and my mom about the cycle, and how to properly maintain a fish tank. It was some of the best advice I ever got. I have been successfully keeping fish ever since.

1992 - I joined the army. Got stationed in Georgia for my first assignment. I decided I would like to try salt water fish. I thought I could handle it with no problems since I had kept freshwater fish for so long successfully. Well, I soon learned that that was not the case. I had to re-educate myself with books, and conversations with the LFS. I killed several fish in the first 3-4 months of this endeavor, but soon got the knack of keeping marine fish. Have been keeping marine fish and reef tanks ever since.

Why do I enjoy it? I am not even sure I enjoy it anymore...more like addicted to it, and can't stop.

 

[kev-dog1]

It's been an on again/off again hobby for me.

Mid to late 60's - as a kid I first kept guppies and LOVED it when they had babies. Had one of those floaty plastic grass things in the tank for them to hang out in and grow. Then moved to angels for a while before the family moved to Knoxville. Didn't have a tank for several years until...

College / late 70's - got a 20g long and a school of baby piranha and a Jack Dempsey. All my frat brothers loved to watch the piranhas go after the feeder goldfish. Eventually they turned on each other. Over time the school became 2 piranha and the Jack Dempsey (these guys really earn their name, quite a fighter). My partime job was working in a record store and the piranha tank was moved there. In the end, one piranha remained and grew to be about 10" and bigger/thicker than my hand.
Not having a tank at home, and always drooling over the saltwater stuff at the LFS, I was tempted one day to get an octopus (Hey I was just a stupid college kid). I set up a 29g and cycled the tank with a small crab for several weeks. Finally the time came to buy one...what a disaster...he hardly lasted 24 hours. Very sad. Very humbling. Didn't try salt again for 15+ years.

Early 90's - second wife gently nudged me back to the hobby. We had a small 10g with a beta. I again drooled over the salt tanks at the LFS every visit. She bought me a 55g for christmas in '96.
The first few years it was FO - damsels of several varieties, maroon clown, humahuma trigger, niger trigger, snowflake moray, panther grouper. Not all of these at once, mind you, but over 3-5 years. Somewhere during this time I discovered LR and websites like this one, and eventually started a reef tank.
Got a 38g which became the FO and the 55g was and still is my reeftank. It's an all softie tank, with a couple of clowns and shrimp. Humble by most standards, but enough to feed my addiction.

Keep threatening to upgrade to a 75g someday.

kev

 

[DMBillies]

Very interesting stories everyone... gotta see the drunken starfish picture...

For us, it all started when my girlfriend tried to convince me to get a couple of goldfish in a 10 gallon she had from college. What a mistake on her part. I don't really like goldfish, so I told her the only way we could get fish was if we got tropical fish. So, we agreed, set-up the tank, and a week later we found a 29 gallon with everything we needed (stand, heaters, filter, gravel, plants, etc.) for freshwater at a yardsale for $25. In a couple of months, that got too small so we got a 60 gallon and instead of taking the old one down we just set that up (kept a few Rams...golden, blue, and bolivia...in the 30 and a mixed bag in the 60).

Then, an acquaintance of ours found out we liked fish and offered us her 20 gallon saltwater set-up, with everything for $100. I didn't want to get into salt because of the expenses (How can people pay $20 for one fish? What the heck is a skimmer and why does it cost $300?). Well, not a week later she offered to give it to us, so I figured I would give it a try and if it ended up being too expensive, I would just give it away to someone else without any major loss/investment. The tank was in a sad state and she apparently hadn't read the manual about replacing evaporated water with fresh because the reading was off the top of my hydrometer scale when I tested it. Amazingly, a brown leather mushroom, a black clown, a pajama cardinal, and a sea urchin all managed to live through that and are still kicking. The leather mushroom is about 4x the size it was when I got it and is truly a success story given its sad state when I got it (not to toot my own horn).

Well, in a couple of months, the 60 gallon freshwater tank had become a saltwater tank and we've been slowly adding equipment, fish, and coral to it since. With so much to learn and so much to tinker with, I don't see myself losing interest in this hobby. But what really keeps me coming back for more is that I can look into that tank every day and see something that has changed in some way. When its things growing, it makes you feel good and when its something bad, it gives you something to do until you can feel good about it again.

 

[gflat65]

We had always had tanks of some sort growing up (all freshwater, though). My mom worked in pet shops for most of her life, so a 55 was my first with gouramis and a weather loach and a few other smaller fish. When I was in college in the early/mid 90's, I had a friend who had just set up a 30 gallon. I worked for a chicken finger/sandwich/wings (26 flavors) place and would make deliveries to his house just to sit and stare at the live rock. The rock got me. I started with a 40H and a stand. Then added sand and salt with about 10# of rock. At first (in ignorance) I thought that the bright incandescent bulbs would work for a while until i could afford real lights. Nothing but algae blooms. Started feeding those cool anemones that just seemed to pop up out of the rocks (Aiptasia), and they got huge. Then I realized through numerous visits to Kermits in the mid 90's that those were not a typical desired animal. I got a 'VHO system from Hamilton Technologies (will never buy anything from them again basedon my first experience-sold me an HO ballast to run my VHO's because "the electronic ballasts-i.e.Icecap-were worthless). $275 later, the lights arrived and immediately burned one endcap and bulb. Three weeks later, I got a replacement bulb and endcap. A year or so later when a bulb exploded over my tank (no one could tell me why...) I disassembled and enclosure and discovered the HO ballast. Hamilton cahrged me another $125 for an Icecap ballast because they felt like they were in the right to seel me an HO system for the price of a VHO... Anyway, enough rants on that. I was already addicted, so I just kept on truckin. The 40 got upgraded to a 55 and a 40 (reef and FO, resp.) when I moved to Nashville in 2000. The 40 then got up graded to a 55 while the 55 went to a 125. Then the 55 was replaced by the 75. Soon the 75 will be replaced by a 180. It's really a downward spira.

I got into it with the intention of doing corals, not fish. Got my first invert about 6 months in (GSP) and started fragging. Needle to the vein...