What brought you into Reefing?

[Zoaelite]

Originally Posted by saltwaterseahorses

i saw a seahorse for the first time and i just fell inlove with them so i got a tanka dn instead got a pipefish didnt turn out tooo well he starved and then i moved onto different fish, i got a new aquarium today its a 35 gallon, with a regal tang (poor thing should be in a 75 gallon) and a clownfish and a chromis and a anemone. Btw im selling them all in a month or so!

Sell them faster and then upgrade your tank to a 100g , lots of great deals in the buy and sell section. How big is the regal now, really small tanks can cause larger tangs to go a little crazy and tends to be very detrimental to there health.

[saltwaterseahorses]

Family, and seahorses, and marine culture and how it's so beautiful

[trinac]

I read everyone's stories of how they got into the hobby, nice read. I didn't see someone's tank and fall in love, and I haven't had the chance to go scuba diving anywhere spectacular yet.

How I got into the hobby was playing an online game!! haha There is a game on facebook called "Fishville". Its essentially an online tank where you may buy and sell your fish. You have to feed them, give them medicine when they get sick, aquascape etc. I learned many of the names of the more common SW fish you'll see in fish stores and started my own online collection. I liked this game so much that I began to wish I could have real live fish in my own SW aquarium.

From there I bought a beginners book on the hobby to see if it was something I could be interested in / have time for. After reading that I read 4 more books over a few months I started up the hobby!!! (and quit Fishville)

My tank is a 30G (36" L x 12" W) that used to be my grandpa's, so my family is stoked that one of his tanks is up and running again. He was big into FW tanks. I have a second tank in the basement, a 90G which isn't un and running quite yet.

[saltwaterseahorses]

lol

[KevinK]

ok, so it would be family that triggered it, however it has a long stories

we immigrated from Holland, where I as a kid always had water somewhere, and had at the top about 10 FW tanks (salt water is almost un affordable as already electric would set you back about $ 0.33 a KHW) as well as fish and corals art cheep.

beside the tanks I had a 10.000 gal koi pond with lots of 20" + koi's and as a hobby I had a wholesale in importing kois and supply's local fish - garden centers.

arriving in Canada, what do you do, water is itching and would have loved to get a nice big koi pond, however where we live (Victoria) there is the racoon, sea otter and lots more, so by the time you are set up and running, it is a nice $ that eventually would be wiled animal foods (we could not integrate a pond in the house, at least not a decent size one)

so, itching, itching, and ad least a nice water feature in the yard, but no fish.

than my cousin wanted to change his fish only tank to a coral tank, so I could have all equipment, rock etc. what would be a nice saving.

so now a tank

we went where thy build tanks, and as we had some saving in the decoration / equipment we decided to spend some of the saving on the tank, and asked what thy had as bigges thy had for us.

we ended up with a 350 gal tank that needed a spot in the house + a opening in the wall to get it in.

space wise we went for a fish only, as it would still be less space needed for filter, les light and than les money to start.

soon after the tank was in, someone gave me a mushroom frag (WHAT IT WAS GROWING) even under ordinary light, so, would be nice to have some corals, so we got a few more, and soon it was time to get everything changed (light, pumps, gravel bed out - LS in, filter) so all set up, ready to do it over, but now for corals.

and as you se the pictures under my profile (albums) I cant complain.

it is still part DIY, however everything is running as it should, everything is growing so.

things I might change would be:

- in stead of 4x 150W DE HQI I would put 4x 250W (dont know how much of a difference it would make, things are growing now, so maybe I will first change one ore 2 to se what it douse for the tank and corals.

beside the 4x150 w DE HQI there is 2x 54w - act + 2x daylight T5

- adding more fish, only have 3 tangs, -- 5 clowns --- 2 fire fish and 2 shrimps ------> probably a 4 ore 5 yellow / orange anthias would be nice

- change the skimmer neck on my DIY on my 6 feet skimmer from a 3 inch to 5 1/2 inch --- skimmer is running fine, however skim mate could be darker if you ask me, is still a bit light, and the neck is always full of junk, so a larger diameter should be easier to tweak, as so far it has always bin fairly wet skim

- build a 60 inch square tank 28 inch deep, fiberglass and 2 windows, placing it on a 45 degree angle in the wall (having the filter room in the back)

[4lti7ude]

Roomates 20Gallon Cichlid tank started off my first FW tanks.

10Gallon Starter Kit... One week later upgraded to 20Gallon, Changed tank almost every few months.

Never thought id ever start a reef tank even tho some of my friends had some.
Well a little bit of MJ and im HOOKED on SW for life.
I can just stare at fish tanks forever... It is what it is hahahah.

[karnivor]

Was alway interested in fish tanks did some research and started with a freshwater 10 gallon starter and got hooked then to a 30 gallon to breed mollys and did so very easily... met my current GF and she had a 30 fresh too
Then moved up to a 55 gallon with chiclids (breeding too) want them for color, the Gf had a salt with her ex and missed it and i always wanted one but knew little about them then got a line on a free 75 gallon salt established for about 7 years sold the rest and here i sit today we kept her 30 gallon to raise fresh water angel fish.

[Wayne]

Started my mini reef because I had some Clowns that picked on everything else in the tank. So I picked up some corals for them to play with... The clowns loved the coral, the coral didn't recipricate... So I don't have the clowns any more and I have 4 times as much coral

[blacknife]

Originally Posted by kien

this thread seems to have fizzled out. It was a good read over my lunch hour. Can't remember now how I stumbled upon it..

Got my first fresh water tank back in High School when I tagged along with a friend to a place called Hole-In-The-Wall in Calgary. Anyone else remember that place??

I got my first tank from Gr 7 science.. one of the labs was to bring in a container/jar. and they gave us a little plant, a guppy, and a snail and locked them in for a weekend, and amazingly everyone's fish were still alive. my first upgrade was a 10g from a garage sale which im sure i then overstocked.. but everyone did fairly ok. always believed in heavily planted tanks. there were stores in the mall but regularly, i would get my parents to take me to hole in the wall, or i would ride my bike there.. sometimes in winter, -25 to go get something for my fish. I always liked the salt section but could not afford it, had fw tanks straight though till i broke up with my ex and left my 90g there.

after i bought this house i looked at all the left over fish stuff i had read the internet a bit.. had some spare money.. got some diy pc lights a skimmer and some rocks.. and now I'm here