Welcome back!
You can win the wife and kids over. Once this tank is a smashing success, they'll be eating out of your hands for one like "Daddy used to have."
I poo you not, my wife was bummed last night that I lost an auction for a $150+ Nem. That was NOT her mindset when I got started. I just thank goodness I lost the auction. That would've been about 3x what I've ever spent
Hi Everyone
As my title says, I've come back to the hobby after a break of 18 years. I had been raising fish since I was 10 years old, all the way through college and after. Was active in the online community, prior to R2R.
As most may suspect, I got out of the hobby due to a traumatic tank crash. I had a 350 gallon mixed system (170 display, 90 gallon frag tank, 60 gallon sump, 30 gallon refugium) dominated by sps and clams. The cause of my crash was a kalk spike that was a result of a malfunctioned spectrapure liter meter that, instead of pumping a few seconds every hour, continuously pumped 55 gallons of kalk-rich water into my system. I suspect it was because they had shut the power off to my block w/o my knowledge and when they kicked the power back on, it fried my spectrapure. I came home from work to my system with a 100% casualty and 55 gallons of water on my floor.
I'm back in the hobby because now that I have kids, I wanted them to grow into the hobby along with me. So much have changed in the last 18 years, while some things remained consistent. What drew me in, continues to draw me in. The beauty and wonder of recreating a micro-ecosystem and the life-long learnings of getting our tanks to thrive.
My current system is a Red Sea Max 250 and it's a mixed tank again, with softies, sps, and lps. I've also fell in love with wrasses, specifically leopard wrasses. Right now, I have 3 regular leopards, 2 potters, 2 black leopards, and 1 female blue star.
A few pictures of my old system. Excuse the corraline...I had an acrylic aquarium.
170 gallon tenecor teneview aquarium
60 gallon sump
3x400W Metal Halide
72" VHOs
Iwaki MD40 Pump
2 x 1" Sea-Swirls
Dual 48"x6" Calcium Reactor
Kalk Reactor
Don't have any pictures yet of my new system but will share them when I get a chance.
Excited to be back in the hobby and learning and building community with everyone here.
Victor
I have electus and candy crushes if intrested
