Easiest or Most Difficult Pet To Keep, Is Reef Keeping the choice for you?

[HudsonReefer2.0]

Reefing is cheaper than taking the dog to the vet. Fish don't throw up on the floor at 2am in the morning, bark incessantly at anything that moves or wake you up by climbing up and sitting on you.

But a full skimmer can give them a run for their money in those silent but violent moments.

 

[RichReef]

Sounds like you have it down pack. So food, salt, test kits, additives, if any,Added livestock, replacing damaged motors, lights, is all still less than a bag of Bird seed for Tweety, huh?

I said MOST pets.

Maybe 800 a year give or take a little. None of this includes the initial investment of course.

I'm bored though. About to start a new build.

 

[fish farmer]

It's about the same for me.

Dog, cats, fish, corals.

The fish poop in the box they live in and the corals and filtration take care of it.

I should scoop my cat's two littler boxes daily. They are in the basement and I collect the waste in a small trash can that I have to lug upstairs and toss in the trash weekly. To me it is more work than the WC's for my 29 gallon which are every other week and I could easily pump the water upstairs if I needed to.

Dog needs to poop outside...well he IS little and could do it on a pad, but nope outside rain, snow or shine. We have to pick that up too.

Weekend vacations, I have lots of things automated for the reef tank, my three fish should be fine for a few days without food. Cat's the same, now that I got an automated feeder.

Dog...nope, either he comes with or we get a sitter. If he comes with it limits where we can go, I see more and more "No dogs allowed" signs now that we have a dog. I really want to run on the beach with my dog....but you have to go at certain times of the day or year.

As for keeping up appearances, my dog and cats self groom...easy to get a pic for FB. My reef tank I got to scrape algae and coralline off, then wait for the coral to open back up before I get that pic.

 

[paintman]

As a self employed contractor I have worked in homes that have needed new sheetrock from the floor up to 4ft. high. This is from cats spraying on the walls. Worse yet if they spray on hardwood floors there is no fix other than a complete tear out. Cats are the dirtiest most destructive pets on the face of the planet. If you have cats or dogs in your home you are living in filth! Take it from someone who has a Great Dane and a cat.

 

[flyfisher2]

I said MOST pets.

Maybe 800 a year give or take a little. None of this includes the initial investment of course.

I'm bored though. About to start a new build.

Go for it!
I started my new build in September

 

[flyfisher2]

It's about the same for me.

Dog, cats, fish, corals.

The fish poop in the box they live in and the corals and filtration take care of it.

I should scoop my cat's two littler boxes daily. They are in the basement and I collect the waste in a small trash can that I have to lug upstairs and toss in the trash weekly. To me it is more work than the WC's for my 29 gallon which are every other week and I could easily pump the water upstairs if I needed to.

Dog needs to poop outside...well he IS little and could do it on a pad, but nope outside rain, snow or shine. We have to pick that up too.

Weekend vacations, I have lots of things automated for the reef tank, my three fish should be fine for a few days without food. Cat's the same, now that I got an automated feeder.

Dog...nope, either he comes with or we get a sitter. If he comes with it limits where we can go, I see more and more "No dogs allowed" signs now that we have a dog. I really want to run on the beach with my dog....but you have to go at certain times of the day or year.

As for keeping up appearances, my dog and cats self groom...easy to get a pic for FB. My reef tank I got to scrape algae and coralline off, then wait for the coral to open back up before I get that pic.

I wish I could take our dog with. He’s 180 lbs and spreads like a giraffe when we try to take him anywhere.

 

[Reefbuds]

Reefing is something you must be passionate about. If you dont truly love reefing then you will inevitably quit. Its those of us that fail, overcome and learn that really get reefing at its core.

 

[fish farmer]

I wish I could take our dog with. He’s 180 lbs and spreads like a giraffe when we try to take him anywhere.

Ours is 12 lbs...smaller than my cats, but with small dogs come the napoleon complex, he would try his hardest to pick a fight with a big dog....it's embarrassing.

 

[Karen00]

It's a medium-sized cattle dog. She likes to pull the blankets off me but reserves the honor of scaling the bed to rest upon the human for my wife.

And lately she's (the cattle dog) been throwing up about once a week, because she's developed this stupid tissue fetish.

OMG. Mine has also just developed a tissue fetish as well. What is with that?! Thankfully no throwing up yet because I catch him in the act. Cleaning up shredded tissue is a pain!!

 

[Karen00]

You I think fish keeping can be

After having read through other members posts on how unexpectedly difficult the reefing hobby has become for them to the point of them leaving reefing altogether, I thought I'd start this discussion.
The beauty and tranquility of enjoying an aquarium is hard to put into words. Just the idea of having creatures you would never see any other way short of visiting an aquarium or entering the ocean, in the comfort of your own home is amazing. What happens behind the scenes to make this work for us is another story.

For some, keeping fish is the simplest of hobbies with less maintenance than any other pet. I have kept many animals as pets at some point in my life,Dogs, cats, birds, reptiles.
In my experience I feel reefing requires more attention and upkeep than most if not all other pets. We're talking about the reef aquarium with the lighting issues, water parameters, finicky fish, territorial fish, encroaching corals, pests, diseases, the list goes on.
I've been an aquarium keeper for well over 40 years. I find it relaxing, challenging, frustrating at times, expensive and sometimes even rewarding. It occupies lots of time, be it in research or actual hands on and I love it.


I would love to hear others and their opinions.

You forgot to mention heartbreaking at times. I have been keeping freshwater fish since I was a kid so they're easy. Reefing is new to me and a whole lot different and a much steeper learning curve. I would say it can be just as expensive (or more) as keeping dogs, birds, reptiles, etc. depending on the type of fish/corals/inverts you keep and of course the size of tank you have. Someone that has a catastrophic incident in those monster tanks could lose more money that someone with other pets. Even someone with a small tank with crazy expensive fish or corals can be out huge money as well. Just think of the losses from power outages let alone disease, etc. There's also house damage due to water or salt precipitation. Keeping any type of pet can be rewarding, heartbreaking and expensive. Sometimes I wish I hated keeping animals. ;-)

 

[flyfisher2]

OMG. Mine has also just developed a tissue fetish as well. What is with that?! Thankfully no throwing up yet because I catch him in the act. Cleaning up shredded tissue is a pain!!

You guys are lucky. My dog eats socks
Whenever my daughter is short I tell her to go out back.

 

[fish farmer]

You guys are lucky. My dog eats socks
Whenever my daughter is short I tell her to go out back.

My boss's black labs got into the habit of eating his daughters underwear for a while...

 

[Sean Clark]

You I think fish keeping can be

You forgot to mention heartbreaking at times. I have been keeping freshwater fish since I was a kid so they're easy. Reefing is new to me and a whole lot different and a much steeper learning curve. I would say it can be just as expensive (or more) as keeping dogs, birds, reptiles, etc. depending on the type of fish/corals/inverts you keep and of course the size of tank you have. Someone that has a catastrophic incident in those monster tanks could lose more money that someone with other pets. Even someone with a small tank with crazy expensive fish or corals can be out huge money as well. Just think of the losses from power outages let alone disease, etc. There's also house damage due to water or salt precipitation. Keeping any type of pet can be rewarding, heartbreaking and expensive. Sometimes I wish I hated keeping animals. ;-)

Way to bring it down a notch... You know I heart you.

 

[Karen00]

You guys are lucky. My dog eats socks
Whenever my daughter is short I tell her to go out back.

OMG, that could be a problem. ;-) Admittedly I had to laugh at that! I have a friend whose beagle ate a good chunk of her deck as a puppy. I don't know how it survived that.

 

[Karen00]

Way to bring it down a notch... You know I heart you.

I also forgot to add in the cost of hardware, electricity, salt, additives, water, etc. Holy cow, my 5g has cost me more in 8 months than my three dogs have in four years. Haha.

 

[Sean Clark]

I also forgot to add in the cost of hardware, electricity, salt, additives, water, etc. Holy cow, my 5g has cost me more in 8 months than my three dogs have in four years. Haha.

Great thing it isn't about the cost or none of us would be here. This is sopose to be fun right?

 

[X-37B]

Reef tanks are realativly easy if you have a plan and stick to it.
Many make it harder than it needs to be, imo.
I have 3 systems, 120 with 30g remote fuge, 45 frag system, and 18" nano cube.
Nano cube is by far the easiest to keep.
We have 4 indoor cats, 2 males 2 females.
We also have 6 snakes.

 

[HudsonReefer2.0]

Great thing it isn't about the cost or none of us would be here. This is sopose to be fun right?

It is fun but challenging. That’s what makes it rewarding when u see fruits of the work u put in. I think it’s best to go in in the beginning without any automation or very minimal so u get that up close experience of learning. All this plug and play puts u at a disadvantage when u have to trouble shoot and do things the old fashioned way. JMO.

 

[Karen00]

Great thing it isn't about the cost or none of us would be here. This is sopose to be fun right?

That's what I keep telling myself (as I pull out another clump of hair algae out that my snails keep missing). Haha. If I hated keeping pets my bank account would be so much bigger and I would have so much more free time on my hands to read stuff other than R2R. ;-) LOL (I would miss you guys though but not the fish tongue eating parasites or the four foot worms) Haha.

 

[blaxsun]

OMG. Mine has also just developed a tissue fetish as well. What is with that?! Thankfully no throwing up yet because I catch him in the act. Cleaning up shredded tissue is a pain!!

I honestly have no idea, but it's insane. If you blow your nose and leave the tissue within reach (aka: garbage), out it goes. With ours there's something feral about ripping it to shreds...

The worst has to be bread. Those butter buns from Costco in particular. My wife left a package out in the entranceway for 15min and when she came back our dog had devoured half the bag!