How Did You Get Into Reefing?

[coral diver]

Was a diver since 16 (and don't ask how old I'm now) and for some unfotunate incident lost half of my hearing ten years ago, and the tank is now my peice of the Ocean.

 

[Paul_N]

About 15 years ago my wife's relative in Maryland had SW fish and was upgrading his entire system so he gave me his 29g tank, stand, pumps, trickle filter and light for free, I went out and got an undulated trigger, dwarf lion and snow flake eel. A couple years later I moved up to a 55. I even tried to keep a clam under regular florescent lights. I moved a couple years later and never set it back up since I had no idea how long we were going to be in that house. About 6 years ago when we moved into my current house I set up a 75 gallon FOWLR for about a year and a half and found a couple reef websites and I was hooked and switched over.

 

[cherokee_dude]

Went diving in PR. Came back home and converted my 72 Bow FW Cichlid tank ASAP.

Footnote; I still run a 40g FW tank downstairs.

 

[cjtabares]

Well about 3 years ago my cousin gave me his 40gal and 55gal fresh water tanks. the 40gal was empty and the 55gal had 2 big oscars in it. I knew the oscars were not happy in the 55 so i gave them away. I set the 40 gal up as a chiclid tank and was planing on using the 55 for a saltwater tank. lol Well i could not keep a chiclid alive for long. I ended up finding a great deal on a 100gal 72"x18"18" tank and bought it. I used the 40 as a sump and I have no clue what happend to the 55gal :squigglemouth:. So i guess i upgraded before i even had any saltwater in the either tank. Now a 1 1/2 years after setting up the 100gal i am planning to upgrade to a 135 gal 36"x36"x24" lps tank , with a 30gal 24"x24"x12" non-photosythetic LPS tank (mostly sun polyps).

 

[EliteReefs]

for me it was simple. I was big into fresh water planted tanks. i loved all the color and motion. i got my tanks as good as i felt they could get and was left wanting more. then i started exotic pleco tanks. they are not just black like people thing. i had them shipped from all over the world and paid some hansom price tags for a few. after that was done i still wanted more.

two days later i bought my first reef setup.

 

[Troylee]

Pretty much used to take trips to the lfs with mom when I was young about 30yrs ago lol.... Anywho my mom had a 55gal hexagon with seahorse a 75gal fresh water with oscars and a 200 saltwater fo. At the time.... I remember it being way cool to this day... So I bought my kids a 10gal freshwater like 3 yrs ago and after 6 months I decided I wanted a tank!!!!! I didn't have anywhere to put it thou since we had a small house at the time my wife was like I saw a house with a tank in the wall and it was cool...***famous last words**** so I ended up building a 150 for myself and stuck it in the wall, back side just happens to be our master closet * lol!* big mistake!!!! Never take a womans closet away!!!!!!

it started as a fo. Had it going for like 2 months and algae started taking over and I got on the Internet an found reef clubs...I learned about sumps and the whole deal... Tank was running and full of livestock at this time, me loving to build decided it was time to upgrade the tank... I drilled the tank "acrylic" full of livestock added a external overflow box and learned about protien skimmers etc... Next thing I new I had a mixed reef tank... We finally moved and I built my dream tank a 500gal system from the ground up... Wife started complaining it took up to much room so I sold it all off and took a break for a week..* my aunt calls* hey you want my tank I'm getting rid of it since I don't have time..."sure" here we go again 34gal solana with the works, another mixed reef... I ended up selling all her corals and got into sps, found this tank was not enough for me I just went from a 500 to a 34.... So after a month I decided upgrade time!!! I wanted something with the wow factor but I couldn't go big again or the wife would flip so I started drawing up designs for a zero edge tank and came to the conclusion it wasn't gonna work for my sps, so I came up with the drop tank.... Ran that for about 6 months and ran into a few problems then I decided it was upgrade time again and that's where I am today with my 220 sps tank...;)

 

[aautio1004]

The place I rent wouldnt let me have a cat or a dog so I went with fish, and went with saltwater due to more color and options. Started with a small little 10gal, then to a 29 gal, then to 2 29 gals, and now 2 29s and a 55 reef. They landlord has since let us get a couple cats, but the fish tanks have still stayed!

 

[Antonias1391]

when i was 6 we went over to a friend of my parents house he had a 20 tall reef, it was beautiful and you could tell he was very devoted to it. they practically had to drag me outa the house hahaha. some how the bug stayed with me, when we got back from living in Brasil for 4 years i would always go into the petcos and just stair at the fish. after another move i finaly picked up a book and that led me to RC which led me to my local club which led me to here :bigsmile: i also regreted buying the book as most of the help i got here was 100x better. i got my first tank a 55 long last oct and it took me only 5 month so upgrade to my curent 75g sps dom tank, im finaly at the point where i can just let things grow..... lol

 

[reefpeeper]

well to make this short i meet a dude at a party and became pretty good friends. went to his house and he had a 72 gal bowfront. thought it was awsome. he hooked me up with tank and other stuff. its now been about 7yrs strong

 

[inactive]

When my boy Mike got me into tanks... we always would check out the SW stuff like whoaa... I wish we could keep that... nah that ish is way too hard.. way too expensive...

Both of us started researching everything we could... he got out for a while(he recently got back in) and I stayed in... he started me out with everything cause he could see I loved the hobby so much, but I was so broke at the time. I would stay up for days reading and reading... staring at the first reef tank start before my eyes... the smell of the SW was soothing to me... everything that we all enjoy was love at first sight for me. Started out witha 2.5g pico... worked up to a 10g... inherited a 55g fowler... converted 55g fowler to HOB reef(Bowser's Castle).... started a Ghostbox and now I'm picking up a Tech 70 tonight to throw my 55g into!


It never ends... since I first tasted saltwater... and when I first took a razor blade to a coral.... I knew I was hooked... I was addicted... I knew I would try my hardest to do anything/everything for this hobby and all the people in it. Except for you.

haha

 

[KLR]

Fresh water...when i was 5 i had my 1st betta fish..then got a tank soforth now have a 35 gal fw

SW..when i was 10 one of my good friends got a 24 gal nano cube for christmas...and i saw his sw and convinced my parents to let me get one, i got a 12 gal,then 14 gal, and then a 24 gal,...when i was 12 one of my moms friends was selling a 90 gal tank, sump, stand, hl fixture, fish, rock, etc. for $300.so we bought it...the tank later bottomed out and then we replaced that with a 75 gal that is fine to this day, after we had this tank up an runnig well, i read an article in a reefing magazine about the new hot corals coming into the "reefing" world, chalices, in particular they were talking about tyree's bubble gum monster..so my chalice addiction began, i got 3 chalices off ebay but like everyone else i wanted more.....so i started searching everywhere for good deals,but i wanted to have my own tank to raise,sell,grow rare corals, so i spent all of my fish $ on a rsm250 system, and now i had room to start completly by myself,then while on vacation in florida, i said i wonder if there are any goof fishtores in florida, sure enough the site i had been looking at daily, WWC, was literally about 5 minutes from where we were staying,so i went there twice on the vacation and left with 4 chalices,and after seeing their display in person it made me want to have one to compare to theirs, obviousy unreal...but still..........so as soon as i got home the chalices were in the tank and i start searching on the internet for awsome chalices, from all my searching i end up finding r2r, and the 1st thing i did,stupidly, was pmed some one about a chalice pack, and didnt have the money, i was just wondering....so a kinda bad start for r2r, but the more i stayed on r2r my collection took off, great deals daily, so i started pming people and actually had the money now that im working extra just for fish $,doing basically anything for money,real jobs or jobs for other people,and now the 14 gal is an anemone clown tank,24 gal is a seagrass tank, and the 12 gal has just been re-set up and is in the making for my frag tank..so im hoping i can sell coral to buy coral, and quit doing anything for money,i ve sold to my lfs but nothing online....yet,but will be very very soon:xd:

 

[swannyson7]

I had freshwater tanks since I was about 6 with goldfish, then cichlids, and then a planted community tank. I first started dabbling in saltwater during high school with a FOWLR, but didn't really get into reefing until my roomate at West Point decided to set up a 20 gallon tank and teach me a bit about reef tanks. Since then, the addiction has only grown... and grown... and GROWN! :bigsmile:

 

[gnoles]

Went snorkling in Hawaii at 16 and loved every second of it.... fast forward a little over 25 years and my first child ends up allergic to furry pets. We tried goldfish, and then one of our friends installed a reef tank. He loved it, and after reading everything I could get my hand on, we jumped in.

 

[TopNotchCorals]

Went snorkling in Hawaii at 16 and loved every second of it.... fast forward a little over 25 years and my first child ends up allergic to furry pets. We tried goldfish, and then one of our friends installed a reef tank. He loved it, and after reading everything I could get my hand on, we jumped in.

a trip to Hawaii got me into reefing also lol.

 

[mike007]

I got kicked in the head by a horse and all i could see was beatifull reef fish for 6 months. So i had to dive right in and start a reef. Now i am a addict and need help.

 

[Nicks0912]

My parents had a reef tank when I wuz like 3. Then they didn't hav enough time to keep up with all of the maintenance so they sold it. 12 yrs later we got a 120g system and I got super into it. Now 1 yr later I got a 24g for Christmas. So now my dad buys my water for water changes n sometimes fish/coral as long as I keep up the maintenance on both of our tanks.

 

[TopNotchCorals]

I got kicked in the head by a horse and all i could see was beatifull reef fish for 6 months. So i had to dive right in and start a reef. Now i am a addict and need help.

ha, thanks for the info. Now I know what to get my wife for her birthday!

 

[TopNotchCorals]

My parents had a reef tank when I wuz like 3. Then they didn't hav enough time to keep up with all of the maintenance so they sold it. 12 yrs later we got a 120g system and I got super into it. Now 1 yr later I got a 24g for Christmas. So now my dad buys my water for water changes n sometimes fish/coral as long as I keep up the maintenance on both of our tanks.

awesome parents:clap2:

 

[Aqua fire/medic]

I told my parents I wanted a dog when I was 15 yrs old. They said no way, a dog will be to expensive, and is to much responsibility........ Lets start a saltwater aquarium in your room :) lol!!!!! I'm 33 now and have had reefs on and off since then. I think a dog would have been cheaper mom!

 

[TopNotchCorals]

I told my parents I wanted a dog when I was 15 yrs old. They said no way, a dog will be to expensive, and is to much responsibility........ Lets start a saltwater aquarium in your room :) lol!!!!! I'm 33 now and have had reefs on and off since then. I think a dog would have been cheaper mom!

once again...awesome parents lol