box of shards
New Member
Hello all. I’ve set up my first saltwater aquarium a few months ago, and I’m having a blast in this hobby. It’s one of six aquariums in my home, one of them being a copepod culture and the others freshwater planted aquariums.
I got into fishkeeping in a big way once I picked up a copy of Ecology Of The Planted Aquarium and went down that rabbit hole a few years ago. It gave me a hobby that was natural and beautiful, something I could take my time with and learn about . It took a lot of trial and error, but it gave me perspective in return. Fishkeeping was far more educational and rewarding to me than the corporate stores let on.
I had a curiosity in saltwater, but was turned off by the reputation it has. The constant fight over water changes. The techno-babble. I would look up “low maintenance” aquariums on YouTube and see garishly high-tech systems where the video still described major regular work. What I enjoyed about aquariums was seeing nature triumph from modest husbandry. These first impressions lead me to think that saltwater required extreme life support to thrive. Looking back, more went wrong when I was tweaking my understanding of planted substrate than what probably would have happened if I chucked a clownfish, a sponge filter, some rock, and red algae into a 20 gallon.
In picking up freshwater stuff, I chatted with the local reefers and gradually warmed up to the idea of saltwater. I set up my first 35 and it was surprisingly easy. This baited me into learning more about the hobby and before I knew it, I had a new obsession within my obsession. I made my first build thread here a few days ago and got some great input on moving forward with it. I’ll update with the rebuilt rock scape and equipment soon.
So far I have loved my journey into saltwater. It turned out to be an amazing surprise to me just how much variety of life there is to keep, and how many options there are for how to go about it. I’m glad to be here, things aren’t nearly as scary as they might seem at first.
I got into fishkeeping in a big way once I picked up a copy of Ecology Of The Planted Aquarium and went down that rabbit hole a few years ago. It gave me a hobby that was natural and beautiful, something I could take my time with and learn about . It took a lot of trial and error, but it gave me perspective in return. Fishkeeping was far more educational and rewarding to me than the corporate stores let on.
I had a curiosity in saltwater, but was turned off by the reputation it has. The constant fight over water changes. The techno-babble. I would look up “low maintenance” aquariums on YouTube and see garishly high-tech systems where the video still described major regular work. What I enjoyed about aquariums was seeing nature triumph from modest husbandry. These first impressions lead me to think that saltwater required extreme life support to thrive. Looking back, more went wrong when I was tweaking my understanding of planted substrate than what probably would have happened if I chucked a clownfish, a sponge filter, some rock, and red algae into a 20 gallon.
In picking up freshwater stuff, I chatted with the local reefers and gradually warmed up to the idea of saltwater. I set up my first 35 and it was surprisingly easy. This baited me into learning more about the hobby and before I knew it, I had a new obsession within my obsession. I made my first build thread here a few days ago and got some great input on moving forward with it. I’ll update with the rebuilt rock scape and equipment soon.
So far I have loved my journey into saltwater. It turned out to be an amazing surprise to me just how much variety of life there is to keep, and how many options there are for how to go about it. I’m glad to be here, things aren’t nearly as scary as they might seem at first.
