Lol I design, build, operate, and maintain water and wastewater treatment plants for a living. When training new employees I often bring in tank water for them to run tests on (as it will yield way different results than they expect ). I get even more eye rolls than most since I do plumbing, water tests, dosing, calabrations, pump rebuilds, etc all day every day on a large scale and then come home to do more just for fun . On the upside I have about a dozen employees I could ask to tank sit that I trained.
Welcome to R2R!. Everyone always rolls their eyes at me too. Until they actually see the tank. Most people where I live have never seen corals in real life and get excited when they actually see them!
Welcome! The only folks I can chat with face to face about the hobby are my wife (until she gets tired of listening) and my LFS guy lol. When I go the LFS I'm usually there for over an hour chatting away lol
I live in the absolute middle of no where, I was really sad moving here that I would not have any reefer friends. It didn't take long to find a local facebook group and while there are not many reefers I have made a couple of friends that are semi local to me. Besides having someone to help you in an emergency and actual human companionship with people who share your interests it can be very helpful to have someone else physically look at your tank and offer suggestions and ideas that aren't going to be noticed posting pictures or videos on forums or social media.
Welcome to Reef2Reef!!!
I get it very well when I tell my friends I am setting up a saltwater reef tank they are like "that's cool, what are you putting in it?" I tell them and they are like really that is going to be so hard. When I try to explain they just shrug. Lol
HAPPY REEFING!!!