Secret online livestock orders

[itselenababe]

i have a dedicated Non Photosynthetic System i spend most all of my time focusing on that one tank vs my others. Tube Anemones are stunning from my experience with them. The one i just jumped on was from Aqua SD the called it the “Freak Of Nature Tube Anemone” but i have never seen one patterned like this so i could not pass up on it no matter the price.

The way over the top purchases work with the wife is that she comes into the fish room with her coffee, she makes her rounds looking at the tanks, she notices the blatantly new and obviously expensive coral all while i am reminding her how beautiful she is and how much i love her.... the rest can go either one of two ways...

That is so beautiful, I’ve never seen one like it before. Definitely going to be on a long wait before getting one that lives up to that now

She sounds like me hahah. Just with other things like shoe collections and random stuff for the house we don’t need

 

[olonmv]

I used to tell my wife everytime I placed an order but she started complaining about how often I was ordering things so now I just don't tell her. She is the one who keeps track of the bank account so she still knows how much I spend, I just don't usually tell her before I place the order.

Me not telling her isn’t because I'm trying to hide how much I'm spending. If anyone has to hide finances from their spouse they have some pretty serious relationship issues IMO.

Same here, I’m a good worker ant and just bring money to the ant hill. My wife has admittedly given up on scolding me and has accepted that I’m just gonna buy what I want when it comes to the hobby. Randomly came home with over $600 worth of stuff that I “needed” for my aquarium, I thought for sure I was gonna be an episode on Snapped.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

someone who comes and does all of the maintenance for us. It was fun for me for the first year but became too stressful trying to navigate how to run a reef on my own so we hired someone from our lfs

Now I get to just feed the fish and not worry if I’m doing something wrong

That's amazing, good for you

 

[itselenababe]

Kinda hard to keep reefing purchases from the wife at this point she treats my hobby purchases like a bad drug addiction haha.
I've tried every bad drug addict trick in the book at this point and am currently employing the old "look baby I got you some corals" tactic. All I've done is resorted to buying whole packs of corals with 1 or 2 in there for her. So at the end of the day I'm really spending more.
Flip side is I have all my enabling friends here and some have a much bigger problem than myself. So when she starts in on me all I have to do is quickly pull up some threads and coral lists and let her know it could be much worse and buy myself a little more time and maybe a few more corals

it feels like it at this point and it’s only been less than a week! I tried that tactic with a Pom Pom crab before placing that coral order, didn’t work out but I’ll try again when there’s one at a lfs. Good thing for now anyways since crabs freak me out but the Pom poms are so fun, they look like mini cheerleaders

Definitely doing to be trying the thread tactic. So far it’s been more of a worry that I’m going to overload the tank by adding in too many at once no matter how many times I say it’s not the same as fish lol. As soon as our tech gives the green light today it’s back to the lfs to pick up two huge birdnest colonies! I thought they were his that they were fragging but he’s selling me the whole thing for 80cad each and they’re like 6” in diameter

 

[chaoticreefer]

I learnt from my dad that everything is 5 bucks. She knows you are lying, but can't prove it right there, so she can't get mad at you. And...if she does finds out how much it was, it will be in the past, long gone, so she can't get mad because she already had digested her anger.

 

[LRT]

I learnt from my dad that everything is 5 bucks. She knows you are lying, but can't prove it right there, so she can't get mad at you. And...if she does finds out how much it was, it will be in the past, long gone, so she can't get mad because she already had digested her anger.

Its wierd what my wife likes to keep locked up in the vault for special occasions and what she chooses to "forget". Somehow every single reefing purchase is leveraged(even the ones she used last year)when Eurotrip time of year comes around

 

[jassermd]

someone who comes and does all of the maintenance for us. It was fun for me for the first year but became too stressful trying to navigate how to run a reef on my own so we hired someone from our lfs

Now I get to just feed the fish and not worry if I’m doing something wrong

I wish you luck! My experience has taught me different... NO ONE will take better care of your livestock and ecosystem than yourself. Be ready for some corner cutting.
I made the switch the other way... Started with the "tank tech" and realized that the "tech" wasn't all that techy, and actually caused more issues. Example: was ready to do a 20% WC using 1.022 water at 68 degrees when my tank is at 1.025 and 78. Another example: Under their "care" my nitrates were 50 (they told me it was "good" and only 5-10) and my phosphates were 0.3 (same answer!).
Let's just say, the incentives aren't aligned. Corals die, you replace them; things aren't in "check" and you need XYZ to fix it... They make money when things aren't going well, so they have all the incentive to make sure things don't go well.
Hate to be a downer... the best decision I made was to do it myself. And with a 300 gal system, that's saying a lot!

 

[aws2266]

My wife HATES spending over $50 for marine aquarium inhabitents so I hide the price. I know it's childish but an easy solution that keeps everyone happy. Married people know what I'm talking about. I just placed my first online order. It's for a Starcki Damsel. Can't wait to get him.

 

[ZoWhat]

My wife HATES spending over $50 for marine aquarium inhabitents so I hide the price. I know it's childish but an easy solution that keeps everyone happy. Married people know what I'm talking about. I just placed my first online order. It's for a Starcki Damsel. Can't wait to get him.

I also know married spouses eventually find out e v e r y t h I n g.

You're just delaying an inevitable beat down

 

[Isopod80]

My wife gets multiple Amazon deliveries a week, week in and week out. Some of them she doesn't even open. I've got amazon boxes taking up a spare closet. I don't even know what this crap is. If she ever criticizes one of my purchases, I'll just remind her to open her mail.