Circa 2005 I was a young, 20-something hotshot reefer - living in Boston, and pretty active in the local club. I had a whole bunch of tanks, no money, and a small apartment. Life was good.
Then I met a girl at the fish club who had a 125, and worked at the New England Aquarium - and fell hard. She got a job offer at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago - so we bundled up the dog and cats, sold off a lot of the livestock and equipment, and gave what was left to my little brother for what was expected to be a relatively short break from reefing.
She got different jobs - a stint at the Smithsonian, followed by some time at the Maryland Zoo - and I followed along. We set up small freshwater tanks along the way - we had bettas for a while, and then I bred Praecox rainbows in a planted 40 breeder for a bit. There were killifish. But there was never saltwater - because moving a reef tank is hard.
In 2013 we bought a house outside Richmond Virginia - and among other things, I ended up with a 150g stock tank chock full of water plants and comets.
Flash forward to last fall - I get a text message from my wife saying that a co-workers reef tank (wait, what?) had crashed, and that she was giving up. Then I got another text with a picture of a clownfish in a bucket. Great. Its starting.
I head out to the garage to see what we've got left for equipment - there's a 5 gallon marineland acrylic all-in-one thing - the acrylic is a little crazed - but looks whole, assorted pumps and flotsam and jetsum - a whole bunch of heaters that don't work - and under a pile of wood stove pellets, what do I see? Two boxes of Reef Crystals, and a 50lb box of MarcoRocks that I think I got from Marco before MarcoRocks was really a thing. And the Reef Crystals? Who knows - probably a group buy from Boston.
So my Wife sets up the clown in some bucket-water in the Marineland with some rubble from the coworkers tank and a little bit of dry rock - and off we go. For like 3 weeks. And then there's salt creep everywhere, and the Marineland AIO is clearly leaking - big crack across the bottom.
So she goes out and finds someone on facebook selling an IM Nuvo Fusion 10 with skimmer and a Black Box led light, and sets that up in the home office. Some more of the dry rock finds a home - as well as some live rock she found on facebook - with some button polyps. So now its not a clownfish, its a reef tank.
We've got a rambunctious 2 year old and full time jobs, and too much going on. I don't want a reef tank again. Too much work. But its her tank, not mine, so whatever.
A couple months go by, and the single clown has miraculously become a pair, there are zoas, and mushrooms and a rose BTA and she's looking at captive bred mandarins online. We drive down to Virginia Beach to pick up a Nuvo 40 and stand and a bunch of caribsea rock and a bunch of other stuff someone is getting rid of. I make the mistake of saying I'll take the Nuvo 10 if she's upgrading.
This is a mistake for a couple of reasons:
Then I met a girl at the fish club who had a 125, and worked at the New England Aquarium - and fell hard. She got a job offer at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago - so we bundled up the dog and cats, sold off a lot of the livestock and equipment, and gave what was left to my little brother for what was expected to be a relatively short break from reefing.
She got different jobs - a stint at the Smithsonian, followed by some time at the Maryland Zoo - and I followed along. We set up small freshwater tanks along the way - we had bettas for a while, and then I bred Praecox rainbows in a planted 40 breeder for a bit. There were killifish. But there was never saltwater - because moving a reef tank is hard.
In 2013 we bought a house outside Richmond Virginia - and among other things, I ended up with a 150g stock tank chock full of water plants and comets.
Flash forward to last fall - I get a text message from my wife saying that a co-workers reef tank (wait, what?) had crashed, and that she was giving up. Then I got another text with a picture of a clownfish in a bucket. Great. Its starting.
I head out to the garage to see what we've got left for equipment - there's a 5 gallon marineland acrylic all-in-one thing - the acrylic is a little crazed - but looks whole, assorted pumps and flotsam and jetsum - a whole bunch of heaters that don't work - and under a pile of wood stove pellets, what do I see? Two boxes of Reef Crystals, and a 50lb box of MarcoRocks that I think I got from Marco before MarcoRocks was really a thing. And the Reef Crystals? Who knows - probably a group buy from Boston.
So my Wife sets up the clown in some bucket-water in the Marineland with some rubble from the coworkers tank and a little bit of dry rock - and off we go. For like 3 weeks. And then there's salt creep everywhere, and the Marineland AIO is clearly leaking - big crack across the bottom.
So she goes out and finds someone on facebook selling an IM Nuvo Fusion 10 with skimmer and a Black Box led light, and sets that up in the home office. Some more of the dry rock finds a home - as well as some live rock she found on facebook - with some button polyps. So now its not a clownfish, its a reef tank.
We've got a rambunctious 2 year old and full time jobs, and too much going on. I don't want a reef tank again. Too much work. But its her tank, not mine, so whatever.
A couple months go by, and the single clown has miraculously become a pair, there are zoas, and mushrooms and a rose BTA and she's looking at captive bred mandarins online. We drive down to Virginia Beach to pick up a Nuvo 40 and stand and a bunch of caribsea rock and a bunch of other stuff someone is getting rid of. I make the mistake of saying I'll take the Nuvo 10 if she's upgrading.
This is a mistake for a couple of reasons: