Tank Tales: What was your first tank like and how did it come about?

[Galaxy reefer]

My first tank was done in a trade for fitness equipment almost 15 years ago. I owned a sports store and my neighbor in the same mall was a fish store. His wife wanted a new excercise bike and some other items and well,I wanted a new tank. Well after careful negotiations ( hey you wanna trade products?) I got into the hobby. The tank was a 125 gallon tank.
After getting the main items I realized how expensive this hobby was going to be.
I am still in the hobby today with a second 125 tank.
The only reason i have a second one was the fact I had to include the old one with the sale of our first home.

 

[Nover05]

Other: I kinda was on a savings plan, but I build piece by piece instead of buying an entire system ready to go. So piece by piece I saved up until I had everything I wanted/needed.

 

[KLaRue]

My first tank was a 40b with canopy & stand bought as a gift from my parents back in the mid to late '80's. Operated as a FO with an undergravel filter, a couple of T-12 fluorescent lights and away I went not having a clue what to do beyond what I learned in the aquarium magazines and whatever books the library had. Later added some live rock and a HOB "reef system" to move it beyond just fish (didn't really go well). That tank is long gone but still wanting to get back into the hobby - saving money and trying to get my wife on board with the idea. Obviously a work in process....

 

[ReefRondo]

I was suffering from terrible depression and decided that a new full on hobby would help distract me. I decided literally overnight I wanted a marine tank. Next day found one online for sale reasonably locally and went to see it. Bought it on the spot and collected it the following day with the help of a friend and his van (400L AquaOne with sand, rock and fish) drained it, got it home and set it back up to realise I had lost water in the transfer and didn’t even have salt, didn’t know it had to be specific salt and didn’t have any ro water...the distraction and stress really helped me and I have now 5 tanks including my own frag system. Can’t get enough and no longer suffer from depression.

 

[Doctorgori]

At 7 or 8 I got My 1st tank, it was a Metaframe 5 gal from Sears. My mom got it for me with 2 pregnant black mollies kinda as a science thing.

I got ny 1st SW tank right when “frameless” tanks, clownfish & Instant Ocean became commercially available. I went in 1/2 with my friend. His mom bought it with a condy anemone. We never figured out why it wouldn’t host. I lived for a while.

My 1st reef-ish tank was purchased when I visited my 1st “Reef” store on 40th st & Camelback in Phx, AZ (anyone remember that place?). It was a 20G tank, Hagen filter, dolomite, clownfish and brown flower anemone. Anyway I was impressed by the stock & the owners knowledge and have been addicted ever since (I might have a pic somewhere lol )

 

[SRQreefer]

Total gift. I was keeping a tiny, freshwater tank on my desk in my office and had freshwater tanks off and on since college. One of my colleagues asked me one day if I wanted her 55G fish only SW system, which she was no longer interested in keeping and which, while well maintained, was down to one clown fish. I jumped on the opportunity. DIY'd that thing into a full blown reef tank within a couple of years until I retired it after moving to a 90 - now, a 120. Anyway, 12 years later, and that first, gifted clown is still with me. I still regularly send pics to my colleague. Best gift ever.

 

[saltgeek1]

My obsession, I mean start in the hobby, started earlier than most, I was 10yrs old (1987) with a 10-gallon saltwater tank with a tomato clown and a 2in piece of PVC piping for him/her to hide. As my dad was mostly into fresh and brackish water tanks [200 gallons in total tanks], I guess you can call my entry into salt a rebellious phase. I am now the caretaker of a 400gallon system with lots of fish and coral.

 

[Shooter6]

First reef wS bought and paid for by cutting grass and working part time at a fish store, back in 1987, and 13yrs old.

 

[Lillmoya]

I’ve had plenty of little freshwater tanks. But now I have my first 75 gallon saltwater. I saved up for it and was really excited to get it. Due to the fact I am active duty, I only buy aquaria that will sustain itself without much maintenance for a month on end. (Macros, clowns, etc.) I’m not chancing sensitive corals and exotics right now.

Every clown is a different color. I have variable species of macros that somewhat make up for the lack of coral in terms of color.

The sand and rock were items I plucked from my nearby beach and chemically treated and cured. (Saved me a couple hundred at least). Lastly, DIY is a big money saver. I’m truly glad I went with a canister filter and lighting as my major purchases. I have found creative ways to make Everything else by hand including a sump, skimmers, and algae reactors.

Best thing I’ve found on the internet as a beginner? Vodka dosing. My nitrates went from 40ppm to 0ppm in 3 days when I used it with Seachem stability. AND my macros started to visibly grow! Which must have meant the carbon dosing allowed them to utilize the nutrients in the tank.

 

[Jacked Reefer]

When I was 14 I decided to convert my 10 gallon fresh tank into salt after my beloved gourami died. I mowed some lawns, walked some dogs, and babysat until I could afford my tank.

About 2 years later I upgraded to a nuvo 20. That crashed and I was out for a bit. But my original 10 gallon with my HOB and the rim taken off ran Halides and grew sps was my favorite tank.

The 20 was to much matinence. Now I’m in a Red Sea and am missing the simple nano game.

 

[Ben Pedersen]

A co-worker was going to throw a Nancube away. He had been trying to keep Nemo and nem for his kids with no success.
I said it can't be that hard. I had kept freshwater since 1983. I had 10 tanks in the second bedroom of our first apartment.
It's his fault I caught this disease.

100% true. I brought it home but it was in sad shape. I put new lights in it using the boards from screw in Compact florescent lights (a big thing then) and a new pump.
Seems like a million years ago now.

4-12-2007

These pics are probably still out there on Nanoreef.com
Incuding my blurry what is this? pics

Is that a photo of Bigfoot?

 

[WVNed]

Is that a photo of Bigfoot?

That's silly. That is Nessie.

 

[mindme]

Today let's talk about your first tank and what led you to setting it up!

1. What was your first tank like?

2. What was the circumstance that got you into reefing?


My story is a 4 part mini series!

It's crazy how mine came about and it was some development of circumstances that I didn't even see coming that ultimately led me here today. I was a teacher in our small church private school and we had a couple of brothers who got a saltwater fish tank for Christmas one year. I had a really good relationship with this family and they would always talk about it, the fish and the cool stuff that they saw etc. Made me very interested! Part one is completed.

Fast forward a few years later and we're watching this really awesome movie you might have heard of called Finding Nemo! Man it was a thriller! Anyway my wife mentions to me that she would like to have a Nemo tank and part 2 was done! I was on it!

Remember those two brothers from our Christian school? By this time they had already graduated and we didn't have too much contact as this was before Facebook and other social media avenues that easily connects friends and family. I was able to locate their number and gave them a call to talk about their old tank and they told me that their tank was dry and sitting in a garage and if I wanted it I could buy it. I think I got that 75G with stand and a bunch of other mismatched Seaclone skimmer parts for $150 or so. Part 3 was finished!

So I begin to research saltwater tanks, should have done that first, and begin making trips to a LFS where I presented my box of skimmer parts to the owner of the store who begin to explain to me what I had and what I needed. I found a forum, www.aquariumadvice.com, and that's where I really dug in and started learning. I was able to learn that I needed a bunch of rock called live rock and then I could pretty much get started. But that stuff was expensive! Well hello and thank you Tax Return check! By this time my wife was all into this venture and so it was an easy decision to spend our entire tax return (all of our extra money) on wet brown rock that was somehow living and one of the best skimmers on the market, according to the lfs owner, a Sea Clone Skimmer! It was a pretty good investment if you ask me. And so part 4 comes to an end with the lfs owner coming to my house and helping me set up my first ever saltwater aquarium. Shout out to LFS owners! WOOT!

This is embarrassing but here is one of my very first threads... ;Bucktooth

Then about 10 days later I ask how many anemones can I keep in my tank! HA! I'm surprised, looking back, that they didn't ban me!

My first tank was a JBJ 16g all-in-one cube. I paid for it myself since it wasn't very expensive. Back then getting RODI water wasn't really possible, so I would have to buy/order natural seawater which was somewhat expensive compared to mixing my own. I sometimes see those boxes at Petco and kind of giggle to myself thinking how dumb I was.

I put 4 dories and 6 nemos in it. J/k. It had a single clownfish, a pistol shrimp, a yellow watchman goby and a cleaner shrimp in it. Then some GSP, a Duncan Coral and some Zoas. I had it for awhile, long enough to get "the bug". I loved it because I would keep it on the edge of my desk and could just look over at it all the time.

Was constantly looking to make upgrades and wanted more, so soon I was off to bigger tanks.

 

[Don Lidtke]

My first reef tank is a Crystal Dynamics 250 gallon (72x30x27) and a sump from Geosreef (46RD-PRO-AFR).

My Love was the one that reminded me of the saltwater fish only tank I had run +25 years ago and wondered if now would be a good time to set up another tank. Honestly, I had put this out of my mind when I took down the tank and gave it away to a friend.

To start the process, which was four years ago, a mass of books were read and YouTube videos were watched. Initially a Red Sea Reefer XXL was the system of choice until MACNA 2018 where I met Crystal Dynamics and Geosreef. After that BRS and several LFS started the whole build process.

Paying for the system has been a combination of savings and financing.

 

[Scott97062]

I started my first aquarium in the early '60s. with Guppies They became a science experiment, then bettas and cichlids.
After college, I got a larger, 100gal. freshwater tank. In the early 90's I decided to try saltwater. progressed to a reef aquarium and upgraded a couple of times since then. Currently have a 100 gal. reef with a large sump built into an entertainment center.

 

[H3rm1tCr@b]

My first fish tank that I remember owning was a ten gallon overstocked freshwater tank. Let’s just say it did not end well for the fish as I had no clue what I was doing being a ten year old at the time. A long time and multiple fish tanks later, I have a reef, crawfish tank, hermit crab terrarium, and a betta sorority. Whew that was a lot!

 

[cyan0069]

My first tank was a 29 gallon that I bought used from a customer of the pet store I worked at when I was 17. I pieced together enough for a hang on filter, internal skimmer, and some live rock and it was a nice little tank. I kept two pink skunk clowns, a yellow tail blue damsel, a Pygmy Angel, and a Bangaii Cardinal and that little tank moved with me a few times. It also kickstarted an obsession that has stuck around for the last 20-something years.

 

[oceanicbrent]

I bought a 10 gallon from Walmart, dry rock from LFS, sand from a dive in Florida that I hauled in a 5 gallon bucket back to my college rental in Virginia, a 20 gallon box of instant reef and distilled water later I had a reef tank for like $40. I picked up a marineland mechanical filter for like $20, a Hydor mini powerhead for like $20, and then spent what I thought was A LOT of money on a Marineland "Reef Capable" light strip for maybe $150 or something. I bought a single clownfish for $15, and then a Keyna Tree, GSP, Leather, and favites war coral for maybe $60 total. It was a brilliant tank, and I somewhat miss it compared to my SPS dominated 90 gallon mixed reef today that I've dropped $5k+ on. I don't have the Keyna tree (thank God) but the other three corals are still in my possession all these years later.

 

[Ippyroy]

I am on my first tank right now. I was planning on a 120 but had to settle for a 32 for now due to the pandemic. I am hoping to upgrade in October or I might wait till May of next year. We will see how everything goes.

 

[a4edwin]

A coworker gave me his setup. Had to bring it from jersey to New York only an hour and a half drive. None of the livestock made it. I set it up and bought a pair of clowns. Everything was great no problems for about 8 months. I went through some health issues so I wasn’t really able to keep up with the maintenance of the tank and things really haven’t been the same. I’m trying and I’ve already purchased an upgrade tank. Still purchasing all the supporting equipment. For the new tank.