What does your significant other think about the hobby?

[PeterErc]

Asked if it would be okay to set up a fish tank that a buddy was selling and was approved. Same deal, “you should do saltwater” and I argued against it. Wanted to do a Lake Tanganyika tank as it was what I knew. A trip to a fish store and half a Jon boat later we were set up. Spent the rest of the Jon boat on a 90g and all new equipment. The motor for the boat was spend on all the dead fish and coral in the small tank.
A nice 21’ open fisherman later..
Down to only three tanks now. Not too long ago I was ready to take them all down. My Wife would not let me. I fought and fought for more tanks over the years. Pay back I thought to myself , now I have to keep them.
Turns out a several months ago I started ripping a tank apart to clean it up and the fever came back. Was gonna do a mixed reef, and then the FEVER came back. Well full blown SPS again.

So yes, my wife supports my insanity. She enjoys looking at the tanks and does nothing to take care of them.

She told me she didn’t want to take the tanks down because she knows me and new I would regret it. She is right at as again.

 

[chip shop]

She hates the noise,but thinks the corals I bring home are cheap

 

[rhitee93]

My wife is highly tolerant of all the crazy hobbies I have. She knows it is how I deal with a fairly high-stress career. (This burgeoning reef tank hobby is mild compared to some) However, she really isn't interested in many of my hobbies. That is why I spend so much time on forums

 

[Nano_Man]

My daughter is interested in the native tank but my wife doesn’t really bother but the bubble tip anemone tank is looking good now and all a sudden my wife is saying that it is her tank now

 

[Uncle99]

Fully supportive, but just likes watching the show.
The only request was to put all the equipment in the basement, just the DT in the living room.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

My wife is supportive and sometimes enjoys the tank.

 

[anthonymckay]

My wife doesn't mind it, and for the most part doesn't even pay attention to it. Every once in a while I'll excitedly show her something new and she's just like "cool..." lol.

 

[secret_reefer337]

My wife supports me in this hobby, no matter how expensive this hobby is. She likes looking at the tank and enjoy the fish (or maybe thinking that the money spent in our tank should have been saved for retirement…lol) not so much about corals. Most of the time when we are out at LFS, she likes pointing to fish she likes for the tank and most of the time I have to say no.

 

[ErikVR]

When we got our new house, I wanted to get a real fancy freshwater tank for the living room (been in de FW hobby for a long time). But my girlfriend said, ‘hey why don’t you get a saltwater tank? You always wanted one!’

So there you go!

Now we have two saltwater tanks and two quarantine tanks in the house!

 

[Gtinnel]

I had a tank or two when we started dating (25ish years ago) and then got out of the hobby when everything died while moving houses (15ish years ago). About 5 years ago my wife suggested I setup a tank because she liked looking at the fish. She now says suggesting I setup a tank is the biggest mistake she has ever made.
So is supportive and does like looking at the fish but otherwise doesn’t care for it.

 

[Dbichler]

Tolerates it is the best I get. She only enjoys the fish so any time I buy a coral she gets mad and says I only like fish. The best is she thought I kept buying a new fish but in reality it was just my emperor angel that transitioned. She was interested in that and didn’t believe me until I showed her all the pictures.

 

[dennis romano]

My tanks are in the basement. She stops and looks at them MAYBE once a year.

 

[sc50964]

Current gf thinks I’m crazy…, ex wife thinks it’s a good hobby but she doesn’t know she has funded it unknowingly . Lol

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

My wife is all in. We moved from Hawaii to south carolina last year and i had freshwater tanks there which she loved. When we moved part of the deal was I get a reef tank when we move because I really missed having one and couldn't there. So she bought me a used red sea 130dd for my birthday after we moved and got settled in. She was pretty sticker shocked at first but she got over it pretty fast after I told her of course you can pick out stuff too. But she got tired of hearing "we can't have that" and said we needed another tank...so I bought her a 32g biocube. And a 29g planted fw tank for the bedroom. We enjoy going to fish stores together, and have been to a couple of conventions and had a blast. We're off together on Tuesday, so we're gonna drive up to our 2 favorite LFS (about an hour and a half each way) and maybe pick out some new fish and frags.

 

[Tangs-A-Lot]

I recently retired and needed something to do. Well, in a way the Red Sea Reefer 350 g2 is more work than my job was.

My wife is on board and supportive in many ways, however has to put her foot down as we have already spent $5,000+ in 5 months.

I have not been successful in selling her the “let me get a new tank and yours can be the big one”.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

My wife put up with it at first, she could not get the big picture in her head. But now the tank is maturing she really is digging it. She has her favorite corals and loves the fish. She goes down and sits at the reef on her own. My fox face and copper band are her favorite I think

 

[Spare time]

What significant other?

 

[WhatCouldGoWrong71]

Funny you ask this… over coffee, doing my daily testing, Fridays I do more than the average day. She turns to me and says “you have all this automation, you mean to tell me they don’t have something that will do this for you?” So I took that as a green light and will be ordering a couple Tridents this weekend.

 

[jimfish98]

Over the years I have kept a variety of FW set ups, she never cared for them. She would glance, maybe ask a random question occasionally. The koi pond she is cares about even less. When I converted the FW tanks to salt, she was interested. She won't do anything with the fish or tanks, but she will stand by the tank watching the fish or eat lunch in the office watching the tank.

 

[Propane]

My wife supports it. She spends almost as much time watching the tank as me and likes to feed the fish. She asks a lot of questions and tries to find different color variations of the corals I have. She doesn’t want anything to do with testing or dosing and doesn’t want to do any maintenance. Fair enough.