The Reef Tank Journey

Yes, post away! Who knows how many you may help in the future by sharing your experiences. You might even convince a few to struggle through their setbacks rather than give up, or even show them how to solve a problem more easily.

 

Sounds like I'll start updating this thread as I go...

 

Hey, good enough. I'll certainly be looking forward to it Mike

 

Preface:

This idea started as a book idea, but I find it helpful to get feedback along the way when writing anything, so it will be published to Marine Engineers as well as 3reef.com as I go. If you are reading this on Marine Engineers or 3reef.com, I hope you enjoy, and I hope you will stay tuned for more. If you are reading this in printed form, than I made it to the end and it obviously came out well. I hope you enjoy also. If you are a publisher reading this on Marine Engineers or 3reef.com, keep watching…
I am intending this primarily as a narrative through my reefing journey, but would also like to share valuable information along the way. Since my start in the hobby, I have published numerous articles pertaining to marine systems, so I will be sharing those along the way.
Reef aquariums truly are one of the most complicated and beautiful hobbies one can have, and there really is no end to the knowledge that one can attain or the things that one can experience. It is more than a hobby. It is a never ending scholarly quest for information that most people do not have. The results may be amazing, but the process to get to those results is absolutely astounding. Years of experience and research go into knowing even a shred of information about the animals in a reef tank. And it is still only possible to scratch the surface of the truth. Speculation and odds are what it all really boils down to, and anything more than that is just a pipe dream.
Professionally trained marine biologists are on the same search as the true reef hobbyist, but we start from scratch. The hobbyist does not start with a standard understanding of biology or knowledge of scientific process. The hobbyist is left to feel around in the dark for anything that feels right, but in the end may learn an astonishing amount about marine systems. The key is to stay persistent and not be afraid to jump from someone’s shoulders to make the next discovery.
If you read more than just a little bit of my work, you will find that my mind is very philosophical in nature and that much of it is based in definition, so at this point the term “true hobbyist” needs defined. A true hobbyist is one who is not building a reef for the result alone. The result is a truly beautiful thing to behold, but it is not the thing that drives the true hobbyist. The true hobbyist builds for the very process of building. Scientists do not work towards the end with the intention of only staring at their results. They work for the work and the knowledge that it will gain them. A true hobbyist is what I like to call a “non-scientific scientist.” They are a scientist in respect to what they expect to gain and how they go about it, but the true hobbyist has no formal scientific training. The true hobbyist works toward a goal knowing that it will only lead to the formation of a new goal. The true hobbyist is a perpetual marine experimenter, not a home decorator.
It is the true hobbyist that I write this to, because anything less will have no appreciation for what a person will go through to not gain any ground. Whether you are at the beginning or the later beginning of your experiments in the hobby, you will know what I mean when I say this.
I’ve never read a preface in my life, and I realize that I’m rambling on about things that could easily fit somewhere else, so I’m going to get on to the more interesting stuff and end this useless part by putting forth this last thought. Information is everywhere and in everyone who takes part in this hobby, so asking questions cannot be avoided, but anyone’s credibility should be questioned when they have no questions. Like I said before, this hobby is led by speculation and odds, and anyone who is not operating on these is not a valid source for information. With luck you may find %99 certainty with information, but nothing more should even be considered.
Please read on and enjoy.

 

Introduction:

I would like to start by introducing myself. My name is Michael Rice and I am just an average person who got into reef tanks for the same reason as many. My hobbies consume my life, so naturally reef tanks quickly became a big part of my life in a hurry, and it shows no sign of slowing down. A few years into the hobby I realized that there really are no stories of how anyone got to where they are in this hobby, and I think we are lacking that. This is my account, with some helpful information along the way, of my journey.
My obsession started at a very young age for me with my mother’s marine aquarium, but I did not fully enter the hobby for many years later. She housed many different types of fish in those early years of salt water aquariums including everything from normal clowns and failed attempts at anemones to lionfish and puffers that got stuck in power heads.
I wish I could recall more about specifics about that retro 80’s tank, but specifics are veiled in a cloud of my bad memory. What I do remember is a very rudimentary tank that certainly had its problems and deaths, but it was still a start
The tank was, from my memory, a 90 gallon standard tank with hang on overflow. The overflow fed a, at the time, top of the line wet dry filter. It also had a couple of very standard power heads in tank to provide flow and oxygen to the inhabitants. She got the tank from a friend, whom at the time was very up on knowledge about the hobby and provided top of the line equipment. In the tank were rocks that were bleached every so often to keep them freshly white.
My mom housed many different types of fish in those days, but a few of them really catch my memory. Shops were sparse at that time, so I can really only remember visiting one for our livestock, but they had just about everything you can think of. Octopus, sharks and some corals were just a few of the rare, at the time things this little store had to offer. For the most part she tried to stay away from the rare stuff, but still managed to get some things in the tank that still to this day would be of interest.
Clowns and anemones were definitely something that she tried often. In those days I’m not sure if the full extent of an anemone’s reliance on photosynthesis was known, so there were not any special lights over the tank. My mom tried many anemones with her clowns in an attempt to get that reef look. She had some successes and as with all tanks, quite a few failures.
My mom has an obsession with lionfish, so these were also one of the common fish to bring home. They can be very hard to get eating, and she certainly had some hard times with those fish. Feeder fish are all that seemed to be available to the lionfish keeper at the time, so I think a combination of poor diet led to the demise of a lot of these fish, but she was quite successful with a few of them.
Aggressive carnivores seem to be a big theme that I remember in her tank, so naturally we saw a myriad of puffers and eels as well. Snowflake eels were and still are quite common, so she had a few of them that were constantly jumping on the floor or cruising down the overflow. They are quite easy, so there was a lot of success on that front.
Puffers must have been a different story, because I only remember one and it didn’t end well. It was a dogface puffer that we all got to know and love. They have amazing personalities, so naturally this fish fit right into the family. The beginning of the end for this fish was a bout with a power head. I came home from school one day to find the poor little guys head stuck to the intake of one of her massive power heads, and knew little to do at the time. I did what I could and removed him from the power head with some kitchen utensils, but it was the beginning of a downward spiral for him, and he soon met his end.
It’s amazing how a tank like this can start so much. I can’t remember knowing anything about the ocean beyond what I saw in that glass box, but it sure did get me going on it. From those years on, when I thought of a fish aquarium I could only see a salt water one. There’s just something about marine systems that seems so much more pure than freshwater ones. These fish come from the ocean where no man has seen it all. They are rarely friendly because it is a highly competitive ecosystem and there is no room for that there.
There is also something to be said in my mind for challenge and rarity. When considering an undertaking for simple pleasure, I weight the challenge as its greatest aspect. Something that does not pose a challenge simply cannot keep interest. The rarity of a particular thing also helps to drive me towards a goal, because there is simply no reason to do something that has already been done. If all people did was what has already been done, we would be scratching rocks in a cave right now rather than walking on the moon. This is what drives all that is worth a person’s time, and when we are gone it is all that will have mattered.

 

keep up the posting, i know this will be full of good info.

 

awesome preface and intro! im hooked so far

 

Excellent start... Can't wait to see more. :thumb_up:

 

subscribed

 

Subscribed as well. As a new guy in this hobby, I'm really interested in system design. Seems there's a lot of info on this, but it's spread out all over the place and as a result is kind of disjointed. You have any plans to include a chapter on this? I'd love to see a guide to system design principals that included the whole shootin' match.

Good stuff so far!