What Made You Go Salty?

Right out of college in the mid 80's I bought my first 55G tank. I still have it, although I'm about to put it on eBay. I have never owned, or really had any interest in owning a FW setup. FW fish have always lacked color to me. SW is where the action is.

 

What the hell is an ickle goldfish

 

That's a Jwin word for "little!" :upgrin:

Kind of like my word for skimmate - "ookie"

 

Um excuse me...there were only two turtles thank you very much. One was a red ear slider, the other was a "stinkpot" or Mud turtle, which is related to the snapping turtle. But only grows to 4 inches.

And I fed them mealworms and nightcrawlers too...but you don't see me throwing THOSE in your tank, do ya?

 

For me my current tank was kind of an impulse buy. Was buying some ferret food at the pet store and they had an awesome sale on the tank/stand. So I bought it.
I had kept fresh water for as long as I could remember being a kid. My Mom bred discus and cichlids, and we probably on average had 12 tanks in the house at any given point. I got bored of all the same fish, so when I was about 13-14, I started a 55 gallon local fresh water cold tank, that had a few largemouths, bluegills, and channel cats. When I was 15 the heater failed an electrocuted the entire stock. Got out of aquarium keeping until last year when I got the 40. Wanted to do something completely different so went to salt, as I always loved reefs. I used to spend about 2 months a year on Maui growing up, and would literally spend 6 hours a day, every day, snorkeling the reefs. I missed it

 

That's flipping awesome. I want one.

 

For me, I have always been in the FW hobby. I've had and bread my FW fish in the past. Started off easy with the guppies, sword tails, etc... Then when on to the egg layers such as orandas, oscars, koi and evenyually discus, etc... One day I just packed up everything to just concentrate on school. And after I was finished with high school, I got a part time job at the LFS. So I started back up my FW systems. It was there I saw my fist marine tank. It didn't particularly interest me at first because everything thing was so expensive and I heard the hobby was difficult. Christmas day that year, my aunt got me my first salt water book. From that day forward, I began to save for my first SW tank.
Four years later, I'm now the manager of the same LFS, and starting off my first business breeding marine fish and fragging coral.

 

How lucky can a kid get? I could have stayed on Maui forever! We stayed in Kaanapali, just a walk down the beach from Black Rock. I remember one place in particular - I couldn't even begin to tell you the name of it. It was a lagoon where the water was very murky at first - I hate walking in stuff where I can't what (or who) I'm walking on - then it was like the heavens opened up and the fish/corals were incredible. You probably know exactly where I'm talking about!

 

growing up we had a saltwater tank. This was many many years ago. We had gravel in there, an underground filter...all that good stuff! I remember 2 fish....a lion and a seahorse! Well needless to say the tank did not do well.

I had freshwater most of my life as a kid. I had several tanks set up in my bedroom and they were crammed full. As I grew so did my choice of fish..and my last tank had large Oscars in it.

So fast-forward several years. My brother had kids and they liked coming to my house to see my animals. (I wanted to be a vet when I grew up...but did not pursue it..just an animal collector) Anyway we went and bought them each a goldfish to have in my house. Well one died and I had to go to get a new one. Went to the LFS and started looking at the saltwater. I made a comment that I wished I could set up the tank but knew that they were complicated and could only get large tanks and had no room for it. Well the worker told me about a 29g biocube that I could keep fish in wiht corals. I thought ok well I will try it and bought it that day! That was almost 2 years ago. I still have the 29g but now have many, many other larger tanks that I thought I "had no room for"