Tell us your story, how did you get into this hobby

eshopps · Aug 14, 2014

Matt Rogers said: ↑

I've loved aquariums and fish since I was a boy. My earliest memories are of my best friend's double 10 gallon freshwater setup on a bunk-bed type stand when we were about 8 years old. We used to stare at that for hours. They were your typical tetra fish setups with plastic plants. A few years later another friend had several freshwater tanks from 10 to 30 gallons with goldfish and some giant plecos. When he had sleep overs I recall falling asleep to the sound of air-pumps. They were tranquil to me then.

In high school I bought my own aquarium. I started with tetras like my friends. It was a 10 or 15 gallon tank with under gravel filters and pebble substrate. But college was when I really caught the bug as I started up my first saltwater aquarium. This was around 1991. It was a 40 breeder with an Eheim canister filter and a custom hood pack with fluorescent lighting. It was a FOWLR with some aggressive fish like lion fish, a Picasso trigger and a snowflake eel. At some point I introduced caulerpa and it grew like the weed it is all over the rocks. I think I actually used lava rock and some dead coral heads back then. Wow, how ugly that must have been. But I loved it. I recall introducing an anemone that promptly died. I fished out the oozing remains and dropped it into the shag carpeting before I reached the sink. Oh the horror. I'm not sure there is much worse that you could drop into a shag carpet. The smell was overpowering. I shampooed it several times.

Sometime in late 1992 I upgraded the filtration on my 40 breeder after graduating college and moving back to Chicago. I had been reading FAMA magazine a lot and decided to order a wet/dry sump and two giant 24x6 gravity fed airstone skimmers from Debron Aquatics in Denver. (I've mentioned these skimmers about 800 times over the years on 3reef. I loved them.) I was really hooked then. I found I could keep the skimmer level after adding a float switch and gravity fed ATO. My next upgrade was a Hamilton Halide fixture with actinic florescent tubes and a giant SE 6500k halide bulb. I also put a little giant external sump pump on it and increased the sump capacity by making my own with plexiglass and bonding glue. The external pump and giant air-pumps were loud, so I lined the inside of my stand with bed foam. This helped a lot.

Around 1993 I pulled stakes, gave most of my aquarium away (keeping the skimmers) and moved to the upper east side of Manhattan with my college girlfriend. While trying to get a real job, I got a temp job down at Age of Aquariums at 60th and 2nd at the time. The store was really ahead of it's time running reef tanks with the Berlin method. They had incredible rocks from Indonesia and some stunning corals. I worked the till at first but quickly got pulled into their large custom aquarium business. I was taught how to cut thick glass in their basement and we would pack it into the van and drive to some high-rise, where we would go up the service elevator and then carry it down to some well-off's big condo or penthouse and we would glue it all together on-site, building the aquarium and sump. The long-term business was in the maintenance. After a while they were throwing me my own accounts. I'd jump around on the #6 train with a duffel bag filled with a large python hose & test kits and hop around the city hitting accounts. If I could line up a few in a row it was good money. I was getting $75 a visit for general maintenance - cleaning and water changes - plus tips. And people tip in Manhattan. This one guy - a large-scale metal recycler (think fleets, not cans) - had a tall goldfish tank in his office. I'd be done in 20 minutes and he always tipped me with a $50 bill. I started to have several accounts like this. 20 years ago this was big money. My girlfriend with the office job was starting to marvel that I was starting to make more than she was with fewer hours.

I almost forgot about my aquarium in NYC. I kept an open-top 30 gallon that I drilled out in the store. I kept it stocked with indo rock and great corals that I got for wholesale - a great advantage to working in an aquarium store. It had a 10 sump, gravity fed ATO, kalk drip and skimmer. A 10k halide pendant was suspended with a movie-set C-stand. It still might be the best tank I've had. Occasional dosing, but healthy amount of water changes were the routine. It was bullet-proof. You can see pics in my profile photos.

The 'big' job never came. And after 9 months, my girlfriend and I broke up. I decided to move back to Chicago where my friends were. I moved my entire tank in a 2 day road trip in the back of my Honda Civic. All fish and coral were double bagged with double water and oxygen. Rock was placed wet in stryo-foam coolers. When I got to my new apartment, I was exhausted but I set up my tank. Everything survived.

My roommate introduced me to the Internet that he could access through his university account. It was all text but intriquing. Sometime later gofer brought simple graphics onto the Web. Around then I started to learn HTML from a book I bought. I began to think about building a web site of my own, but I didn't know what to write about. Then I thought about my time in Manhattan and all I learned. And that's how 3reef was born in 1996.

matt
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for sharing your story Matt! we will share it on Eshopps Facebook.

1.0reef · Aug 15, 2014

This tank:

R.I.P. Stephen Hurlock

eshopps · Aug 22, 2014

gcarroll said: ↑

It's definitely a passion for me. I got interested in marine life after taking a Marine Science class at Orange Coast College. When I transferred to California State University, Stanislaus, i lived in the dorms. Unfortunately there were no aquariums allowed in the dorms. There was only one small LFS in the town and I went there at least twice per month to look at the aquariums. Eventually I became resident advisor in the dorms and at the end of each staff meeting my roundtable question at the end of each meeting was, "Can I have an aquarium?" Needless to say the answer was always, "NO!"

After returning home I continued to visit LFS's regularly but never considered getting a tank. My fiancé at the time (now my wife) also joined me on these trips our whole time dating. She saw how much she loved to watch the animals. At that time I was competing nationally in car audio competitions. I won the world championships and was getting kind of board with it. Since I am a competitive person, I always want to be the best. Problem is, once I achieve that I typically walk away. My wife saw I was ready to walk away from the Car audio scene and for our first Christmas together, she bought me an aquarium. I immediately bought all the books I could on saltwater aquariums and learned the hard way. From that point forward I wanted to have the most beautiful reef in the world. Since I don't have bottomless pockets, I know that I won't be leaving this hobby anytime soon.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for sharing!

eshopps · Aug 25, 2014

oldfishkeeper said: ↑

I have always been fascinated with all things aquatic from a young age. As a young child, I had allergies and the only pet I could keep was fish. Like others on here, that meant looking in nearby creeks and picking up critters to bring home. This hobby then grew into keeping multiple fish bowls throughout the house and eventually we got an aquarium. I spent the summers at my grandparent's house and they lived on Lake Erie. I started catching critters in the lake (baby fish) and then set up two large plastic ponds in the back to keep them. We eventually moved to the lake and I gave up keeping lake critters and had a couple aquariums in my room and then a 10 gallon followed me to college and several apartments.

I kept FW for many years and was too intimidated by saltwater and also too broke to afford it. I set up my first salt tank in the early 90's as a reef tank. As time went on, I realized that it was going to be too much to raise my toddlers and to maintain the reef tank. I broke it down and set up a FOWLR.

I've always been fascinated by aquatic life. As many on here I'm guessing, I toyed around with the idea of becoming a marine biologist. I loved watching Jacque Cousteau (sp) while growing up. Since that didn't happen, I continue to learn more and more about marine life and build my little slice of the ocean in my living room.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your story. it has always been amazing to have a piece of ocean at home.

Dman · Aug 25, 2014

I also used to watch Jacque Cousteau. I've always been fascinated with ocean life. As a kid I used to go to Winns dollar store and look at the goldfish and the few tropicals they had. My mom got me a 10 gal. Since then I have had aquariums off and on and always wanted a saltwater tank. The fish are so much more colorful than FW. Finally I got a good job that would fund one. I saw a flame angle and said that's it I'm going for it I got to have one. So I took my 55 and converted it. Sometimes I even sit right in front of it and just watch all the activity. I'm hooked for life.

Log in or Sign up

Tell us your story, how did you get into this hobby

eshopps 3reef Sponsor

1.0reef Giant Squid

eshopps 3reef Sponsor

eshopps 3reef Sponsor

Dman Astrea Snail

Log in or Sign up

Tell us your story, how did you get into this hobby

eshopps 3reef Sponsor

1.0reef Giant Squid

eshopps 3reef Sponsor

eshopps 3reef Sponsor

Dman Astrea Snail

Useful Searches