Saltwaater reef aquariums

Peppermint Shrimp

I love it when Weebly crashes and I'm 80% through a post and it's not saved for some reason - I have used we believe for many years, and know how to crank out contact quickly with the service, but ever since they were purchased by Square, the investment has slowed, and the quality of the service has likewise become quite terrible. 

​Sigh! Anyway, the post I was riding with about aquariums. I got my first aquarium in 1987 when I was in college it was a 20 gallon long aquarium with too many fish, too many frogs, and too many plants. Miraculously, nothing really died all that much and I seem to have a green thumb for aquarium keeping.

I graduated to the desired salt, water side of the hobby, with a 40 gallon, high end, display aquarium that I kept for over 15 years as a fish only tank. Likewise, it was overstocked, and the hobby was not very advanced at the time.

​I am unsure how many times I moved and tore down and reset up that aquarium over the years, but it has to be high up there on the all time record list.

Since then, I've had a 55 gallon marine fish display tank, two small 20 gallon reef tanks, and 90 gallon cube mixed reef tank, 37 gallon, soft reef tank, and our prized 225 gallon saltwater next reef tank that we maintained in Texas for a few years. We had to give this tank up when we moved to Colorado and both Debbie and I have always wanted to get back into the Hobby.  

Fast forward to 2021, we bought another 220 gallon reef tank that we began pricing out and buying hardware for but then Debbie had her tragic leg accident in between convalescing Debbie and an intense work schedule over the last few years, the reef tank has sat empty in our living room, and I'm coming to unfortunate phase where I need to make a decision of whether we can go forward economically and from a time efficiency perspective, since I have very little or do we sell the tank and revisit this whole hobby down the road.

​I'm not ready to make that call today, but it's coming because an empty aquarium as a centerpiece in the living room of your home is peculiar to say the least.

Between Covid and two years of Debbie's recovery with at least another year to go, we have been sheltered in for a long time, and I'm growing more and more restless. I'm beginning to think about minimalism, shedding all of our junk, and being more out there and adventurous, and in many ways a 220 gallon saltwater reef aquarium does not fit into that lifestyle. I suppose that we'll see how Debbie's recovery goes and make the call in a few month, but I do miss the hobby and hope that one day we can return to it, whether that be sooner or later, I would just need a lot more help from Debbie then she can get right now.

One of the challenges is the high expense of reef lights and equipment and changes in the harvesting laws for live rock, which makes reef cycling and maturing so much more difficult today than it used to be in the past - I can't imagine that I would be happy with a cycle that is so much longer and living with the "ugly" phase of an aquarium for potentially years instead of months; hopefully bacteria-induced cycling advances significantly in the near-term.
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​I am researching new methodologies and technologies, to make reef, keeping easier and less maintenance, and will be sharing some of those findings and videos, and so forth as I work towards this decision.