Reef nutrition

Hello, From the North Bay

DaddyHook

Supporting Member
Hello, new to the forum as I’ve just jumped back into the hobby from a long hiatus. I started in saltwater around 2007 my girlfriend at the time and now my wife bought me my first tank. We were a bit younger, had no experience in saltwater and truthfully just couldn’t afford the hobby. Eventually falling out of it for a long while. I’ve always had a tank running since 2007. Mostly nano puddles. Simple filter less tanks with softies and a clown or 2. Up until we had our first child, our daughter! I was running a 7 gallon Softie tank with a mated pair of Picasso Clowns.

One morning my wife had just returned home from work. I was in the bedroom talking with her when I noticed the silence. As I rounded the corner I saw her. One after another handfuls of cat litter from the cat box. Straight into the tank. I pulled the clowns and the few rhodactis and threw them in a 1.7 gallon I had laying around. After far too long I decided to move the clowns to a better system.

During this time we also had our second child, our son! Then Covid-19 hit and we were stuck inside. My wife is an ICU nurse and has direct contact with Covid patients. So we isolated a bit more extreme than most people did. As we were at a much higher probability of contracting and spreading. Our inner bubble was basically just us and limited drive by distance visiting.

Due to a multitude of stress factors and then the pandemic on top of it. My mental health was not in the best place. One activity that really helped me through my inner strife is aquarium husbandry. I started to jump back onto the forums and realized how much the hobby has changed. I started to get MTS. What was only going to be another pair of clowns has turned into 4 tanks. 1 Species specific system 2 mixed reefs and a frag tank. These are all nanos as that is what I prefer at the moment and have had the most success with.

I’m lucky to say that I have a great wife who is also my absolute best friend. We have great communication with one another. She is the only reason I am even able to have this build; it's as much hers as it is mine.

Sorry for the long rant.

Nice to be here and look forward to being a part of this community.

Andy ~ DaddyHook
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Welcome to the club, Andy!

If you're not aware, there's a frag swap in SF tomorrow. It's free for supporting members like yourself, and I'd be happy to provide some frags for you to come out, take part of the swap, and meet people!

Mental health, and maintaining it, is no easy feat (says the guy with GAD). If you ever want to talk, or are more interested in the bio behind it (MDD/bipolar/anxiety genetics was the topic of my PhD), I'm happy to lend an ear and/or a lecture. :)

Glad to have you, and looking forward to meeting you!
 
Welcome! My gf works in healthcare too, so I get the stress that has been in the house for the last year and a half. I took a really deep dive into my tank as well to keep my spirits up, and mind occupied. Great to have you and we would love to see pictures of your setups!
 
Welcome to the club, Andy!

If you're not aware, there's a frag swap in SF tomorrow. It's free for supporting members like yourself, and I'd be happy to provide some frags for you to come out, take part of the swap, and meet people!

Mental health, and maintaining it, is no easy feat (says the guy with GAD). If you ever want to talk, or are more interested in the bio behind it (MDD/bipolar/anxiety genetics was the topic of my PhD), I'm happy to lend an ear and/or a lecture. :)

Glad to have you, and looking forward to meeting you!
I did mark down that I will be attending. And would love to talk sometime. Thank you for the generosity with the frags but I should have enough to qualify for the swap. Look forward to meeting you!
 
Welcome! My gf works in healthcare too, so I get the stress that has been in the house for the last year and a half. I took a really deep dive into my tank as well to keep my spirits up, and mind occupied. Great to have you and we would love to see pictures of your setups!
I will try to get my build journal up before the swap. The you for the welcome!
 
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