Do you fight with your family/friends over this hobby?

[GlennDalton]

My parents are convinced it takes thousands of gallons per month of water and keep telling me the city is going to shut off their water and that the powerheads and heater are costing a fortune. I called PG&E and did the math. It cost 13 cents to run my 65 gallon goldfish tank per day and that's assuming the heater is always on because the ambient temperature has fallen below 65 degrees. Does paranoia come along with senility? Oh and they are convinced their floor is permanently damaged because I had a small leak. Just to be responsible I called Coit and had them vacuum up the water professionally. I recently had a hard wood floor put in and was told that the floor was fine. Now they say the latent moisture from the leak several years ago is going to cause dry rot and make the floor fall through. I can't win. Oh they also insist I don't buy any more fish. Why? It's not like it's going to take more water or make the heater run any harder. Parents are bat-**** crazy.

Glenn

 

[Oddball]

The only problem I have with my wife is when she wants to add her fish to my tanks. At first, she was happy with her angelfish 300 and her 450 moray tank. But, she keeps bringing home fish that won't mix with her current tanks so, she insists on putting them in my species-only tanks until I set her up new tanks.
For someone who insists I now limit my number of tanks, we sure have alot more tanks than my limit allows. At least she takes care of feeding her tanks and doing basic cleaning. But, it seems like I have way more gravel washes lately than I should. She's in for a shocker once I have to start maintaing the 2 4750 gal tanks we're ordering. I won't have time for her tanks any longer (I hope).

 

[celebrist]

Glad to see you ramping back up oddball

OP and others living at home you should count your blessings that your parents who don't enjoy the hobby like us still allow you to have multiple tanks. That is really incredible if you stop and think about it. Find ways to show your appreciation and willingness to defray some of the costs and you might be surprised at the results!

 

[FMA4ME]

3rd date? Or whatever it was that I invited my husband to see my bedroom and the 5 tanks... I just let him in and watched... Thankfully he had talked about on his lunches going to the petstore and watching the fish and wanting a tank but never knowing what to do ect... He took a few minutes checking out all the tanks ( yep i was totally ignored) and then asked me about them for the next hour... I tagged and bagged that man soon afterwards! Lol

.....

HOT!!

Glad to see you ramping back up oddball

OP and others living at home you should count your blessings that your parents who don't enjoy the hobby like us still allow you to have multiple tanks. That is really incredible if you stop and think about it. Find ways to show your appreciation and willingness to defray some of the costs and you might be surprised at the results!

+1

 

[jaws7777]

This is a funny topic... My wife loves the fish just as much as I do and I never hear anything from her about it but my kids on the other hand use it every time they want a new video game or shoes... My 15 year old thinks I should buy him a pair of $200 Jordans every time a new pair come out, So when I tell him no I am not paying $200 for ANOTHER pair of shoes because it has a stick figure on it.... And the first thing out of his mouth is I bet if it was a new fish tank you would pay $200 for it!!!! LOL...

So then I have to hit him with the old " well when you grow up and get a job and pay your own bills you can decide on what to spend your money on", but when you already have 10 pair of them I don't think you need another pair this week!!!

Tooo funny....i can see my kids eventually saying things like this.

My wife is good with it. Doesnt get too involved unless someone is getting rehomed then all of a sudden it was her favirote fish. We'll go back and forth cuz she cant understand why we can lt put more fish in the main tank (trying to expalin stocking levels to her is like rocket science) our pearsei is becoming her fav fish so showing her adult size vids helped.

for you guys with parents ....wow your lucky man ....when i was younger i had a 75 gal....thats it no more they wouldnt even consider it. If i didnt some how come up with the $$$ to feed them they starved, new fish were on me, and water was free back then...i doubt i would even have had the one tank if it werent

Fast forward...i couldnt be that way. My 4yr old already claimed the 150 gal (he chose the stock) and my daughter has a 30 gal.

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[shookONES]

My dad got me into the hobby when I was a kid. Fast forward a decade and we're both still into it.

 

[Yuki Rihwa]

My dad taught me how to keep fish when I was a little first grade kid...Now over 40 years later every time he come to my house and look at my monster tank and keep saying that I'm doing wrong...I was like "Dad is not a betta fish you taught me how to keep some 40 years ago"...Well, he got mad. So to prove my point I setup another tank in his house and same exact fish for him and told him...It's your now and try to keep it with your "betta" experiences! Of course a month later he took everything to my house and said you keep it...it's too much work for me and seem like the fish is dying, after that he just watch and never say anything to any of my tanks

 

[jaws7777]

My dad taught me how to keep fish when I was a little first grade kid...Now over 40 years later every time he come to my house and look at my monster tank and keep saying that I'm doing wrong...I was like "Dad is not a betta fish you taught me how to keep some 40 years ago"...Well, he got mad. So to prove my point I setup another tank in his house and same exact fish for him and told him...It's your now and try to keep it with your "betta" experiences! Of course a month later he took everything to my house and said you keep it...it's too much work for me and seem like the fish is dying, after that he just watch and never say anything to any of my tanks

Lol

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[administrator]

To the OP. Patience my friend. I know where you are coming from. My parents are very similar. They were always against the hobby. They said it was a waste of time, money and that I should focus on my education. What they didn't know was that I learned more from this hobby than I ever did at school. : )

The real problem began when I got the "huge" tank. It was a 90 gallon but in their eyes it was the biggest tank they have ever seen. I will never forget what they said when they first saw it, "You finally did it this time, and brought the whole national aquarium home." HAHA. I still laugh whenever I think about it. Before that I had smaller tanks, 29, 20, 10.

Even though I worked at two separate jobs after school and on the weekends and I paid for everything myself, and chipped in for more than my share for the both electricity and the water bill, they would not stop with the negative comments. Not just about my tank but the whole hobby in general. WASTE OF TIME, WASTE OF MONEY..... was the majority of their comments.

I finally could not take the nagging and comments anymore and sold everything except for a few mementos to keep for the next tank once I moved out. What bothered me the most was that they were cool with just about anything else I did. Even when I messed up they were generally calm and positive. But for whatever reason the tanks and hobby just rubbed them the wrong way.

The first thing I did when I moved out was buy the biggest tank I could afford at the time which was a 265g. I did this even before buying any furniture.
You should have seen the look on their faces the first time they came over to visit. Decent size home, little to no furniture other than the essentials and a 7 ft fish tank.

I don't think it would be appropriate to post what they said when they saw the 265. LOL.

Long story short, be patient. I had to wait 5 years until I could save up and move out.

 

[tommyfc3s]

the most i get is my mom complaining about the smell of the tank since i feed mostly massivore. as far as girlfriends complaining about my fish keeping or other hobbies, particularly my expensive ones like race cars and such, there's a reason they're called EX-girlfriends