when did it happen to you??

[Yuki Rihwa]

I started with both fresh and saltwater tanks, through out the years I've changed my interest on fresh water species many many times BUT my saltwater tank still look the same, if I moved to somewhere I just re-setup and bought same fish species lol. Now, I just gave up freshwater and stick with saltwater. It took me way too long (years) to realized saltwater is my true favorite in this hobby!

 

[Mikefallen13]

For the longest time I was kept only saltwater tanks, all the different fish and corals really appealed to me. At one point I was up to 5 reef tanks so it was obviously a ton of work to keep them healthy. After a while, the labor, time and money involved really became overwhelming and one day it just sort of hit me that I didn't enjoy the tanks anymore. I was just sick of the all the work, and buying all this crazy expensive equipment when I still couldn't get the tanks to thrive. They looked okay, but there was ALWAYS some issue that I needed to fix, It was really aggravating.

That was a couple months ago, the marine tanks are slowly converting to freshwater and I couldn't be happier. I still have two marine tanks, but I'm thinking I'm going to go down to one within a couple months, my discus need an upgrade.

 

[that_fish_Guy]

I used to have over 20 tanks all 60 gallons or above.The moment when i decided to slim it down and focus on what I like was when I bought my first RTC and much much later my wels catfish. I bought an RTC a long time ago and housed him first in a 180 gallon (LFS said would be fine now I know that's BS) then eventually had To house him in a 12ft diameter pool that was less than ideal. he died of some sort of issue with electricity I believe....shoplight fell in pond end of story. ...years and years later (as of current) I bought a wels catfish and I have planned my future fish keeping around it. Already designing a 10-12ft long 8 ft wide plywood pond which will go in the garage and be filtered with an overhead sump 180gal-240 gal and several 55 gallon drums.

 

[Fat Homer]

For me it was when i discovered my love for oddball fish, mainly puffers...

I mean i always took care of my fish, but only when i got i to puffers did i really start going above and beyond for my fish...

 

[Hendre]

When i got my african knives (didnt plan on getying one) i fell in love immediately.

Also when i moved my goldfish into a tank for a bit i realised how big they were and how badly i cared for them outside. They are outside again now in a small container still (bigger than last ) but i keep it as clean as i can till i get a 300 gal container

 

[PYRU]

I was in my downstairs one day and had a moment of clarity. I was doing a ton of waterchanges and was getting frustrated with interruptions from my fam. Then it dawned on me that I had acquired so many tanks that I had turned my hobby into a job and was actually stressing about it. So I decided to cut it back to 3 c/a cichlid tanks. It resparked my passion and allowed me to focus more on the important things on the weekends (my wife and kids).
Now I've had to dwindle down to my favorite in a big tank for awhile due to work obligations and a foundation repair in my downstairs. I never kept my fish in bad conditions, but I definitely take that extra step now that I don't have so many.

 

[Binge]

For me it was when I lost all my electric blue crays. I bred them for a couple years and over that time I baught new tanks and equipment with them and they got pushed more towards the back burner each time. and got less and less cared for. In the end I had 13 tanks. May not seem like much but when you work more than 60Hours a week on average...

In the end my big male kind of lost it and killed everyone in his tank. this of course can happen with crays. but I doubt he killed all the females in there in one sitting and I didnt notice till the tank smelled bad.

Now I have 2 fish tanks and an axolotl tank for the wife. If I can get a big enough tank I will go down to one and the axolotl tank.

 

[cichlidfish]

When I got an Oscar, and realised even after buying a 90g it still wouldn't suffice.

I had angelfish as a child, but when I really started to get into fish, I started w/ an Oscar. My mistake was believing a guy at a LFS that an Oscar could live in a 40g for life. Nope. So I moved him to a 75g. Nope still too small. At the time I couldn't afford a larger tank, so I sold him. But I enjoyed smaller cichlids that were better suited for 4' tanks until I got a 150g.

 

[hooliganATV]

some awesome stories and just shows we all started somewhere keep em coming

 

[SumoNinja]

Reading the title, I had a completely different idea of what this thread was gonna be about

Good thing I read first and not post my story

Would've been embarrassing