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Welcome To NJRC! Take a minute to introduce yourself

B

Brian

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Hi Jack! Welcome to the club!

I used to live in your neighboring town (Port Reading). You should really attend a meeting. Our next meeting is in South Plainfield @ my house. Only about 20 minutes from you. It's a great time, with even better people!

Hope to see you there!
 
T

Treadingwater

Thank you for the welcomes :)

Yes, Brian, my wife and I plan to attend the March meeting at your house. We will probably be bringing out youngest with us. I will post it in the March meeting thread.

I work in Somerset, right off of Davidson Ave, so I'm pretty familiar with the area. You are off of exit 4 on 287, correct?

Jack
 
S

sxmbeach

hi there, my partner and i just started our reef about 4 weeks ago, we are new jersey ites and love to travel. have a 16 yr old son .
we were gloing to move but that feel through so decided to finally get the sw tank that we wanted instaed of moving. we have a 70 gallon oceanic tech tank. just introduced snails and hermit crabs this past weekend so we are realy newbies at this. we do have a great place in ocena township nj that we go to tropiquarium, they are great and very knowledgable
this site looks great and i am sure we will be picking your brains for info. thanks :)
 
J

JerseyWendy

Hi everyone,

It's time to introduce myself, after so many of you nice folks have guided me into the right direction - right here. :)

I go by "Wendy" because most people have a bit of a hard time pronouncing my German name, "Waltraud". :eek: I picked up my nickname "Wendy" 22 years ago, when I met my husband in a disco in Germany. I was born and raised in Germany, and came to the United States first in 1988. We lived in Lawton, Oklahoma for 7 years and then back to Germany for 3. (My hubby is retired U.S. Army, hence the back and forth.)

We've been in Jersey since 1998. First we lived in Tuckerton for 1 year, and in 99 we bought our home in Howell. And guess what? We're done moving. ;D

I started fishkeeping while we lived in Oklahoma. Starting with a 10 gallon, moving up to a 29, and finally getting a 58, which I eventually turned into saltwater. Please don't ask me how I managed to keep my fish alive back then, because I used tap water, a hang-on filter, and fluorescent lighting. :eek: Now that I'm ever so slowly putting together my new baby, a 75-gallon AGA RR tank, with 30 AGA converted into a sump (that was my first project), I would like to do things right, and am taking it slowly, reading as much as I can each and every day.

Just to let you know how far I've come with my future setup, here's what I've got so far:
75 AGA RR (wich corner overflow)
30 AGA converted into sump with baffles and room for refugium
Octopus NW200 skimmer
Quiet One 4000 return pump
...and today I ordered a Tek Light, 6 X 54Watts (no bulbs yet though)

I'm currently working on the stand with my husband, which is almost completed.

Lastly, I'm a stay at home mom, have 2 sons (18 & 15), 2 Bernese Mountain Dogs, 2 Amazon Parrots, 1 Leopard Gecko, and some tarantulas. :)

Ok, that should sum it all up.

---
Wendy
 
RichT

RichT

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Welcome aboard all.
Glade you found us.
Hope to meet you all in person at a future meeting or event.
 
K

kharn101

Hi, my name is Joe, i am a Jr. at The College of New Jersey. Have been in this money pit for 4 years. I have a 30 gallon sps tank at home, but since i have been away from home i have a 6 gallon nano cube....i might be selling it and upgrading to a bigger tank. Anyway, i am looking forward to meeting you. This seems to be a nice small community :)
 
mynd

mynd

Welcome to everyone. I hope that we all make you feel at home. This is a really great community. I just wish at times there were more people doing nano's ;) However, everyone here has been just great and very helpful. So welcome again and hope to see you at the meetings.. :)
 
B

BigRed

Hi, call me Red.

I'm originally from Texas, but have lived lots of different places. I moved to NJ a year and a half ago from Florida. I'm a sound engineer in theatre, so I work nights and weekends mostly. If anyone needs a hand Mondays/Tuesdays, I'm good with lights, speakers, and other electronics. Oh, and moving furniture, I'm really good at that ;)

I've always wanted to keep fish. We moved so much as a kid that it wasn't really an option to have a tank, but I can always remember wanting one. I bought a 29 Gal Eclipse "Saltwater tank setup" a year ago, and have regretted it ever since....j/k

I looked and looked, and read and read, and was convinced that I knew what I was doing, but boy was I wrong. I wanted saltwater for the color of the fish, and now I'm addicted because of the inverts. Well, my FO with crushed coral has evolved into a nice (I think) little reef. I got some LR and traded out my CC for calcite and have kept upgrading my filtration. I got my first corals 2 months ago, and they're doing fantastic. I got some star polyps and a devils hand from a guy in NY, 3 little kenya trees from a guy in SC (all of these for free mind you!!!!) and a little 2 branch torch and some great little zoos I got at absolutly fish.

Next week (I hope) I'm moving it all into a 46 gal bowfront and I'm super excited.

I also race/bash RC cars with some guys from work and really like DIY stuff though i wish my "workshop" wasnt in a little apartment bedroom.

ok, i think that's enough for now. thanks for reading my banter.
 
JohnS_323

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Hey Red, welcome to NJRC! I gotta say you were among the quickest to register with the forum and then join the club! The forums are a great resource for information and I think you'll find that there are a lot of benefits that come with memebership.

It's too bad you work weekends, though. Our meetings are held on either Saturday or Sunday and are always a good time. Lot's of reefers exchanging ideas and informtaion, lots of food, lots to drink, and tons of frag raffles. It's a great opportunity to meet other hobbyists.

Anyway, welcome and we're glad you found us!
 
Tazmaniancowboy

Tazmaniancowboy

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
After almost 5 years of researching and reading other peoples' posts about their highs and lows of saltwater aquarium adventures on Reef central, with the rare comment or question of my own (.06 posts per day average!) I have finally joined NJ Reefers.

My name is Donald and I live in Mt Holly. I am 35, work in commercial construction, Married with 4 foster kids under the age of 5 currently living with me (2 sets of 2 siblings). We are in the process of adopting two right now and the other two in the near future. I'm glad that I established the tank before they came! I have met a handful of you and even bought a couple of frags from a couple. Everybody I have met has been great and I hope to meet the rest of you someday, but with all of the things I have going on right now I don't see it happening anytime soon.

I always loved looking at saltwater aquariums and was amazed that people could keep them, but I thought that only big companies and aquariums kept them. Never knew just how many people have tanks until I joined Reef central or as my wife called it "the fish cult". Nobody that I knew had a tank until one day when my younger brother came home and tried talking my father into converting our goldfish tank of about 17 yrs to saltwater. Evidently my brother had been talking to and made friends with a local fish store. Within about 4 weeks we ripped the old tank out and built a custom entertainment wall unit with a 72 gal bowfront incorporated into it in the corner of the living room.....I was lucky enough to experience the full effect of being sold garbage equipment, constantly being sold down the river being misguided, and even the massive fish kills that accidentally happened as my young brother learned and took full responsibility with Dad's money. It was like living a dream and learning experience without losing any of my own money. Sorry Dad! Eventually things went well and when my brother was comfortable he set up a 90 gal in his house with pretty good results. Watching how the tanks pulled me toward them every time we visited, my wife decided to buy me a 30 tall with eclipse hood and whatever else I needed to do saltwater for our first Christmas in our new house. Thanks to my brother's knowledge and availability to pick everything up, she pulled this gift off as one big surprise. I was not only shocked, but excited too! And that's when the obsession began!

I did as well as I could with the setup, but realized with a bigger setup I could do so much more. I started looking for a used bargain, being that I had something already, I could take my time. After looking for a few months, I found a guy that had to get rid of his complete setup ASAP. The setup was in his friends apartment in Virginia so after we agreed on a price I called my friend and we took a trip that weekend! We left my house Sat morning at 6:00 and got there around 1:00. The owner had moved out of town a few months prior and the apartment holder knew nothing about the stuff, but I was lucky enough that the owner had instructed his friend to leave power heads and heater on to keep the rock live. Boy was my work cut out for me! My friend and I dismantled and packed everything in buckets, coolers you name it in the existing saltwater. The deeper I dug into the tank, the more excited I was...there was LIVE things, snails hermits, found an emerald that scared the heck out of me and there was even 2 corals that were buried and survived everything ( still have to this day). Amazingly we did this in around 3 hrs and headed back home with my truck PACKED with stuff. I got home about 10:30 that night and my wife rolled her eyes. She had no idea how big the tank really was and how much stuff I'd be bringing home. She just couldn't believe that I paid so much when we were having a hard time paying bills and I was laid off for the winter, but she knew how much I had saved! ;D My friend bailed on me after we got the tank and stand in place and I lugged everything else in by myself. My wife watched in awe as I just kept bringing stuff in the house. She asked many questions and told me I should go to bed because I was exhausted and that the stuff would be there tomorrow. I explained that I had to keep everything alive and would just put all water and living things into tank with powerheads and a heater and then sleep. Well I didn't go to bed until 3:30 the next morning. I couldn't stop. around 8:00 Sunday morning my wife awoke from the sound of my holesaw drill going through the hardwood floor into the basement.. :eek:..OH that wasn't good! Whew. Later that day, my brother came over and helped me plumb the system. We finished up before dinner and I fired everything up.....It was the birth of MY first big tank An AGA 120 gal reef ready with dual overflows plumbed into 30 gal sump in the basement!

That was five years ago. Today my corals are growing like crazy and I don't have any more room, but keep looking. Nothing fancy now, but looking for nicer things soon. I want to go bigger, but want to move also. I have no room in my current house so I'll have to wait. I am in the process of changing the sump to a 100 gal rubbermaid and kicking around the idea to drill and add a 55 tank that I have sitting around in my basement that we will start using as a playroom.

And as for my wife, rather than seeing me throw money away at bars she likes to see me put it into the tank for the whole family and guests to enjoy, including herself, but she is tired of seeing my back! ::)

Sorry for the huge post, but it about sums my experience up and I thought you might like to hear my story. Thank you for reading and thanks for all the support that you all have to offer and I hope that I can return the favor someday.

Don.....AKA:Tazmaniancowboy
 
JohnS_323

JohnS_323

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Hey Donald, great post and great story! Good on you for taking in and adopting the foster kids. That's really cool and speaks volumes about your character.

I love the "woke up to the sound of a hole saw" part. We were just the opposite. I have copies of emails between Phyl and I going on for months about how there was no way we were going to drill into the floor. As time went by the tone of the emails changed until we convinced ourselves it was what we wanted to do. About 2 months later we did it!

We currently have 100g rubbermaid sump, a 150g rubbermaid frag tank and a drilled 55 acting as our fuge. If you need any help at all with doing yours just shout. I'd be more than happy to lend a hand.

Welcome to NJRC . . . . after 5 years of lurking!
 
C

concept3

Guest
Hey Don, nice to see you finally post here. We met a couple weeks ago at ILC (remember, the creepy kid walking around for 2 hours with camera in hand, LOL). Great story- and welcome again!
 
Tazmaniancowboy

Tazmaniancowboy

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Thanks for the welcome guys.

No merv The creepy thing is that I knew who you were before we even spoke. I have picked out like 5 people in an lfs just by overhearing a little about there tanks or problems. LOL Makes me feel like a stalker. I'm not kidding you when I said I lived on Reef central reading posts!

By the way, I spent about three hours in ILC that day, Glad my wife was napping at home!

Taz
 
S

Scuba dude

Hi My name is Kevin. I am also from Jersey. I have a wife that has been very patient with my hobby. I have 2 boys that love to check out the tanks but really don't want to do much more then watch.I have done a lot of traveling while I was in the Marine corp. Had the opportunity to scuba dive in some awesome places. That is what got me into salt water tanks. I have had tanks as long as I can remember. I think I make more mistake in my salt water adventures that I could write a book, but hey lets not go there :). I am new to the corals and have been trying to get a 44 pentagon to look like someone loves it. I have 2 tanks the 44 I mentioned and a 90 with chilids.
 
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