lol: yea, i hated his tank before it caused a lot of probs for us, but after i warmed up to the hobby i found i really enjoy it myself

LOL, i think yours and mine must be comparing notes!

my GF enjoys going to the LFS with me cause she likes all the pretty fish. She hates how expensive it is. But shes a trooper and would allow me to have a 4000G aquarium if i could sustain it and afford to keep it up. She tells me its a great hobby for me to be in, and it gets me away from Baseball and working all the time

edit since others mentioned it the other hobby i never hear my gf complain about...


Click to view attachment

Nope!
lost one gf already because "I cared more about that stupid tank than I cared about her"

She doesn't share the interest, but also doesn't complain about the time I spend maintaining it (nor what it costs).

I bought my tank for my husband and while he likes it, I'm the crazy person in the house. He looks at it all the time and sometimes he goes to the fish store with me. He really appreciates it and has input about the aesthetics, but it's my hobby, my tank overall. He would not know how to do a water change if he had to. We both can't walk past it w/o stopping to look in. The kids pay attention to it too, but they are prob. just thinking of ways to sabotage their competition!

My wife calls my tank,..The hole in my desk I throw money down!!! And you don't want to know what she calls this!!!!! Click to view attachment

I told my GF I was getting a free frag yesterday and she said "Cool free stuff for your hobby I actually like". She doesn't complain about the money because the tank will make our new house look nicer. It's also cheaper than motorcycles, which she used to like until I spend 7k on a bike instead of an engagment ring.

my ex girlfriend who bought me the tank was a huge animal lover and was really into it, she was a cheater tho so i kicked her out

my room mate (when you live with someone, your practically married so shutup) wasnt into it at all at first now hes doing top offs and water changes and feedings gettin his hands wet when i leave town.

My wife loves to watch the all the action (especially the shrimp). But, she hates the amount of money I spend.

My wife never complains about the time or money I spend on the nano, after all, she bought it for me...
and it keeps me off the streets.

My wife loves the tank, but hates "how much time you spend on that damn fish web site" ( n-r.com), the expenses involved, the maintenance, etc. Other than hating it completely, she really likes my tank !!!!!

she really can't give me much crap about being on here alot, since she's addicted to her ghey myspace.

Well I'm not married yet (after reading this thread I dont know if I want to ) and dont have a gf, But my parents have been very supportive about the tank. I guess they figure that its kinda hard to go out drinking and getting into trouble when I'm spending all my money on a reef tank .

Only time I get the moaning is when I have to move it to and from school. They were real surprised how much space the tank took up in the van

My husband shares my love for the tank, he just doesn't share my love for spending money on the tank.

I met my husband through the hobby.... we are equally interested in it.

My wife has altered her support of my hobby depending on her mood. Although, I certainly never disclose the entire price of most items. I will talk constantly about the tank thinking it goes in one ear and out the other. Next thing you know she can name every coral in the tank. Go figure.

The one thing she absolutely dislikes is the time involved with reefing. Ugh!

Ditto... especially the price disclosure.

My wife is totally cool about the hobby. Its keeps me at home rather than at the clubs ... lol

She enjoys observing once in a while and she never questions how much $ I put in ...

One thing though ... when the tank is setup in the house ... there should be nothing sticking out of the tank that she can see and there should be no salt accumulating at the side of the tank ... that's why I go with these all-in-one ... sigh ... so limiting...

My hubby is as addicted as I am. We talk about our tanks all the time, we have 2 (a 7 gal. bow front and a 12 gal. nano, soon to be a 15 gal.) and a prop. Plus, he is good at remembering certain things and I'm good at remembering other things. We can be really bad influences for each other at our LFS. One day we hit every LFS in our town (about 6) and had a blast. Our tanks are shared so we discuss what we are going to put in them and how to arrange everything. We often get each other surprises from the LFS. I like that it's something we both enjoy and can do together.

ditto mine stands it aslong as she doent have to touch anything

my wife has no idea how much money i put into my tanks. its probablly better that way. Other than that its fine as long as i dont make a mess.

very well said. as long as i dont make a mess she wont yell....i feel like i am 5 J/K

Tomorrow I'm getting my last coral ever. Next week I'm getting my other last coral ever. I promise.
She'll be staging an intervention soon I'm sure.

Not really. My wife doesn't really care what I do with the tank but the next upgrade she wants a "snooty fish" aka yellow tang. They have long noses/snoots. What can I say? At any rate I do what I want if she likes it or not.

My wife is not into all the maintenance and upkeep, but likes going to the LFS with me as long as its only 15-20 minutes not my usual 1-2 hrs. I let her pick out the corals we buy. And she is the reason I now cruise this site, because she bought herself a biocube 14g to keep her clown fish in. The only problem is she raided my tank. "I want that rock, and that coral, and this one too........for my tank...."

my wife puts up with my reef an many other hobies, she even started a thread over at RC, she is a good sport about it. I help her along by selling frags about once a month and giving her every penny I get upwards of $400-500 this helps her corralate my tank with cash in her pocket

being as she is a stay at home mom, and she has a fairly consistant monthy spending habbit, the $$ I give her from frags is less $$ I have to give her from the bank account. It ends up a wash, but she sees the tank making her money

My wife has her own tank but she doesn't obsess about it like I do. She just goes to the lfs and asks if a certain coral would go in her tank. But other than that she just loves to look at it in her office at work. I do all of the maintenance. I guess she supports me by letting me spend so much money on the hobby. I am currently setting up my own tank, I think she is going to be jealous.

I havent got a tank yet, but my partner is already moaning about how much its going to cost, and she complains to our friends when they come over on how much time I spend on here looking at various ppls aquariums.

I haven't got a tank yet either, and I'm pretty sure my husband thinks I've lost my mind.

Dragged him to a frag swap a couple of weeks ago, and he had to admit it was pretty cool--after remarking on how much smaller the frags were than he had imagined.

My GF wanted a microscope just to check out everything in my tank up close... I naturally supported her interest -and I "borrow" the thing from time to time...

She also wants me to culture live foods, so that she can be involved... Boy am I in trouble if I screw this one up!!

She also wants to start a FW planted tank, but due to the fact that we have 2 nanos and Koi pond inside (don't ask it is a long story, and it was supposed to go outside) we can't figure out where we would put the tank.

lol, I've been dragging my girlfriend to the various LFS's in the area for upwards of a year, and she seemed to be compliant, but not interested. Now she says she wants a tank, but with african dwarf frogs. Perhaps this is a good sign.

My wife helped me with my tank swap (handed me stuff, held thing up for me, etc) but doesn't want anything to do with the maintenance. "those are your tanks, you keep them up"

Yet the new nano cube has HER clowfish in it LOL.

I also try and pick out stuff SHE likes for the nano, that way I can get it and she won't complain.

Out of my 75gal freshwater, the tiger barb school are HER fish, the rest of them are mine.

It's funny, they don't want to be involved, yet like their one or two fish and want us to take care of them just so it makes them happy.

She hates going into the fish store, but as long as I keep it down to 10-15 mins at a time, she is ok with it. She also complains less now that I have a saltwater tank to stock.... she was tired of the 3 years of looking at the same freshwater fish and plants over and over again.

I had always wanted a saltwater tank so initially my wife thought that when she bought a 10 gallon freshwater tank that I would stop wanting a reef tank. Within 2 months I had turned the freshwater tank into a brackish water tank Then I bought the BC29 which she intially was a little mad about until I started stocking it. My wife runs a home daycare so when all the little kids love it she began to like it too.
I try and keep her inform of how everything works or why I'm upgrading/fixing this or that on the tank. I keep her involved in some off of the purchasing decisions. I do everything in the tank. I have my own account to support my tank, I call it my reef account She still wants to question me sometimes on the costs of certain purchases like the Sunpod 150w MH lighting I bought and explained that now we can have any corals in the tank She does show off the tank when friends come over.

I wouldnt think my girlfriend loves my fish obsession as much as i do but she bought me a clown for our two month!

She loves to look at it, but thinks working on it is disgusting

This is why I went custom with a drilled tank and a sump inside the stand. Looks clean.

She will casually observe from time to time, but not with the same passion. And she enjoys the SW more than the FW tanks so win in that respect!

when i first started dating my current gf i had her Hooked on my tanks. she loved them just as much as i did. I think its because she saw how much passion i had for the hobby.

she now has 2 tanks, a 65g and a 20g saltwater. she is not afraid to get her hands dirty and loves doing tank maintenance and sometimes even cleans my tanks when im too busy haha =)

she loves going to the LFS everytime i go, even if its once or twice a week. we also go to all the dallas frag swaps when we can. we have visited pretty much every LFS from OKC down to south dallas.

i can say that we are both very addicted to the hobby.
all i can say is i am one damn lucky man

being a marine biologist, occasional sport fisherman, aquarium blog/article author, and obsessed with my aquariums...i must say my wife puts up with a lot. i'm actually in the middle of building the big system for our new house and needless to say she's nervous.

You have a keeper!

^

I just had to post on this thread. Being a girl myself, I couldn't imagine a wife of someone in the hobby being nasty about their husband/boyfriend keeping a fishtank. FISHTANK for crying out loud. I'd rather my significant other spend money on macro algae and activated carbon rather than throwing dollar bills at nasty girls at a strip club or gambling or something.

Now I could see if he was scrounging for change to purchase an sps frag instead of putting dinner on the table for his children or letting the bills go unpaid - then there's a reason to complain. Also leaving a HUGE mess all over the livingroom wouldn't be acceptable either, but if it's kept neat - then who cares!

My ex was pretty supportive in a way that he couldn't care less what I did with my time and money - just as long as I left him alone. I could never be with a guy that wasn't supportive/uninterested in it. I want to be with someone that wants to take road trips to different fish stores, swaps, and aquariums. The hobby can be boring sometimes when you don't have someone to share it with.

Okay I'm done.

[/rant]

Kimberly, I need you to talk to my wife and bring here over to the light...

She told me that I get $150 a month for the tank since I started back in the hobby 4-5 months ago. I don't think I have spent less than twice that during any single month though, and have put a couple grand into the hobby by now as well.

Kinda forced my girlfriend into the hobby. I saw the opportunity to get a nanocube and stand for cheap, and jumped on it. All she really needs to do is feed the fish, I do all of the tank maintenance when I visit her town house. She loves her clownfish, a true perc and black & white pair, and her roomies/friends love the "nemos." *facepalm*

I'm still hiding receipts after 4 years. I rearranged my rockwork about a month ago and just yesterday she noticed. That's how involved she is. At least that means that I can sneak stuff into the tank easier.

I admit now ... my g/f loves the tank ... she has her own 20G and has a 50G cube sitting here in my apartment at the moment and is dying to set it up.

Now in response to the underlined bold part ... lol ... Come over my local site ... I can show you a number of wives/gf's that dumped TIDE and other various chemicals into the tank because they were SOOOOOOOO sick of it. Oh wait ... the skewering of the fish is also a specialty over here. I wish I was lying. I told them ... if she did this to your fish ... she is coming after you NEXT!!!!

That's horrible! I heard of one instance where a girlfriend poured bleach in because of a fight they were having but that's pretty psycho if you ask me. I'd be a nervous wreck that they were trying to hide chemicals in my food if I did something wrong!

They actually skewered the fish!?

Unfortunately ... skewered them ... and had them hanging for him when he returned from work. Let's just say the reason she did all of this ... was absolutely pathetic. lol.

Yeah and if you cheat on me again D, your ass will get skewered next time!

Yup. Definitely psycho. lol.

I thought about writing a funny article for my club newsletter on this exact subject and voice my opinion but I'm scared I'll have my tires slashed or dead fish in front of my door as a warning! ha

She likes the fruits of my labor and AFTER I got her to go scuba diving in Cozumel she has never looked at the tank the same way! She realized the tiny nano world I care for is a REAL thing and the ocean is just the BEST LFS there is. Not sure if the Scuba method would work for you...but just maybe
I definately have to keep the monthly expense on the down low...I even once told the LFS owner to tell my wife that I was NOT here this week if she called (just kidding...but it sounds like something I'd do)