Non-reefers just don't get it, do they?

[ACBlinky]

We're moving soon, and our super has been showing our apartment to prospective new tennants almost daily. Nearly everyone has to comment on the reef tank (one family forgot to look at the kitchen and had to come back later, they were so preoccupied looking at the tank). I absolutely don't mind talking about my reef, it makes me feel great that people think it's beautiful, but it's amazing how much people just don't get it.

For instance...

The super was excited today because the halides were on when she came - she's only ever seen the tank with the actinics on. She said 'oh, wow, it's just like the tropical sun isn't it!?' and I agreed, explaining that it's not just for show, it's also important for the corals because they're photosynthetic like plants. She nodded, and then proceeded to tell me how she brought back all sorts of coral from Florida a little while ago. I assumed she meant skeletons (still illegal), but it sounds like she actually took living coral straight out of the ocean, brought it back in water (though how she got back across the border with it is a mystery) and then put it into her tank.

Her goldfish tank.

That's right. She then proceeded to tell me how she thinks she must need more light so that the next time she does this, the coral will live and the goldfish won't eat it all before it has a chance to grow. I was speechless, didn't even know where to start. I couldn't say much because she was in the middle of showing the apartment, but I was absolutely flabbergasted. There were so many things wrong with what she'd just told me, I didn't even know where to start.

Another one...
The woman viewing our apartment today just loved the tank. She said it looked 'just like the one from that movie... what was it? The one with the cute lost little fish?'

Seriously? My reef looks like the tank from Finding Nemo? If that's the case, I'll just quit now, lol.

Then she asked if the tank came with the apartment - I guess I really can't blame her for thinking so, as it fits beautifully into the 52"L x 24"W cut-out section of wall (there's one in every apartment here, I think they're designed for shelving or an entertainment unit). So my husband laughs, knowing full well how much I've spent on our 90g, and says 'well, for the right price...' and she offers somewhere around $400. I had to REALLY bite my tongue. How can I explain to someone who isn't in the hobby that I've probably spent twice that on rock and sand alone? It probably sounds insane to non-reefers - why not just go pick some rocks up from the nearest beach (lake Ontario in our case), and fill a pail with sand while you're there?

Last one...
We've got an ad up on a bulletin board in the building, selling a few things before we move. One is an old 10g tank with a HOB filter & some plastic plants - a leftover from my FW days that I can't use because it may have had copper-based meds in it once upon a time. I figure someone can use it for goldfish or something, and I'm selling it with all the equipment, decorations, filter inserts, gravel, conditioner, food thermometer etc. for $40 which I think is a pretty darn good deal. I've had a few people 'round to see it, and they ALL think the $40 is for the reef. Seriously? You have to be joking. For $40 I might let them feed the fish and take home a piece of rock, maybe a frag if you're nice.

Am I the only one experiencing this? I really doubt it. Sometimes I'm afraid to open my mouth about other people's hobbies or work - I worry that I might drive them mad in the same way, asking questions that seem reasonable to me, but are in reality incredibly dumb.

[Musho3210]

no, theres this thread that has lfs workers talk about some stupid and funny people, check that out, then you wont feel so bad.

lol corals in a goldfish bowl with a goldfish, nothing is good about that tank at all. You could call the authorities you know, something i would do, i am surprised at how strict coral laws are in america, there was this guy that stole a whole bunch of ricordeas in the gulf of mexico or something, got caught, and got 10 months in jail. People should re-read their high school biology handbook.

[reefshadow]

Lol, I hear you. I've heard some funny things that make me shake my head, and I also wonder just where to start.

The most common question I get is "are all those plants real?" Now I guess this is a reasonable question to someone who knows nothing about corals or reefs, but after I give a quick, simple explanation about how those are actually animals that use algaes in their tissues to photosythesis and grow like plants, 1/3 of the time (no kidding!) I then get the follow-up question "but are they real?"

What?!?

Another one I've gotten at least a dozen times is "Cool octopus!" or "Gross octopus!". They are looking at the arms of my 8 inch brittle star sticking out from under a rock.

I was offered 20 bucks for 2x175 MH's with ballast, reflectors and new lamps once.

Another time not too long ago I brought about 25 NICE grown out frags to an LFS I had done business with before. These were very good 2-4 inch frags with multiple polyps and great colours. All different types, all very healthy. Some rare rics and zoas there too. Of course I called ahead and got the green light to bring them in. It was a 2 hour drive and when I got there I discovered there was a new saltwater "expert" in the department, and the guy I had dealt with every time before had quit. I gave him a list of all the frags by type and told him I had gotten 1/3rd retail credit in the past. They sell frags for 29.99 so that should have been about 250.00, which was typical of what I had recieved there before. He put them in to acclimate and then started to write out my credit slip. When he gave it to me it was 7ish bucks. I was like "uhhhh, no? That is 7 bucks compared to the 700+ cash you will get selling them retail. That's less than 1 percent for me. I will drive a total of 4 hours just to be here and bring you all these frags". He argued a bit with me and we finally had to get the manager to get my previous credit carbons out of their file. Luckily they had the number of frags written on them to compare with the credit given. I got 240ish bucks instead of the 7 he wanted to give me. I mean really, spare me! I haven't been there since, hopefully now they have a new department "expert".

[magdelan]

A guy who I used to work with has a 10g fresh water tank. All 12 of his fish died a few month ago (yes 12!!) and he couldn't understand why. Well, I went through all the boring details of amonia, nitrites and nitrates. If there isn't enough export, the fish are esentially swiming in their own...you know. He ended up emptying the tank and starting over again. I told him that you could have no more than 5 small fish in that tank. Before I knew it, he had 10. I told him that the same thing was going to hapen again. Well, stupid me!!! I made the mistake of inocently telling him where the LFS was that I go to. Doesn't he tell me a few days later that he went there and got a red starfish (probably a fromia)? And then proceeds to explain that the night that he brought it home it started losing it's legs. I wanted to SLAP him!!! I always knew that he wasn't that bright, but this confirmed it.

[Musho3210]

what happened next?

[awestruck]

I find this to be true not only of reefing, but many hobbies. This may seem ignorant on my part (oh well), but my son showed me a picture of a car on the internet that sells for something like 1.5 million dollars. I'm not into cars; my thought was, 'Wow, how stupid to spend so much for a vehicle'. However, to someone who's into cars, well, this probably is the creme-de-le-creme of cars. I think it's quite easy to not understand how expensive some things are. However, the lfs employee should have known the value of 25 nicely grown out frags. THAT kind of stupidity is upsetting.

[dad300]

I sold my house this past spring... they offered 200 over the asking price... I said yeah we'll take that...my realtor calls back and says...the extra is for you to leave the tank and everything that goes with it... I almost died laughing..I said no... we'll take the full offer... my realtor says what would you need to leave it..
ballpark I figured $3000 to set back up from scratch to get it where it is now... Needless to say they didn't offer that.

[HDAlien]

Just this past weekend I had friends over who had not seen my tank for over a year (no corals then), who asked me if the corals were "decorations" and where I had gotten them. The look was classic when I simply said "everything you see in the tank is alive"......

[Fish Filet]

Man, I hear ya. I recently put up my 24 gallon aquapod with MH's with all the accessories etc on craigslist for 300.00. Now keep in mind that the AP had been up and running for about 4/5 months, live stock included a royal gramma and a damsel, xenia, some mushrooms, crocea clam, 30 lbs of LR, and about 30 lbs of LS. Included in the deal were 5 salifert test kits, 200 watt heater, a hydrometer, kent's kalkwasser, a bottle of DT's phyto, a turkey baster, magnafloat algae scraper, flake, and pellet foods, cyclopeze and a bunch of little odds and ends, oh and plus a custom stand. I also put up my tunze 6045 for sale along with my refractometer as seperate items in the same posting. I thought that was a pretty darn good deal. So the first guy that calls me says well, if you throw in the powerhead and the refractometer, I'm willing to give you 200 for everything and I was like what are you crazy? and he says, yeah well I wouldn't even spend that much on a tank if it weren't for my son wanting a tank like that movie and no one is going to give you 300 bucks for some fish thats gonna die within a week HAHAHA .. So I just politely thanked him and told him I couldn't help him.

Then this other gentleman emailed me and I'm copying and pasting this:

hey bro i jus type 24g and i jus check out the aqua pod on the craiglist.com from u. is 300 ur final offer for me? also we want 2 know what color is ur fish and if ur tank is gunna make the house smell like suage.? pls send email with ur final offers f and lets me know evrything about ur tank. pleas include the discription of all ur fish and color

peace
tony

I am still wondering if he meant sausage or sewage.

[amphirion]

Once I had this old aunt who came to my house and looked at one of my occelaris clowns that wasn't in top shape. She just said: Take him out of the tank, put him in a bowl and put a half Advil in the bowl. It will help him recover... As I explained her that it will NOT him recover, she just said she used this method several times when her goldfish weren't looking right .

When I am discouraged is when people see my 110g reef and they are just like: " It's really beautiful but you should clean your rocks, they're full of algae" !

[iamwhatiam52]

My ex-wife dropped the kid off, looked at the tank with dozens of corals, shrimp, tube worms, anemones and observed "there's nothing in the tank".

What did I see in her?

[Ladipyg]

Listen, it's not just people who aren't into the hobby that say and do stupid things. I used to work for a Doctor that had 12 tanks in his office...including 2 that were mine prior to taking a break from the hobby. He loved the way my SPS tank looked so he asked me to help him with his tanks. When I started checking out the tanks I almost had a heart attack. Stuff was plumbed wrong, he had a sump he tried to turn into a refugium by just dumping sand in it...he was feeding his 2 nurse sharks and 2 - 3 1/2 foot Moray Eels fresh water Catfish fillets and didn't know why the water was whitish and greasy. I felt so sorry for them I couldn't stand it. I went out and bought whole spanish sardines, herring and squid, and within 3 weeks of hand feeding the water was crystal clear and all the sores on their bodies had disappeared.
He would love to come in to the office in the evening and play with the tanks...moving corals from tank to tank without any acclimation. He pooh poohed me when I told him that's why they were RTNing overnight. Once he couldn't find the hydrometer so he "guessed" at the amount of salt for a water change. I found this out cause the whole tank was dead the next morning with a reading so high it wouldn't register. I spent 5 weeks nursing a $500 Emperor Angel to health...it was in a 300 gallon tank with a small school of green chromis. He wanted to re-arrange the tank so he scooped her out, dropped her into another tank, did a water change with cold water and then dropped her back in the original tank again. I was on vacation, but the nurse told me she died within 2 days. That was the final straw...I just couldn't make him stop doing stupid stuff. He thought he could solve problems by throwing money at it...
I understand that things have really gone down hill since I left...poor fish...

[aquarius77]

I had a coworker over today who had never been in my house. After about 15 mins of standing in front of my tanks and not sayin one word, he looks at me and says "is that saltwater?"

I just politely answered him...

[ACBlinky]

Originally posted by Ladipyg
Listen, it's not just people who aren't into the hobby that say and do stupid things. I used to work for a Doctor that had 12 tanks in his office...including 2 that were mine prior to taking a break from the hobby. He loved the way my SPS tank looked so he asked me to help him with his tanks. When I started checking out the tanks I almost had a heart attack. Stuff was plumbed wrong, he had a sump he tried to turn into a refugium by just dumping sand in it...he was feeding his 2 nurse sharks and 2 - 3 1/2 foot Moray Eels fresh water Catfish fillets and didn't know why the water was whitish and greasy. I felt so sorry for them I couldn't stand it. I went out and bought whole spanish sardines, herring and squid, and within 3 weeks of hand feeding the water was crystal clear and all the sores on their bodies had disappeared.
He would love to come in to the office in the evening and play with the tanks...moving corals from tank to tank without any acclimation. He pooh poohed me when I told him that's why they were RTNing overnight. Once he couldn't find the hydrometer so he "guessed" at the amount of salt for a water change. I found this out cause the whole tank was dead the next morning with a reading so high it wouldn't register. I spent 5 weeks nursing a $500 Emperor Angel to health...it was in a 300 gallon tank with a small school of green chromis. He wanted to re-arrange the tank so he scooped her out, dropped her into another tank, did a water change with cold water and then dropped her back in the original tank again. I was on vacation, but the nurse told me she died within 2 days. That was the final straw...I just couldn't make him stop doing stupid stuff. He thought he could solve problems by throwing money at it...
I understand that things have really gone down hill since I left...poor fish...

Wow. When I posted, I was frustrated with silly comments (I used to work at a LFS so I've heard my share) but THIS ^^ is just disgusting. In no way would I call this guy a hobbyist, or a reefer - just because you've got money to buy tanks doesn't make you a reefkeeper IMHO. I'd call him an idiot, or something worse. What a total, utter lack of respect for life he has. This man is a doctor??? Holy cow, he's about the last person I'd want 'practicing' medicine on anyone in my family, that's for sure! How on earth did he make it through medical school and become a doctor if he's so dim that he can't understand the basics of keeping fish healthy? Wow. Classic case of too many dollars and not enough sense, as my mom would say.

[72884]

Once my brother individually searched and unplugged all my tank lights since he saw the electrical bill once and he's the one using one of those 1000watt electric heater since he sleeps in the basement floor. Gezzzz dumbasses.... and I'm the one that pays the bills while he just eats our food and lives there and when it comes time every month I ask how much can you chip in towards bills.... (fyi, He has a full time job and smokes & drinks beer like it's his water) he said "I ain't got sh*t... why are you buying fish and stuff when you can use that money towards bills." I said "You free loader.... I pay the bills and you think you have the right to tell me to not buy stuff. I see you buying stuff but you don't have money to chip in. Who's the bad person here smartass..." He then changes the subject back to my tank lights asking why does a fish tank need so much bright lights. I went on explaining photosynthesis and he's like "W T F why don't you just use mirrors and aim sun light into your fish tank." At that point all I said next to him was "Go look at the small lake down the street smartass."

[Ladipyg]

I agree about the doctor...but I honestly believe that it's all part of the "God Complex" that a lot of doctors have...since they have so much education they must know everything about everything and heaven forbid they have to listen to someone who didn't finish college.
My blood pressure was going through the roof every time I was there and saw what had happened.
I have gotten to the age where I realize just how short life is and that I REFUSE to let stupid, ignorant people make it even shorter by aggravating me. I spent almost a year there trying to straighten things out...and everything went back to square one.

72884..your a better person than I am...if that was my brother I'd be packing his stuff up and showing him the door..you can only enable someone so long before you gotta go with tough love!

[ACBlinky]

Originally posted by 72884
Once my brother individually searched and unplugged all my tank lights since he saw the electrical bill once... and I'm the one that pays the bills

What on EARTH gives him the right to discontinue life support for your photosynthetic animals? Even if he was the one paying the bills, this is something you would sit down and discuss beforehand - you don't put your hands on someone else's property, especially when it's concerning living animals! I wonder, if you had a dog and he felt the dog's food was costing too much, would he stop you from feeding it (while he went on smoking and drinking)? I can see if it was his place and you weren't contributing to the electric bill, maybe coming to an agreement about you paying your portion, or reducing the time the MH lights are on, but he had NO cause to do what he did. It's not even his house! I'd be SO upset, he'd be out on his behind as soon as humanly possible.

[Der_Iron_Chef]

I find this sort of ignorance annoying at times. But I consider how much I myself knew before I decided I wanted to learn more.

When I was in high school, and living in Malaysia, I took a vacation to a beautiful resort island (Langkawi). The coastal waters there were TEEMING with life. I remember capturing a large anemone and taking it back with me on the airplane (in an ice cream pail!), and giving to my friend who had a saltwater tank! Would I do that now? Uhhh, no.

My family and friends ask me a lot of the same questions as I hear the rest of you describing. I think it's a good opportunity to educate them. Hey, at least they're interested. Better ignorantly interested than complete disregard, non?

[Fenton2]

I think this speaks of just broader societal ignorance. I've known that oceans are salt water and rivers are fresh water since I was probably about 5. And I remember from an equally young age understanding that some fish, like clowns, come from the ocean and some, like trout, come from the river.

I keep an 8g saltwater setup at the office with a single false perc in it. It just mind boggles me how many people will come up to me and say, "Wow, is that saltwater?"

Usually I just nod politely, but once when the person who asked was somebody I had a good rapport with, I just answered in deadpan "No, that Finding Nemo movie you like so much was actually set in Lake Tahoe."

[BFG]

There are people who are ignorant of this hobby but boy,on the other side of the coin, those that think they know so much is the one that I really hate. My palm are always fisted when talking to these 'know all' person. This kind of person also anger friends around my circle who are into the same hobby but in freshwater though.

The ignorant can be taught slowly over time but the 'know all' are the real PITA. I sometimes wonder why I am talking to these kind of person.

[Mr31415]

I just wanted to add something about ignorance of hobbies you do not know. How many people have asked me about my camera - asking how much did that camera set you back? When I answer - well, the body was $4000, the 70-200mm F2.8 lens was $2000, the flash $600, the card $300 so roughly $7000... they NEVER believe me....

From my perspective people's comments about my reefkeeping hobby and my photography is sometimes frightening, but then I remember before the days I did photography and reefkeeping I did not know much either.

For instance, when I started my tank (even after doing lots of research before), when they asked me whether I wanted an SPS dominated or LPS dominated tank, I did not understand what the difference was. I did not understand an anemone is an invertebrate - not a coral. I did not know you could cut some soft corals and frag them. I did not know how an urchin or tiger cowrie looked like when alive - I always only saw their skeletons/shells...

But so we learn. For me the frustration is not somebody's ignorance, but rather how they educate themselves afterwards. If I do not know something, I either do not get involved or I read up on the subject. Take my mother - she has seen my tank at least 5 times now. Every time she looks at it she still do not think the coral are alive. She sees the fish - that is it. Even though I tried to educate her.

[kathainbowen]

..... grr....

Got one for you.

My brother accidentally clipped the guardrail on the Parkway last night and completely screwed up the alignment on his car. Today, he needs to borrow my car to go to work and do band stuff. Normally, I'd be perfectly happy, since he'll use it and fill up the gas tank before return (always a plus in these days of expensive gas) and since I don't work today. However, I need to both pick up new bulbs for my tank (the pcs are going on 8 months, and the actinic died already on Tuesday). This erupts into a great argument about who needs the car more....


.... which promptly ends when I finally run out of different ways to explain the coral's need for lights is more important than his second job that he's quitting anyway. Johnny Bass gets the corals' photosynthetic nature of corals and the sudden slight blooming of diatoms.... he just doesn't care not get why I care.

*shaking head*

[Kazzy]

When I first started with my dad, a LFS employee told us that a Condy anemone would do fine in our 1 MONTH OLD TANK. So we took him home to a MAROON CLOWNFISH(which we bought from him), which is, for those who don't know is the only clownfish that a condy won't host. The next day, it had fallen off it's perch and was gettting beaten to death by the maroon. We took it back and I presume it died. This particular employee no longer works at this store and 2 of the employees plus the owner know a lot about saltwater fish so we still go there.

[Musho3210]

no clown fish technically hosts the condy anemone (or vise versa), the condy anemone is from the caribbean while clownfish are from indo pacific (most of the time), no clowns technically host the condy anemone, but sometimes they do.

bubble tip anemone (another good beginners anemone, for experts in reef keeping but beginners at anemone keeping i mean) hosts maroon clowns.

[Ladipyg]

kathainbowen...I think the phase "It's MY CAR!" should have been the end of the argument....;0)

I think most of us here on RC realize we don't know everything and thus have an open forum to share our knowledge and give us a chance to learn more about this amazing hobby.

MR31415...I believe you...
And as my wonderful mother was known to say: "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."