Experts-Frags-Names

[Chris27]

cr_reef

Welcome to the club, and not the Reef Central club, but the club that doesn't cut people down, encourages advancement in the hobby, and communicates with others as if they were having a face to face conversation.

Also, your use of capitalization, punctuation and sentence structure has me thanking the reef gods that new members have the ability to still use the English Language.

Welcome aboard, if you lived close to me, surly you could come over for a beer and a free frag of a colony I've had for longer then 2 months. Well said above my friend, well said.

[cr reef]

Thanks Chris,

Wish I lived close to you sounds like fun, I try to help where I can and encourage, Life is short, we need to enjoy it while we can. Unfortunately, life isn't always easy so venting needs to come out for our personal sanity.

Again, Thanks for the kind words and welcome (to both clubs)

[xtm]

Originally Posted by edsreef

Over the years when I've had to move, I've given away a few entire, fully matured, fully stocked, 90gal reef tank contents, including fish, corals, live rock, live sand, to local reefers. I never kept tabs on who got what and never cared; just put the word out locally and they swarmed in like buzzards.

I've recently set up my current tank and now it's mature enough to begin stocking with corals. Unfortunately some money woes set in about the same time. I went to my local reef forum and asked if anyone had had some frags. The only responses I got were from sellers, and reefers who took no sympathy - cash only. I understand, they personally don't owe me anything but I thought someone would eventually be willing to help me out a tad; no such luck.

This experience has really left me feeling sickened and bitter. I was looking forward to making friends with some people and sharing frags with them and others in the future. Now, my financial situation is just beginning to turn around and I'll soon be able to buy whatever I want. At this point though I've had enough with people and I'm NOT EVER planning on giving ANYTHING away again in the future! All I've ever done was given things away and never recieved a single thing from anyone that I didn't have to pay for.

I may/may not change my mind about this; I'm usually pretty easy-going but right now I'm still too sick.

edsreef, I'm not familiar with your local reef club but don't lose hope - there are still many good-hearted hobbyists out there (yes, even newbies!) For example, in the SoCal forum where I spend 80% of my RC time, we have a lot of giving/free stuff threads with no monetary compensation. We are a tight bunch and know each other by name. If one guy (even a newbie) needs help getting started, a lot of people will chime in, offering help, givng free frags, etc to help out a fellow hobbyist. Yes there are always freeloaders that come out of the woodwork once the free stuff gets posted, but these are the minority and most people are still very active and supportive. Don't lose hope!

[xtm]

cr_reef,

I know exactly what you mean, being an old schooler myself. However, I think we should realize that times have changed and things have moved on. A lot of things have changed since I started in summer of 95 Back in the day, everyone grew huge colonies and maintained a fully stocked display tank for show. These days, it's all about collecting 500 tiny different sticks on frag racks. Now with the internet, everybody's an instant expert. By the way, this is not the only hobby that suffers such phenomena... audio, photography, bodybuilding... all hobbies have some sort of know-it-alls with 2 months experience trying to preach to the old schoolers. I wouldn't feel bad

In general, this hobby has advanced to the point where anyone can now keep hard corals (SPS) as long as one is diligent. I remember a time when all we had were Acropora Yongeii and they were IMPOSSIBLE to keep! Things in general have gotten better in this hobby... way better.

[cr reef]

XTM,

I agree things have gotten considerably better, especially with the education places like this site provides. I see some out there with only a year growing things I couldn't after my first year (maybe it was me )

I'm sure it's everywhere and many of these people don't even realize they're doing this.

For me I'll ask questions even if I have the answer just to see if there are other better ways.

For the most part I try to let things roll off my back but at times you just need to vent, and while this industry/hobby has changed for the better in a number of ways it's definately gotten worse in others, but I suppose growing pains are to be expected at all ages of a hobby.

I'll keep trying but still wish we weren't losing some of the real knowledgable people out there due to some of the growing pains.

[widmer]

Originally Posted by xtm

These days, it's all about collecting 500 tiny different sticks on frag racks.

Haven't seen anyone mention this yet. Yes I see so many pictures where people have a few little corals littered on the rocks in their tanks, and a frag rack on the side or front glass.

On days that I interpret it as a drive to make the hobby self-sustaining, I admire it. On days when I interpret it as something that people feel is a rite of passage or state of achievement, I cringe..