这些餐厅没有挤满顾客，床上没有早餐，卡片比感性更有趣。但是烧烤架在开放，是开放的周末，这是夏天的开始，所以是父亲节。尽管在业余爱好中有比以往任何时候都多的女性，但不幸的是，这仍然是男性主导的爱好，而且从过去的经验中，我知道我们的父亲经常在我们的爱好中发挥了重要作用。
In my own case, my dad was crucial to my becoming a reefer for many reasons. I know for a lot of us the reason we got into the hobby was that our dad had a tank, usually freshwater, but in my case that was not true. My dad never really had much interest in the hobby truth be told but fortunately, he always encouraged me in one way or another, as he knew that even at a young age it was my passion.
When I started keeping fish I was given a five-gallon tank by my cousin, who had “outgrown” keeping fish as she had discovered boys, which was my good fortune because I was in the first grade, and didn’t really understand. The tank was full of guppies and snails and surprisingly to all of us, it soon was so full of both that it was clear that they needed a new home.
Fortunately, Santa Claus that year brought me a beautiful new ten-gallon Metaframe tank with matching stand and hood. This should have been an indicator even then that I was always going to want a bigger tank, but the warning signs were ignored. I remember setting it up literally early the next morning the day after Christmas and soon filling it up with the guppies and snails that had overpopulated the smaller tank.
我父亲也很聪明，知道他对养鱼一无所知，所以他也让我也让我的《圣诞节那条鱼》一书。因此，当大多数爸爸上床睡觉之前，大多数爸爸都读了他们的孩子童话或其他故事，但我父亲向我读到有关剑尾，tetras和倒钩的信息。他几乎没有意识到向我透露，那里的仇恨和蜗牛比我已经开始不断发展的火锅和蜗牛还要多。
my dad read to me about swordtails, tetras, and barbs
For the most part, my dad did not do much with me and my tank other than help clean up when I spilled water, or needed his strength to take tubing from a pipe or open the the filter that had sealed itself. Instead he offered encouragement and if he didn’t know what I needed he would call someone he knew that had tanks to help me out.
But he did do something for which I will always be appreciative. He took me to Frank’s Aquarium. As I have mentioned in the past, this was the store that got me hooked, no pun intended, and that at the time was the local mecca for hobbyists. It was 20 minutes from my house, so it was close enough to be handy, but far enough that it did take some cajoling and planning to get him to take me there.
Before our many trips I would save up all my money, plan my list of fish and plants I wanted as well as things that I thought were crazy expensive like food, filter floss, and charcoal, and once every month or two we would take a planned trip there. These trips were fun as I would talk about the fish I wanted and why and he would sit and listen and offer his encouragement.
Over the years I bought lots of fish, as freshwater fish did not seem to live that long for some reason and my dad always took me and never questioned why I seemingly always needed new fish. Besides the trips themselves, I also remember that I would always spend more than the money I had saved and my dad would always cover the difference and never really said anything about it. We did not have a lot of money, but my dad never complained which I still appreciate.
回顾过去，我想我父亲知道这是我的激情，所以他试图鼓励它。然后有一天，当他给我买了一本改变一切的书时，他犯了一个大燃烧的大火，这是一场小小的燃烧的大火。当时，雅克·库斯托（Jacques Cousteau）举办了电视节目，他和他的船员第一次展示了在水下发生的事情，我们会一起观看这些节目，我每周都焦急地等待着这些节目。
This series was so popular that several books came out documenting the life on the reef and my father got me one of the first ones: Jacques Cousteau’s Life and Death in the Coral Sea. It was the first book that showed what a live coral reef actually looked like. When I saw what the life on a reef was like and what corals were I knew that my 10-gallon freshwater community tank would no longer cut it. Unfortunately it was the 1970’s and no one that we knew of was keeping live coral alive and very few people were even keeping saltwater tanks then.
From all that we read it was deemed impossible to keep corals. But my dad did not discourage me, actually he did the opposite and said that I needed to be patient and learn about the sea and reefs and eventually someone would figure it out. I’m not sure if he actually believed what he was telling me, but whenever he traveled near anywhere near the ocean he would bring me back a book or a piece of dead coral or something from the sea to keep me going.
在1980年代初期，他再次做出了一个重大发现，就像他在德国时，他看到了一家宠物店，该商店在其商店的窗户上有现场珊瑚，他们声称要让他们活着。他与商店老板进行了交谈，他说德国有一些爱好者掌握了这一点，甚至还有一本书。我父亲买了这本书，尤尔根·莱姆肯（Jurgen Lemkenmeyer）的《现代海洋水族馆》（Modern Marine Aquarium），当他在返回时给我时，我比他给我库斯托（Cousteau）的书更快乐，因为现在我可以实现自己的梦想。
但是不幸的是，这本书是德语，我没有说德语。幸运的是，我父亲有一个朋友说德语，他让他同意帮助我翻译它。因此，在两个月左右的时间里，我会翻译，他会翻译它，然后我会写下他所说的话。这个家伙一定欠了我父亲，因为这是一个乏味的过程。这个家伙并不是您所说的流利的人，而且使用的许多短语是基于水族馆的，而不是对话的，因此，当他翻译时，我会尝试使它们变得“水族馆意义”。
Once they were written down I soon realized that my penmanship was so bad that I was probably the only person who could understand them. So I then got my dad to get his sister, my aunt, who was was a typist, to sit with me and type out the book. Because of my dad lots of people got involved in my love of the hobby, which I tried to share as I sent copies of this book to Julian and Charles and John Burleson, who were the main people I knew who were also passionate about the hobby.
Soon after this, I got married and started setting up tank after tank after tank. After moving to bigger and bigger tanks over ten years we decided to move to a bigger house. This was not a decision that I made easily as if we did, it would mean moving my then thriving 560-gallon tank to the new house. The more I thought and worried about this, the closer I came to calling off the move. Luckily once again my dad stepped in and said he would help me to make the move.
So after much planning and figuring what we needed, and a week before we needed to be out of the old house completely, my dad showed up with a big truck, a trailer and six of my cousins to move everything in one big move. This sounds crazy now, but we took out half the water and put it in tubs and garbage cans. Took out the fish, coral and live rock and packed them in plastic bins or in the cans, took out the rest of the water and then we all lifted the tank, put it on rollers and rolled it on the truck.
Then we lifted the stand and put it on the trailer. My dad even brought all the cables and lines we needed to secure everything for the one-hour drive to the new house. There we took it apart and rebuilt just like it was in the old house. Amazingly we did all of this in less than eight hours. Looking back we must have been on drugs as it is all a blur, but we pulled it off more smoothly than I ever would have expected thanks to my dad.
As I write this, it reminded me of all the help my dad has given me over the years, but it also made me realize I probably did not do enough to bring my kids into the hobby. It also made me realize that I rarely see dads bringing their kids into shops like mine did so a lot of kids are missing out on how much enjoyment this hobby can bring. So I think we need to do a better job of that.
Being a dad is not an easy job and I know that one of the things that is often difficult is to encourage our kids when something they want to do is seemingly impossible. I am fortunate in that my dad always offered encouragement even when something I wanted in this hobby, seemed or was totally crazy. Looking back now, much of what I wanted to do was impossible at the time, and while he probably knew that, he always offered encouragement and always had my back when I failed.
希望我们的未来礁石的父亲还将提供我父亲所做的鼓励，并在我们的孩子想移动他们的“ 560加仑坦克”时提供帮助。或者当我们去当地商店获得珊瑚或碎片交换时，只会带我们的孩子和我们一起，这样他们就会感觉到为什么父亲或母亲喜欢这种爱好。最后一件事，在我养鱼的所有年中，我父亲从未对我保留过的一条鱼发表评论。
我本可以有美人鱼，他不会注意到。然后三年前，我得到了一个真正的薄荷猪鱼，Bodianus opercularis,and while eating dinner, one of my tanks sits behind our table, he said “wow that is a beautiful fish”. So just my luck I now have to always have this very expensive fish, as otherwise he would notice if I had killed it off and at this point I would hate to disappoint him and have him think I still lose fish.
下周我将没有一篇文章，因为我将在纽约的Reefaplooza讲话。我将在周日讲话，但整个周末都会在那里。因此，如果您看到我，请打个招呼，让我知道您对这些的看法，让我知道您是否希望我写的话题。对于所有的父亲，我希望大家都有美好快乐的父亲节
