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SAN DIEGO - The Home Aquarist was afraid. Of what and why, he couldn't say. He had a tank breakdown pending and the unknown was up ahead. Just sitting in his truck driving to work, his phone was ringing and throat was closing.
In San Diego, when Frank Fishnerdious collected tank specimens, fear of losing money on his hobby was his friend, his weapon, the poison of his passion. He thought of reef corals day and night, on the internet, in magazines, in restaurants, whenever he had a chance he drove to the ocean to see the origination of the corals and fish he was so addicted to.
The feelings were deep, dark and shameful, as if a cat were watching a mouse nibble on a cracker, he eye’d the SDReefs posts. Waiting, thinking, pondering, engineering his next project. Napalm, it smells like victory. He smelled often smelled napalm in every purchase. He had touched fear, too, felt it in every purchase, every deal gone bad, his fingers going through his paper money, his chilled skin trembling on every dollar invested into this retched hobby.
But on this evening, Frank was in his living room, staring at his tanks. His mail laid on the table, his food uncooked, the TV on an unimportant channel rambling on about who killed who that particular day. His girlfriend thought he was a hero. His best friend hung out with him, watching reruns of "Fishing with Dan Hernandez" And yet he felt afraid.
"I spent too much money on corals and fish," said Fishnerdious, 43, who was a military intelligence specialist in Iraq from January 2004 until January 2005. "You have to twist your mind up so much to justify doing that."
Being a fishnerd, Fishnerdious discovered, can be torture. At first, he was eager to try the easy stuff. Fish only, maybe a live rock or too. Soon he ventured to softies. LPS, SPS, Corywhatus? How do they all go together, why do they all go together.
In training on the internet (http://www.sdreefs.com) the online “experts” stressed the Geneva Conventions, he recalled, while others privately admired Israeli and British methods. "The Durso is better than a basic fall or skim box," Fishnerdious said. "They all seemed like real fish experts."
But aquarists for centuries in hundreds of countries that pride themselves on adhering to the rule of the tank, such as Britain, the United States and Israel, operate in a moral war zone. They are on the front lines in fighting LFS prices, crucial efforts in supporting the hobby. And yet they use methods that conflict with their ethical values.
The border between coercion, misrepresentation, markups and forced coral sales based on impulse is often in dispute, and the fish community is debating it now. The SDMAS, SDReefs, CL, RC and the Bush administration are nearing completion of a new executive order setting secret rules for frag-trading and formal meeting etiquette. This is not to mention screen names, real names, cell numbers, masked numbers, and the elusive, email addy that has nothing to do with your actual name.
The world of the reefer is largely closed. They sit in front of their monitors, read Aquarium magazine, browse craigslist, but never offer a rare peek into their lives (unless they are selling something). Then comes a road trip. This is where a date can be a visit to someone else’s tank, an opportunity that cannot be missed…one where you must drop everything you are doing in order to get there and the deal, before anyone else.
Dibs, dibs are a past time, in this day and age its right place, right time. “Bob” -- an American rookie who is only 6 months into sdreefing, served his time in browsing local fish stores and paying retail for years. “Until now, I paid over $80 for Frogspawn when all the while, they are $7 a head on SDReefs…”. Veterans, are quick to point out, “hey, we did our time, we bought the unnecessary tanks, hoses, fittings, and chemicals. Just like they did”. “not my problem”. They use denial, humor, indignation. Even so, these older men grapple with their own fears -- and with a clash of values on screwing the next guy out of a fish or coral as the urge arrises.
That clash, said Darius Rejali, a political scientist who has studied crack addicts along with compulsive disorders, will readily admit,: "Nothing is more toxic than the addiction to coral propigation, the need to grow out frags, and the impending desire to buy every fish known to man and place it in your nano. Nazis, on the other hand, don't have these problems."
For Fishnerdious, problems include "a creeping anxiety" on his sofa, he said. Being so far away from my internet connection and logged out "kills me." He feels as if he can't get out "until they let me out." Fishnerdious voice was boyish, but his face was gray. The evening deepened his 5 o'clock shadow and the puffy smudges under his eyes while he is still on the terminal at 3 AM looking for “deals”.
Not long ago in San Diego, he felt "absolute power," he said, over 10 tanks, maintaining hundreds of gallons. Fishnerdious had forced a new member to buy a skimmer at full price knowing all the while he paid less only to use the surplus to buy more reef items for his personal collection…
Now Fishnerdious power had dissolved into a weakness so fearful it dampened his upper lip. "You can see the anguish in his face," said Amy Johnson, Fishnerdious’ girlfriend, sitting in front of his tank (but not so much as to block the view). Johnson likes Fishnerdious, she said, because he is gentle with his fish.
She was also attracted by the mystery of his hobby, although she'd never heard the details, until see saw his bank activity. The receipts, empty boxes, and empty plastic bags all hidden under the stairs were visible. Of the unseen costs, Johnson said, "I'm afraid to ask."
"That's the most confusing thing -- people don't hate me," Fishnerdious said.
"But you're trying to fight the urge to lose out on a good deal," she said. She knows he is haunted. He got a fired from work after a diagnosis of "adjustment disorder" and for being on the internet too much. He startles awake, she said: "Last night you had a dream, it was the purple Encino for $15 and you missed out on it --"
"I never saw ghosts in the war," he said. "But I see a ghost every night on sdreefs. It’s the sale I missed because I was eating, I was sleeping or just looked away from the site for a minute."
"Seeing innocent people being tortured is hard," she said. Johnson said nothing. She twisted her hair up into a knot.
Fishnerdious kept talking, this time about his Gerber knife with the black handle and five-inch blade: "I'd been watching this tank pricing all night." But the seller, unafraid, won’t lower his price. “I had this idea I could catch him at a weak moment--"
"That he was desperate?" she said.
"Yes, or that at worst he just wanted to get it out of his house and would lower the price. It was pure insanity. I wanted to take out my Gerber knife and chop off his fingers."
Johnson blanched, pressed her fingers against her lips.
"I don't know if I comprehend it," she said. "It's not a good place to go."
Next to a mattress on the floor where he sleeps hang his reef chemicals. Beside them, in the closet, lies a thick brown rope. He has tied it into a noose.
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Originally Posted by yolo_062004
