Most of the time, Eric Beckley can be found working at the family business, Wroten Oil Company, which has been serving local residents since 1954. When he’s not there, he is often invested in his longtime hobby of maintaining saltwater aquariums at his Gwynn’s Island home.
Born in Houston, Texas, Beckley has moved around a lot living in many different places like California, Germany, Arizona and Pennsylvania. He graduated from Mathews High School in 1997 where he was on the football and wrestling teams. He also received a college education through DeVry University for Business Management and Human Resource Development. Beckley has had many different freshwater aquar-iums over the years, setting up his first saltwater aquarium while he was living in Pennsylvania.
“When I was in Philadelphia I went to this store, which is a mom-and-pop store (The Hidden Reef) right around the corner from where I lived and when I wasn’t working, I was in that store asking questions you wouldn’t believe,” he said.
Beckley explained that the reason he was always asking questions was that there was so little information of what it took to maintain a saltwater aquarium at that particular time and he explained his amazement at the amount of information you can gain from the internet over the last 20 years. He especially gained a lot of knowledge through joining a community through Facebook groups and the community locally who also share the same hobby.
With the knowledge he gained during his visits to The Hidden Reef, Beckley successfully set up his first saltwater aquariums and he set up multiple others thereafter. He eventually had to give his saltwater aquariums away to the shop, which is still operating today, for them to use as a display, when he moved back to Mathews.
“When I decided to move back here, I gave up all of the aquariums that I had, but the itch never went away, which is why I set one up when I came down here,” he said.
Beckley keeps all of his saltwater aquariums at home. He has three aquariums, two of which are 40-gallon breeder tanks and the other is a 120-gallon tank. In each of those tanks are a variety of different types of fish and corals.
Although maintaining saltwater aquariums has been a hobby of his for 20 years, he has been setting up aquariums in his home for about 10 years now.
“When we moved here about 10 years ago is when I first set up that aquarium,” he said, pointing to one of his breeder tanks.
Beckley said that his other tank, which was a 120-gallon tank, was given to him by a friend and has its own filtration system. It is also one of the biggest tanks he has set up.
Over the years, Beckley has learned what to adjust in order for his aquariums to thrive which includes being consistent with water changes, cleanings and checking water quality parameters. In the beginning, he would send his water samples to a lab and to learn what he needed to change for his aquariums to thrive. He also learned to keep sea cucumbers and other bottom feeders to help maintain a good environment in his tanks for his fish and coral. This also saved time spent cleaning the tank.
“I learned little tricks here and there that really help simplify it (taking care of his aquariums),” said Beckley. “When I first started doing this, it would take an hour a day and now it takes about 15 minutes to take care of all three between doing feeding, doing the water changes and things like that. I just got it down to a routine. Three days a week, three different water changes, 15 minutes, topped it all off and I’m done. I actually have more success doing it spending less time than when I was spending more time.”
In one of Beckley’s 40-gallon breeder tanks is a seahorse, which was found in the Chesapeake Bay by John Balderson, a local fisherman. Eric has had the seahorse for over a year and was able to keep him happy by maintaining a good environment for him.
“I was actually able to test the water of the water of area of where he came from and basically put it into a jar,” said Beckley. “I used a refractometer, which actually tells me the salinity of the water that it’s in, and I mimicked that environment.”
One thing that Beckley said for those that may be having problems with their own saltwater tanks is that “dilution is the solution to 99 percent of your problems.”
“Because if your numbers are too high (referring to water parameters), you can change out the water (partial water changes),” said Beckley. “You are decreasing the amount of algae in your aquarium. Instead of adding this and adding that, you can just change out the water and you will see it getting its own feet back and running the way it’s supposed to be.”
He said that what interested him about setting up saltwater aquariums is “the science behind it all.”
“I am very much into science. I love idea of the unknown in what causes what to do what and this is its own environment.”
Beckley further said, “If I have enough knowledge and enough resources, I have something to help create the environment that I get to come home and enjoy every day.”