Lots of businesses start out as hobbies, something that entrepreneurs enjoy on the side before trying to turn the hobby into a source of income.

That’s the case for Bob Kabajecz. An architectural designer by trade and owner of Quick Draw, Kabajecz has spent the last year preparing for the grand opening of Montana Corals. He filed for a business license a year ago, then spent several months aquiring $40,000 worth of inventory. Now he’s ready to go.

“This is my passion,” he said.

The business, located on the back side of the Knox Building at 1900 North Last Chance Gulch, specializes in saltwater coral-reef fish tanks, and all the equipment and additives necessary to keep the tanks healthy and the occupants thriving.

Kabajecz, who claims a founding role in the Helena Reef Club, says there are more saltwater afficionados in town than one might expect.

He’s got more than a dozen tanks in the still un-finished space, including a showcase 175-gallon tank. Almost everything in all the tanks is living.

To publicize his opening, Kabajecz is reaching out to kids. He’s invited elementary students from Townsend to visit his store and check out some special “touch tanks” next weekend, with Helena students invited the weekend after that.

Finance Forum Follow: There was more interesting information in Wednesday evening’s forum at Carroll College on the global financial crisis than could fit in one newspaper story.

In particular, Mark Semmens, director of investment banking for D.A. Davidson as well as a Carroll grad, discussed several issues that conspired over the course of the past decade to bring the issue to a head.

Semmens noted that since 2000, real after-tax income has actually declined slightly — but consumer spending has soared. And if people don’t have actual money to spend, they buy with debt.

As brokerage and retirement accounts as well as home values continued to soar throughout the first part of the decade, the “wealth effect” made people feel like they had more money than they did. Their incomes may have been stagnant, but their house was worth more, and millions tapped into that value. Home equity lines of credit went from 2 percent of disposable income in 2000 to a whopping 11 percent in 2006, Semmens said.

Meanwhile, people had access to cheap credit at every turn, from mortgages to car loans to credit cards and home equity. But in the case of mortgages in particular, there was a disconnect between those making the loans and those taking on the risk. So many loan originators quickly sold the mortgages they made that their goal became getting people approved for more and bigger loans, whether they should have been qualified or not.

But inevitably, the housing price bubble burst, while at the same time many introductory and teaser rates were re-set higher, resulting in payments people had no chance of affording.

Semmens said tighter underwriting standards and a massive decrease in “wealth,” including the stock market and real estate, will help curtail consumer spending. The resulting eceonomic contraction will be painful but probably necessary, he said.

“Ultimately, sanity will return — until the next cycle of excess.”

E-mail your Open for Business ideas to john.harrington@helenair.com.