Jestersix

considering getting out

bluenassarius

bluenassarius

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this hobby has consumed my life for the past 3 years. i fear it might be coming to an end. i've been contemplating leaving the hobby for a while.. i'm down to only a few corals left in my tank. mostly micromussas and a few leptastrea frags.. my passion for reefkeeping has been slowly diminishing. while i enjoy viewing tanks, doing the maintenence has become a chore.. i've been trying different things to keep the fire going..

anybody else have these feelings before? i feel i might need some reef counseling :-
 
Yeah, I know what you mean ;) I spent 1/2 day at swap then few hours dipping and then mounting and rearranging my tank now it's 1:30 and I'm on line looking at the reef related stuff ::) I feel bad I didn't spent it with my kids since it was such a nice day. :'( if you do get out I'll keep your micomussas for you and your'e welcome to come by and visit them ;D
 
[quote author=Gorm link=topic=2994.msg32224#msg32224 date=1202637651]
The Swap was today, I thought it was on Sunday!
[/quote]

Yeah, it was yesterday. Club functions are usually the 2nd Saturday of the month.
 
i don't have kids yet so it's not too bad =)

sam, maybe consider putting together an even more automated system? I know that no matter how "automated" there's always a lot of work to do =/ but maybe it'll get rid of the larger chores or at least cut down on a few.
 
I agree with Art to an extent. I think reef keeping is an odd hobby with an interesting eventuality. I believe all of us originally got into reefing because we liked saltwater fish/corals AND we liked tinkiering on things. We enjoy learning something new, trying something new and then sharing our experience with others. The problem lies in the results of all this effort. If we do "figure it all out" and we have a tank that maintains itself 100% with no help from us, and of courese this would mean we couldn't add any tor or remove anything from the tank, then how much fun would it really be? It would be like having a living painting. Sure it would be great to look at, but at some level it would be very dull if we couldn't prune our corals or move a rock now and then. So, we need to find a point along the spectrum of too much work to no work that retains the fun of reefing. I believe Art's suggestion is near perfect in this. A comprehensive controller with acurate monitoring will go a LONG way in taking your mind of things. All you should be left with is cleaning the glass, feeding frozen foods/live foods and doing the water changes. Not bad if you can get down to just that. (And, I think water changes can be automated as well :) )
 
Sam,

I know what you mean.
Have you considered bringing in a local service to do water changes, cleaning, and testing. That should free up your time to surf the BAR forums. ;)

C
 
yeah, i'm still debating on whether to stay or go. thanks for the advice guys. even though its already mostly automated.. it doesn't seem as fulfilling as before.

phong, you setup that nano yet?
 
[quote author=Mr. Ugly link=topic=2994.msg32349#msg32349 date=1202707370]
Sam, you gotta at least keep a nano of a few nice corals, man!
[/quote]

yeah, do what phong did, get a nano tank for the time being ;)
 
It's always a tough call.... balancing work and family... looking at how much time and money you have to go into everything... You have to figure out what you like about the hobby really. If you like the tinkering and figuring stuff out, that definitely takes time. If you just like a cool tank with minimal work, get a nano.

The real question is... if you are leaving the addiction, I mean hobby, for how long? :)
 
Don't give in! Fight the urge! Seriously though, calculate your options, make the call and don't look back. I'm sure you love the hobby so toughing it out maybe scaling back or changing things up sounds like a good idea. If you are just finding that your heart isn't in it anymore maybe it's time for a break?
 
Multimple times for me Sam. Especially with a few time the tank almost 100% crashed and lost tons of corals and expensive wrasses. But I'm still here, I'm just going to a smaller tank from my 100 gal.
 
I think about this all the time. My tank has it's ups and downs. and I'm not around enough to be on top of it 100%

instead of getting out of the hobby have you considered changing what you keep?

I thought a tank full of macro algae and pipe fish would be really cool.
It would be much less work than a tank full of calcium sucking po4 hating acro's

There are a lot of alternatives we could set up, and they would be just as interesting
as our crazy coral collection tanks.

The flip side is you can break down, keep the equipment and then come back when you feel
like it. the hobby won't go anywhere :)
 
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