Ever just want to give it all up?

Been getting more and more tired with the whole reef keeping experience.

I originally invested in SW reefkeeping when my two dogs passed away spring 2011 within two months of each other due to cancer. So a fishtank that needed high attention was perfect. It still is but I'm only doing it for myself it seems.

If I forget to dose one day it seems like I've ruined my balance of Ca/Mag and pH/Alk.

To top it off it seems like I'm spending hundreds of dollars on something no one enjoys as much as I do. It's becomming a PITA to do WC's and I'm always worried about messing something up with flow rates, light intensity & schedule, feeding, ect....

It's a lot to understand and to get working on a consistent level.

The constant maintence of cleaning powerheads, tubes, skimmers, glass. Feeding zoo/phyto, flakes, pellets, brine/mysis, bloodworms depending on the day of week.

Then I come on here to post some cool pictures and I get zero comments. I feel like my GF is fed up with me staring at the tank and doing daily/weekly maintence and then spending too much time on the forums reading and learning

Part of me wants to give up this hobby completely. I really love it so much but there's no money to be made from my perspective. My corals do not grow fast enough to justify fragging, and when people come to visit, very few appreciate the hard work it's taken me to keep my tank thriving and happy.

If you compare my SW tank to my FW the amount of maintence and money invested is uncompairable. My FW Planted tank is the easiest and stress-free tank I've ever owned, which is great but it just blows my mind how much work I have to invest to keep my SW reef happy.

Just wondering if this is a sign for me to get out of the hobby, or if this has happened to everyone else from time to time.

 

If you see this as a money making venture-get out now.It will almost never make you money and cost alot of time and money.You do this because you love to do it.

 

All I can tell you is that I do this hobby for my enjoyment only. My bf could care less about my tank other the money I put into and the energy bills and the space it takes up. None of my friends really notice or care.

Personally I find it very satisfying and rewarding just because I enjoy it and have pretty much always have. I have always had a tank of some sort through my entire life.

With that said, I have wanted to throw in the towel on more than a couple occasions. Sometimes it is truly a love hate relation ship at times, I am either passionate about it or could careless some times.

Maybe to a very low maintenance tank, no dosing, no reactors, no skimmer. A couple easy fish and inverts and a ATO device. If you still feel the same way, take a break from the hobby, if you truly love it you will miss the heck out of and come back.

Good luck and hang in there.

 

I know what you mean, I go through some of the same things. I post pictures/questions and I must be doing it at the wrong time because no one really comments unless i bump....but then the thread arguing about the same issue of tangs in a 1 gallon gets a million hits. This obviously gets frustrating.

I guess for me its not about what random people think about my hobby but about what i think about my tank. At the end of the day i love it, its a challenge and im not sure where all my time would go without it.

 

Don't give up! Seems like you're just in a rough patch and just need to stick it out and surpass it. Maybe it's just me but when I think about hobbies I don't see them as additional money makers, they're supposed to be something you enjoy and have fun doing.

Maybe you could look into some dosing pumps to help with keeping the parameters stable or an ato to help with top offs.

Don't worry about having no comments on your new pics after a day man, could be like me and have nothing in over a month! LOL, but again this is for our enjoyment first.

 

I'd scale back, as Corailline has suggested. I'm new to all of this and have 28 gal. all in one tank that's been running since October. I have 4 corals and 1 fish, soon to be 4 fish. I will also add corals eventually. The thing is, I only do weekly water changes and have an ATO. The only thing that consistently concerns me is proper feeding and emptying my skimmer. I find that it is just enough of a challenge for me at the moment. I realize that adding more corals may require me to dose, but at that point I will probably consider a tank with more volume which will only require water changes to keep up with the trace elements. I stopped keeping a discuss tank because it was too much to keep up with, so I can sympathize with you.

 

All the reasons you posted about why you want out are why i joined this hobby. messing around with water chemistry, daily/weekly maintenance, stressing out over polyp extentions, ect ect ect, is all better than rotting my brain away watching tv or doing real house work like dishes and laundry.

 

Thanks guys +1 except doyle. Who spends hundreds upon hundreds for a beautiful living room piece so that I can become rich? If you read my post I got into this hobby for a few good reasons, none of them were with the hopes of making money on frags lol.

The rest of you are absolutely right, and I thank you for that. I really do love the challenge and the thrill of the unknown within my own aquarium. Sometimes at work I feel like a total nerd trying to show pictures or talk about my hammer coral splitting but people look at me like I'm boring them to death lol so I've kept that stuff to myself lately.

My Gf likes our tank a lot more since we added the Flametail Blenny and the Six-line. She participates in feeding them small amounts of flakes every morning which I appreciate since I am not the best at feeding (usually 3x a week)

I guess I'm just at a x-roads with school and work. I work at a Doggie Daycare which I really love doing, and going to school for Surveying which I'm not too stoked on. Also a little worried that a mid-life degree swap wouldn't be the smartest decision but I'm trying to find something in this life I really enjoy that 10,000,000 other people arent already doing.

I've had the chance to open a LFS/Pet shop but I know two LFS owners and neither of them are making profits lately.

I honestly do not think I could ever get rid of my SW tank. My uncle had one in Clearwater, FL before he died from Lymphoma and since that happened I had a huge itch to set up my own. I too have also owned an aquarium of some sort my entire life and really really get a lot of pleasure from them. I guess I just need some sunshine and a beer and not to worry so much about if I am doing the right thing for my tank.

But the idea of a bigger tank when I move to a new place really seems daunting.

And last night for whatever reason my six-line was coming to the front glass and started having spasms with a small white spec on his nose. He is fine right now but it was really making me sad last night thinking he may have Ich and is dying. I don't know why else he would swim to the glass and start to flip and twitch and I'm having a loud noise come from either my skimmer or return, can't find it. But it seems like when one thing goes bad, everything falls apart.

Thanks all for the good words of wisdom

 

Its okay man, I know this hobby costs a lot of $$. I dropped 3K into my Biocube and I LOVE it!!!! To me its a hobby not a money pit, I'm sure if I sat back and thought about what I need to do each day and how much its costing me I would be a little sour but HEY its a hobby not a monthly bill.

I say for now pull out your SPS trade it in and put your tank on auto pilot with that RKL and come back to it in a few weeks or go all LPS and enjoy beauty with ease.

 

Well said Cheryl,the very reason I maintain a somewhat low maintenance tank.

My wife likes it but couldn't care less if it was there or not,none of my friends or family appreciate the effort i've put into thing.My wife and I have had so many fights over my endless spending,but she is also aware that this is my passion and quite frankly,I don't do this for anybody but me.

I have no local reefer friends to talk tanks with,share frags,info,etc.I have one friend with a 20g fw with marbles for rocks and blue and pink fake plants with about 30 guppies,his water is brown,so not much of a connection "tank wise" there.My bedroom looks like most peoples equipment rooms from just lack of space.

Over the years i've been forced out a couple times due to health and economic reasons,i've also had a couple crashes.Between fw and reef tanks i've owned close to 20 tanks in the just the last 10 years.It's my addiction to this hobby and my love of sea life that keeps me trucking on.On top of that,i'm into my current 55 too deep to ever think about recovering a fraction of my money back out of it.

So my point is,if your not doing this for yourself or you find it more of a hassle than it's worth,then maybe it is time.I also think most get the reefing blues sometimes,it's at that point when you need to decide if this if for you or not.But we all hope thats not the case and this will blow over.