Albert ... you've got to be kidding, you can't count that tank in the store as "a gorgeously maintained tank over the years".
Since you seemed to have completely forgotten about ME (which I'm sure was just a complete oversight, after all, I'm sure you don't really think of my tanks and accomplishments in the hobby over the last ten years as insignificant
), I'll have to toot my own horn, despite that it goes against everything I believe in .. I've been in the hobby for ten years now, and ...
Oh stow it, never mind. Those who have seen my tanks say they're nice. I think they're nice. That's enough for me. As for the original question ... anything worth doing is surely going to present a challenge sooner or later. You just have to learn when to roll with the ups and downs. Of course success is possible, most of us acheive it in some form or another (and possibly don't even realize it). Just recognize that nothing last forever, focuses and interests change, the time one can commit can change, and it causes us to change things around. Don't take the number of people "selling everything" as discouragement, we don't always know the circumstances. Maybe they just learned that they're about to give birth to triplets (this happened to a friend of mine, for real
) and they've had to adjust their routine somewhat. The problem is that the reef hobby tends to be equipment-rich - and by that I mean - you tend to soak up a lot of savings for the equipment - so even if you're going to take a break, sometimes it makes more sense to "divest your investments back into liquidity" rather than sit on a bunch of equipment.
I love the hobby - even with the ups and downs - I would miss it. So, even though there are times I challenge my involvement in it - I'm still here.
I hope that as you embark on your reef journey that you get as obsessed with it as the rest of us