Leaving hobby???

[danny zubot]

Is is just me or is does there seem like a lot of people either downsizing or leaving the hobby all together? I've caught on to a few suggestive comments here and there, that suggest some regulars here are debating getting out.

Am I crazy or is this true?

[Midknight]

Yes, and a lot seem to be in your area in Alberta.
Everybody seems to be moving from there.
Hey! Is everybody over there moveing to Vancouver and that is why the housing prices are so high?

[Skimmerking]

Danny IMO I Feel that people may be just getting or wanting a change in life. What I could never understand is that people that have 3-5 tanks setups in their house. My self I have a 170 with a 45 gal sump and a 20 refugium and that is lots for me in the hobby.

Or maybe that i'm to much of a perfectionist when it comes to my tank. But back to your question I have known some people tha get out fo the hobby just from the problems in Algae or money issues. Or waiting til the last minute to change 3 400's, a u.v bulb, RO/DI filter's it all adds up and then they say the heck with.

I know i'm constantly buying stuff for the tank i jsut drop about $250 on Sun for the tank like nothing it doenst take long to add up.

[OCDP]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

Danny IMO I Feel that people may be jsut gettign or wanting a change in life. WHat I could never understand is that people that have 3-5 tanks setups in their house. My self I have a 170 with a 45 gal sump and a 20 refugium and that is lots for me in the hobby.

Or maybe that i'm to much of a perfectionist when it comes to my tank. But back to your question I have known some people tha get out fo the hoby just from the problems in Algae or money issues. Or waiting til the last minute to change 3 400's, a u.v bulb, RO/DI filter's it all adds up and then they say the heck with.

I know i'm constantly buying stuff for the tank i jsut drop about $250 on Sun for the tank like nothing it doenst take long to add up.

Ditto this.. I think long-term costs of keeping a reef up is hurting people most. I could never have a big tank (right now) for this very reason, salt, bulbs, RO/DI cartridges, etc.. it's just too much for a lot of people to keep up with. I find with a smaller tank, it's more maintenance but less money being put into replacements (or a lesser amount of replacements)

Also, family and career take up ones time quite a bit, and I think this catches up to reefers as well.

I too have noticed lots of people from Alberta selling off their systems. But.. gotta do what ya gotta do.

Algaes can really get the best of some people too, I agree with this. So many times I have questioned giving up from hair algae and just after two years nto being able to have a clean algae-free tank. It's frustrating because you put so much money into the tank, and your getting crappy results. It's enough to make one throw in the towel, I don't blame them... because we feel we just end up doing more/spending more to get rid of the problem , and for some it's not so easily fixed. This along with other fun reef problems ... but, it's what makes this hobby what it is... a challenge!

I feel ya Mike. I went to the LFS yesterday, got a coral and a fish.. and that cost me rougly 90$ . We're a bunch of crazy people sometimes

[marie]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

Danny IMO I Feel that people may be just getting or wanting a change in life. What I could never understand is that people that have 3-5 tanks setups in their house. My self I have a 170 with a 45 gal sump and a 20 refugium and that is lots for me in the hobby....

I can't understand people that only have one tank . More then once I've saved an animals life by having another tank to move it to.

It does get expensive though

[andestang]

Ya I've also noticed some longtimers leaving or downsizing. I've been on this board for sometime and was disappointed to see some leave. As for me I like variety and to try and keep somethings together will usually result in failure/animal lose. So this is why I have more than one tank.

[BMW Rider]

I have found the cost of reef keeping to be steep also, but not to the point where it would make me quit. Also, it can be done for much less cost than many of us have chosen to put into it. I am finding it easier now that the tanks are becoming established and my equipment setup is better (though I have a few toys on the list yet).

I have suffered algae issues and felt it would be easier to quit, but persevered, and triumphed over it. It is frustrating having to constantly remove unwanted algae, having it choke out your prized corals, trying to find something - anything that will help controll it. I was just too stubborn to admit defeat and throw away all the money and time spent to build the tank to let the algae win.

The thing that I find most difficult to deal with is extended absences from home. I have my tanks able to run self sustained for a week without attention (though they need a good glass cleaning afterwards). I've not yet been away for much longer than that, but I would like to be able to do so, and that means having someone to come in and look after a few things. One of the main issues is TO water since I rely on resevoirs that I manually refill. At this point in life, I would have few opportunities to extend vaccations much beyond a couple of weeks, so It wouldn't be a great stretch to make it work. Eventually though as life progresses, I hope to travel for longer periods, and that would be a much different matter.

So for me if anything, it would be the constant demands of maintaining a reef that would prevent me from continuing. I suspect that that is the biggest reason others get out of the hobby. Sometimes life just can't accomodate such a time consuming and constantly demanding hobby. So many things can go wrong when not monitored (damn you Murphy) It would be devastating to come home to tank full of dead livestock. That would certainly make me stop and think hard about rebuilding or just quitting too.

[Delphinus]

Burnout.. pure and simple (and I can say this from my own perspective too). And summer in particular is just a bad time for it IMO.

I've been in the hobby long enough now to see people come and go several times over. It is a bad time in particular with a lot of people walking away, but I think it's just a combination of factors.

And seriously, one of the hardest hits for me this year was Big Al's closing. I had no idea how dependent I had grown on them just "being there" since they were close (I worked about 5 minutes away, so it was so easy to stop in at lunchtime or on the way home from work). With them gone, and the next nearest LFS being Golds, which is a minimum 2 hour commitment for me (drive there, visit and look, drive back), I suddenly find myself not wanting to drive to the others as much either. It's funny, but yeah, Big Al's being close-by, helped me mentally to visit the other LFS's more often.

I am still at a bit of a cross-roads myself. I think I've decided to stay with my current plans but I'm still unsure for how much longer. I've found myself completely burnt out on several things, it's not just the hobby it's just a total overall thing. I sure do think that downsizing to a single tank will help me. I also find myself missing out on some of the things I used to be more involved with, that would take away from the tanks, so by downsizing in the one maybe helps open the doors to get back into those things.

And the costs. The costs of everything just keep going up and up and up. But my income stays the same. It's just making things so tight. Something has to give.

Anyhow just my thoughts. I'm sure other people have different reasons.

[andrewsk]

I also think that is't a combination between money and time.

People need to understand before they get started that this is an expensive hobby. If you want a reasonable large tank, you better get ready to spend a lot of money to get it running and a fair bit of monthly maintenance.

I think my 225 gallon tank and 100 gallon sump will end up costing upwards of $10,000 when I am done and will cost over $250.00 per month for electricity, salt, RO, and suppliments.

Sure you can cut costs here and there, buy used if you have patience, and some of the DIY stuff is great, but that takes even more time to do.

A Salt tank is about $50 per gallon to set up new and about $1 per gallon/per month to maintain.

I had a friend ask me to help him set up a 50 gallon Salt tank the other day. The FIRST thing we did was look at cost. We priced out some new and used equipment and the overall cost was going to stretch his pocket book pretty thin. Add to the fact that he is busy with his job and it was just a recipie for failure. He decided not to get into it.

Once it is setup and running well, it really is worth all of the work and $ to me though.

[Chad]

I'm on the fence these days too. With trying to buy a house etc. I have a 50gal right now, was going to go to a 90gal. I may hold off, or I may sell off.

We will see..