Leaving hobby???

[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

[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.