Why do so many people leave the Hobby?
- Thread starter Paul B
- Start date
Paul B
Well-Known Member
In the years my tank has been up Sandy was only one hurricane that turned off my power. I probably lost power 12 times in 40 years where it was out for more than a day. Sandy I was out 4 days. Once it was out for 6 days. But after the first outage I got a generator. Now, if you can afford a reef tank, you can afford a generator because it is less than a controller or some of the other equipment many people use. I think my generator was about 4 or 5 hundred dollars but it has saved me thousands not only in fish tanks but it food and heat for my family. In the early, pre generator days I used to use my SCUBA tanks to operate an air stone during blackouts. If I didn't have that I would just take water out of the tank every few hours and dump it back in. I never lost an animal due to a blackout. Of course most of those blackouts were in the warmer weather and if I lost heat, I would have been in trouble. But now my generator does that. During Sandy I ran out of gas for my generator so now I converted it to natural gas. I bought a kit for $200.00 for that and now it runs on natural gas and gasoline. I also have back up pumps and lights for emergencies. I am the type of person who is pro active, not re active which is why I have solar panels on my roof and a new heating system that reduced my heat bills by over $4,000.00 a year.
Of course we will have blackouts, that is a fact of life so we need to deal "before" it happens. Some people lost their livestock to ich. I have written articles about that and my fish are immune. Immunity is not much understood because many of us are under the impression that quarantining is the way to go. I do not and feel and think that quarantining is the worst thing for this hobby and feel it is the reason for so many disease threads. But don't stop quarantining as there is a lot more to it than that. That is why I wrote a book, because of so much old thinking I don't need the arguments. But there is a better way.
We can't help family sickness and I realize many of us leave because of that. That may happen in my life soon as my wife has MS. But as long as I can keep my tank, I will. I have many hobbies but fish allows me to do something in this hobby any time of the day and I can do things for free or spend a lot of money on it. Right now my algae screen is overflowing with algae and needs cleaning. I can do it now, or next week. It doesn't matter.
My tank is certainly "not" the nicest tank on here but that was never my goal. I started a salt tank before there were any salt tanks and it is just for my pleasure. I try to make it nice looking but my main focus is it's health and my curiosity. I try different sometimes radical things and if it works, it works. My lights just came on, on my brand new DIY water cooled LED fixture. It is working very well and that excites me. Inventing things is my main excitement, besides Supermodels of course.
Of course we will have blackouts, that is a fact of life so we need to deal "before" it happens. Some people lost their livestock to ich. I have written articles about that and my fish are immune. Immunity is not much understood because many of us are under the impression that quarantining is the way to go. I do not and feel and think that quarantining is the worst thing for this hobby and feel it is the reason for so many disease threads. But don't stop quarantining as there is a lot more to it than that. That is why I wrote a book, because of so much old thinking I don't need the arguments. But there is a better way.
We can't help family sickness and I realize many of us leave because of that. That may happen in my life soon as my wife has MS. But as long as I can keep my tank, I will. I have many hobbies but fish allows me to do something in this hobby any time of the day and I can do things for free or spend a lot of money on it. Right now my algae screen is overflowing with algae and needs cleaning. I can do it now, or next week. It doesn't matter.
My tank is certainly "not" the nicest tank on here but that was never my goal. I started a salt tank before there were any salt tanks and it is just for my pleasure. I try to make it nice looking but my main focus is it's health and my curiosity. I try different sometimes radical things and if it works, it works. My lights just came on, on my brand new DIY water cooled LED fixture. It is working very well and that excites me. Inventing things is my main excitement, besides Supermodels of course.
StirCrayzy
Well-Known Member
There's a fine line between those of us who have lived aquatic lives, either caring for a system regularly for decades, or being engrossed in aquatic ecosystems; and those who fall in love with the beauty of a reef, and want to enjoy it's high points, but only realize once committed, that it is not terribly simple to gain the rewards.
When the cultivation of aquatic life is not engrained in their life, it becomes a chore, which is then easily discarded.
I suppose there is a third option when a portion of this second group succeeds, or otherwise becomes fully committed and dedicated to their new-found passion. I think these are the people Glenn reference s as the future 100's or 1000's of 40 yr old tank keepers, which will be reality eventually.
No not nearly as intriguing as starting from the ground up at the beginning of the hobby with candles for lighting and gravel as filters. Getting started gets much easier every year.
When the cultivation of aquatic life is not engrained in their life, it becomes a chore, which is then easily discarded.
I suppose there is a third option when a portion of this second group succeeds, or otherwise becomes fully committed and dedicated to their new-found passion. I think these are the people Glenn reference s as the future 100's or 1000's of 40 yr old tank keepers, which will be reality eventually.
No not nearly as intriguing as starting from the ground up at the beginning of the hobby with candles for lighting and gravel as filters. Getting started gets much easier every year.
Rini
Well-Known Member
Just my experience with some people that leaving. I know a few people that started with a lot of fun the sw experience. Got a 2nd hands tank, big off couse, because big is better they think. Didnt really invest in reading on the internet like I do for example. They just relied on the information from the lfs. And with all respect they are there to make money. After a year they notice that the hobby cost a lot of money. Electric bills, keeping the tank stable, fish, corals everything. After that year they stop since it cost to much. The people i'm speaking off are not that good with internet and searching things. Basically just use the computer to do electronic banking and play the game patience of mine sweeper.
When I was young in the 70's we at home had Always aquariums, fresh water. Mostly we did 1 year with a tank. After that year everything died. We cleaned the tank and started over. And we could enjoy the tank another year. Waterchanges? Nah. Just top of the tank. Cycle tank? Nah.
When I started with freshwater we did cycle the tank, we do waterchanges, we do maintenance the water. Testing etc. And the fish are doing fine, the shrimps doing fine and the plants.
Saltwater was always some sort of dream. That was for rich people. Till I saw some forums on the internet where people were talking about small sw tanks. In my imagination an sw tank started at 2 meters length. Since I was interested in SW I started to read about it, and saw that there are even nano sw tanks. With that in mind the whole rich people idea i threw overboard. After I bought some books, joined a few forums I got my first nano tank 30 liter dennerle Marinus. This brought me into the hobby. It was an try out. Do we like it yes or no.
And we liked it. We liked it so much that we wanted very soon an bigger tank.
Since it was clear that we wanted bigger, I started to work on this part. Bigger, but not to big.
Rest is history and we got ourselves an new white red sea max c-250.
For me the chalenge is to keep the fish happy, Coral happy. Just to watch an living painting. We can sit in front of the tank and enjoy with a cup of coffee.
I hate technic. I have 2 left hands, and thats why we did go for an AIO. Not to worry about hardware/technic. So my challenge is asolutely not new equipment, an bigger pump or bigger this or bigger that.
We do things manually with joy.
How do I see the tank in 5 years. I hope that our frags are very big by then. Further I do not know to be honest. We both like to watch the tank, we enjoy feeding time. We enjoy that our nemo has find the anemone. And we are sick that 1 fish died.
I know the costs of the tank, electricity, the things we add. Yes it is more expensive than my other hobby slotcars.
At this point I believe i'm not going to leave the hobby the coming years that is. I learned not to say never.
Some people, and I was 1 of these to when i was younger, starting blind into a hobby and do not realise what is happening. And after a year things are not going as expected and quit.
I have changed. And i noticed that I enjoy my new hobby's more as in the past where i just started something and see how it goes. And in all cases I gave up within a year. Totally dissapointed.
With SW i'm prepared and it feels GOOD even after a year.
Not sure where I fit.
When I was young in the 70's we at home had Always aquariums, fresh water. Mostly we did 1 year with a tank. After that year everything died. We cleaned the tank and started over. And we could enjoy the tank another year. Waterchanges? Nah. Just top of the tank. Cycle tank? Nah.
When I started with freshwater we did cycle the tank, we do waterchanges, we do maintenance the water. Testing etc. And the fish are doing fine, the shrimps doing fine and the plants.
Saltwater was always some sort of dream. That was for rich people. Till I saw some forums on the internet where people were talking about small sw tanks. In my imagination an sw tank started at 2 meters length. Since I was interested in SW I started to read about it, and saw that there are even nano sw tanks. With that in mind the whole rich people idea i threw overboard. After I bought some books, joined a few forums I got my first nano tank 30 liter dennerle Marinus. This brought me into the hobby. It was an try out. Do we like it yes or no.
And we liked it. We liked it so much that we wanted very soon an bigger tank.
Since it was clear that we wanted bigger, I started to work on this part. Bigger, but not to big.
Rest is history and we got ourselves an new white red sea max c-250.
For me the chalenge is to keep the fish happy, Coral happy. Just to watch an living painting. We can sit in front of the tank and enjoy with a cup of coffee.
I hate technic. I have 2 left hands, and thats why we did go for an AIO. Not to worry about hardware/technic. So my challenge is asolutely not new equipment, an bigger pump or bigger this or bigger that.
We do things manually with joy.
How do I see the tank in 5 years. I hope that our frags are very big by then. Further I do not know to be honest. We both like to watch the tank, we enjoy feeding time. We enjoy that our nemo has find the anemone. And we are sick that 1 fish died.
I know the costs of the tank, electricity, the things we add. Yes it is more expensive than my other hobby slotcars.
At this point I believe i'm not going to leave the hobby the coming years that is. I learned not to say never.
Some people, and I was 1 of these to when i was younger, starting blind into a hobby and do not realise what is happening. And after a year things are not going as expected and quit.
I have changed. And i noticed that I enjoy my new hobby's more as in the past where i just started something and see how it goes. And in all cases I gave up within a year. Totally dissapointed.
With SW i'm prepared and it feels GOOD even after a year.
Not sure where I fit.
dacianb
Active Member
I think people leaving the hobby are the guys who goes to shops to buy Nemos and Dorys and a ready build tank full of corals just because looks good. After a while everything dyes because they dont understand the care and requirements.
I went to someone's house for a different reason and saw a tank with lots of dying corals under some weak t5s. Asking what happened, guy had no idea what is inside his tank, but he told me that the thank maintenance company will come to replace them as they do every few months. This is not a hobby for those guys, is just a trendy expensive piece of deco. Once they dont afford anymore to replace all corals every 2 months, they quit.
I went to someone's house for a different reason and saw a tank with lots of dying corals under some weak t5s. Asking what happened, guy had no idea what is inside his tank, but he told me that the thank maintenance company will come to replace them as they do every few months. This is not a hobby for those guys, is just a trendy expensive piece of deco. Once they dont afford anymore to replace all corals every 2 months, they quit.
Paul B
Well-Known Member
Because I have been in this since trilobites were the only thing we could get I keep trying to re-invent the hobby and I think I have done just about everything that can be done. But like my tank, I also go through cycles and like to shake things up. Maybe that's why I have stayed in this so many years. Besides the DIY thing I also like to change the creatures I keep. The tank went through fish only, then leathers, then mostly crustaceans, then carnivores, then angels, tangs etc. Then of course LPS and SPS. Now I am gravitating towards gorgonians and sponges. I don't throw out things but I change over through attrition. My spawning clown gobies spawned all over and killed off my nice big gonopora's so instead of replacing them I kept adding gorgs and sponges. I think they are very cool and not as commonly kept as regular corals even though they are very common in the sea. I also go for the weirder things and that is fish also. I still don't do tangs and angels just because I find them to common and boring. I would much rather have an assortment of smaller , stranger fish than a bunch of common tangs. I like clingfish, pipefish, different gobies and dragonettes.