Is the hobby really fun or simply rewarding if done successfully? Possibly another go tank thread...

[Bryson.bobby]

I don’t want more government regulation in my hobby. So have to disagree here on getting registered to keep fish. That’s ludicrous

Agreed 100%

 

[vetteguy53081]

Never like to hear of challenges and discouragement.
First, we have to define what is “FUN” and makes it fun? Is it success or the investment of time? For me....... it is simply sitting back and enjoying the tank or in my case tanks.
Mid week- I spend Maybe 20 minutes cleaning glass on all three tanks. Sundays as in today- 2 hours on all three. Drop off tank- 20 mins , 93 cube about 20 minutes and 660g- a little over an hour.
I now have 3 sparkling tanks to admire and minimal work ahead.
Again i am afforded plenty of time to enjoy the fish and corals in a near natural habitat and seeing a passing crab or starfish glide on By. That to me is fun.
It is what you put into it that will determine what you’ll get out of it. No matter what always have a plan for your enjoyment

 

[Charley]

Also, I’m a researcher when buying anything. People that walk into a LFS and just buy things based off one person or companies opinion are just uneducated buyers and usually the people ending up with problems. Being an educated buyer if its fish, cars , TVs or anything ensures you have a better overall experience with a product or service. Making a uneducated impulsive purchase at a LFS and not doing the research is the problem.

Good point but I think doing research to buy a product is one thing. Doing enough research to understand and grasp the fine nuances and complexities of this hobby before jumping in is something else, IMHO

 

[Snookin]

Good point but I think doing research to buy a product is one thing. Doing enough research to understand and grasp the fine nuances and complexities of this hobby before jumping in is something else, IMHO

We are keeping things alive in boxes of water inside our homes. Not collecting stamps or building miniature train sets which both still have a learning curve and need to be researched. But, a little commonsense should tell you keeping life alive and healthy should require a little research.

 

[Charley]

Never like to hear of challenges and discouragement.
First, we have to define what is “FUN” and makes it fun? Is it success or the investment of time? For me....... it is simply sitting back and enjoying the tank or in my case tanks.
Mid week- I spend Maybe 20 minutes cleaning glass on all three tanks. Sundays as in today- 2 hours on all three. Drop off tank- 20 mins , 93 cube about 20 minutes and 660g- a little over an hour.
I now have 3 sparkling tanks to admire and minimal work ahead.
Again i am afforded plenty of time to enjoy the fish and corals in a near natural habitat and seeing a passing crab or starfish glide on By. That to me is fun.
It what you put into it that will determine what you’ll get out of it. No matter what always have a plan for your enjoyment

Well, I more or less did that, then dinoflagellates came and poof......

 

[Bryson.bobby]

Good point but I think doing research to buy a product is one thing. Doing enough research to understand and grasp the fine nuances and complexities of this hobby before jumping in is something else, IMHO

Believe me, when I first joined this forum 6 months ago, I didn’t know half the stuff I know now about these little things like nuisance algae, tank pest, etc. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can learn this stuff. Crazy!

 

[Ike]

I love this hobby and corals more than I've loved most things in my life. I'm a very passionate person with many interests and hobbies and I seem to be drawn to very complex hobbies that involve a great deal of skill and/or knowledge with ongoing learning. I'm coming up on my 35th year of keeping reef tanks and I still stare at corals with awe in the same way I did 30, 20, 10 years ago.

I enjoy the problem solving and often the complexity of the problems, the relationships between the organisms, the constant experimenting and striving for something better, and of course the beauty and wonder of the environments we keep. The relationships between organisms is another thing I can't get enough of and I could stare at my frag tank for several hours a day and never get bored. I still like watching pods scurry around on live rock... I know I'm a bit of an anomaly, and my highs have been higher than most people are lucky enough to experience or achieve, but my lows have also been lower than 99%+ of the people in this hobby will ever experience.

It takes a certain kind of person to truly enjoy this hobby long term. You need to be resilient, competitive, stubborn, and have a few screws lose. This hobby isn't for most people in the long run and it chews up and spits out most people that attempt it. However, for some of us, this is practically in our blood.

 

[Bleigh]

Good point but I think doing research to buy a product is one thing. Doing enough research to understand and grasp the fine nuances and complexities of this hobby before jumping in is something else, IMHO

So true. One of my friends husband has a 10 gallon fresh water tank. He’s always trying to tell me what I should do to my tank. And when i say I can’t, he explains to me why I don’t know what I’m talking about. Like, salt water tanks don’t need water changes/checks. 29 gallon biocubes that are less than a year old with 50+ corals need water changes. He laughed at me patronizingly and tried to explain how salt water was easier than fresh. So I know that even people with some experience in fish keeping can still be clueless with reef keeping. One of the reasons I didn’t switch to salt earlier was because I knew that it was complicated - even my 60 gallon I’m currently building, I’m taking my time at each step to understand the nuances of every step. Once I have things successfully going there, I plan on starting a showcase tank. I’m hoping the 60 gallon will give me a chance to play with everything and get it figured out or at least understand the options before I make choice I regret. It’s that component that I enjoy.

 

[SuncrestReef]

Personally, I do find it to be fun. Granted, there are a lot of mundane chores like changing filter socks, emptying the skimmer, cleaning the glass, refilling 2-part reservoirs, and changing reactor media. But I truly love just watching all the activity in my tank, whether it's my diamond goby obsessively moving sand and picking up the random snail blocking his burrow entrance, or the emerald crabs diligently plucking algae off the rocks, or my hermit crabs inspecting random stray shells to move into, or my kole tang grazing on algae, or my mandarin gobies plucking pods off the rockwork, or my tailspot blenny poking out from a cave, or my clowns wriggling around in the anemone, or my goniopora tentacles swaying in the current, or my sun coral's polyps extending at lights out to search for floating food...and the list goes on. I love snorkeling and diving, so it's so great just to see all this underwater life without leaving the comfort of my living room and not needing to put on a wetsuit!

 

[Charley]

We are keeping things alive in boxes of water inside our homes. Not collecting stamps or building miniature train sets which both still have a learning curve and need to be researched. But, a little commonsense should tell you keeping life alive and healthy should require a little research.

I comes down to the the degree of research to be done before entering the hobby to be successful without getting frustrated enough to want to exit the hobby. There are reasons why so many people leave the hobby. This creates another problem. The secondary market of all the used equipment from people leaving is hurting the LFS, etc.

 

[Snookin]

I comes down to the the degree of research to be done before entering the hobby to be successful without getting frustrated enough to want to exit the hobby. There are reasons why so many people leave the hobby. This creates another problem. The secondary market of all the used equipment from people leaving is hurting the LFS, etc.

You may not be looking at the whole picture of people and how they take up and leave various hobbies. I don’t think people leaving the hobby is specific to reefing/aquarium. The secondary market is available for all hobbies and most people tend to quit any hobby inside 1 yr. LFS aren’t hurting from the secondary market.

 

[Charley]

Believe me, when I first joined this forum 6 months ago, I didn’t know half the stuff I know now about these little things like nuisance algae, tank pest, etc. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can learn this stuff. Crazy!

YES, my point exactly....you learned these things AFTER jumping in. That to me is the issue as to why people can leave the hobby frustrated if things do not go as expected. I am not saying this is you. I hope you are totally enjoying.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Well, I more or less did that, then dinoflagellates came and poof......

I am the end of that very battle And beat it . I will not let Dino ruin my day.
BRS has a product called DINOx and easy to use and works well.
Prior to getting it, I reduced lighting, added hydrogen peroxide at 1ml per 10 gallons and bumped MAG to 1350. Do siphon daily the dying dino after day 4.

 

[Tamberav]

I love this hobby...good and bad with it.

It has taught me so much! Not just chemistry but I never even picked up a tool in my life and learned how to drill glass and plumb...and recently took on soldering LEDs for the first time (having never soldered anything in my life!). I am a girl so that sort of stuff you tend to not try or learn growing up. I can't wait to have the tools to try and build my own stand.

I have had crashes and dinos several times...I tend to buckle down and attack it fists swinging.

To love this hobby you really have to love challenges....even ones that eat up your wallet.

I started up a 22g SPS tank just because I thought I could learn from it. SPS isn't actually my favorite type of coral but it was time to cross that bridge and accept that challenge. I have wasted money and killed some stuff but failure is part of learning.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I love this hobby...good and bad with it.

It has taught me so much! Not just chemistry but I never even picked up a tool in my life and learned how to drill glass and plumb...and recently took on soldering LEDs for the first time (having never soldered anything in my life!). I am a girl so that sort of stuff you tend to not try or learn growing up. I can't wait to have the tools to try and build my own stand.

I have had crashes and dinos several times...I tend to buckle down and attack it fists swinging.

To love this hobby you really have to love challenges....even ones that eat up your wallet.

I started up a 22g SPS tank just because I thought I could learn from it. SPS isn't actually my favorite type of coral but I thought I could learn from it and it was time to cross that bridge and accept that challenge. I have wasted money and killed some stuff but failure is part of learning.

Amen !!

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Thank you for the nice response Halal. I just do not know where simplicity ends a complexity begins. I am with you on simplicity if I can. For example, I topped off by hand, dosed by hand, no reactors, just carbon bags and things went south eventually. Oddly enough it seems from low phos and nitrates resulting in dinoflagellates. Maybe if I didn't have the refugium at that time doing so well dinoflagellates never would have appeared. I used a plastic container for the refugium it was so cheap lol. I travel alot and automation seems like it might be useful maybe bordering on necessary.

You're right, it is a fine line where technology is convenient but not obstructive. Right now everything probably sucks due to the crash. Have to make the process fun for yourself. There are quite a few simple solutions I implemented. I don't rely on any sensors. My heater still works well but is hooked up to a smart outlet and only allowed to be on for a certain amount of hours/day. Even if it gets stuck on, shouldn't make a difference. ATO is simple enough. Eventually we realize what our evaporation rate is. Adding a cheap Tom's pump hooked up to a smart outlet to add freshwater to my system. It's only designed to be on for a few minutes a day. If I'm off by a little bit then will just manually add water on a Saturday. ATO reservoir if emptied to my system won't flood anything due to having a large sump, but can't imagine this will happen as power outage will trigger outlets to be stuck in the off position.

I can't stress enough the importance of trading/sharing with local reefers. We all have had major crashes, if someone says they haven't then they haven't done this long enough. It is inevitable. If you are generous with locals, they will reciprocate when you are rebuilding.

Good luck and if you need some softies to start rebuilding shoot me a message.

 

[Skibum]

I suppose the question depends on how you define "fun". Is it fun like a roller coaster ride or skiing? I would say no. However I would say it's rewarding and intellectually stimulating, and a big stress reliever. I've never looked at my tank and said, "I'm going to have some fun today". It can be exciting when you get a new fish, or some new equipment to try. I also believe it's stimulating thinking about the possibilities you can have with your aquarium. To me, it's a living picture, and a piece of art if done correctly.

With all that being said, there are ways to reduce your maintenance. I don't do water changes for instance, I haven't done a water change in almost two years. I keep SPS, LPS, and a couple of softies and zoanthids. I spend approximately 5 minutes daily with an alkalinity test, scraping the glass and feeding. My weekly routine consists of more testing, RO topoff, glass scraping etc, (approximately 1 hour on a Saturday or Sunday). I suppose if I were to keep an even SIMPLER aquarium, I would just have softies and maybe some montis or stylos. Check out the DSR method if you just want a low maintenance system.

JM2C

 

[Hemmdog]

Sorry you’re discouraged in the hobby. It’s definitely a lot more involved than advertised.

It seems from experience that you can have a successful tank as long as you have two of the following.
1) A lot of time
2) A lot of money
3) High IQ

If you have all three, this hobby should be fairly easy.

I only have two, my tanks are alright.. no where near what I envision them to be.

 

[Snookin]

Sorry your discouraged in the hobby. It’s definitely a lot more involved than advertised.

It seems from experience that you can have a successful tank as long as you have two of the following.
1) A lot of time
2) A lot of money
3) High IQ

If you have all three, this hobby should be fairly easy.

I only have two, my tanks are alright.. no where near what I envision them to be.

I’m assuming it’s 1 and 2 since you used the word “your” instead of “you’re” lol

 

[Hemmdog]

I’m assuming it’s 1 and 2 since you used the word “your” instead of “you’re” lol

Heyyy I thought we were just becoming friends... lol