After almost 30 years of ‘professionally’ (whatever that even means) managing other people’s reef aquariums, and nearly 20 years of having my own company, I found myself staring into a client tank that was having a relatively minor, but annoying and entirely predictable, issues with some of the coral, and I asked myself out-loud, ‘Do I even care anymore?’.
I really shouldn’t complain or be ungrateful. I’ve been able to live a good life, work for real-life celebrities, work with reef-world celebrities, and make a good living doing what many people do as a hobby.
But it can just be so frustrating. Too many things I can’t control that I’m still responsible for regardless. It just gets disheartening sometimes.
I spend a lot of time on here looking at member’s tanks. There are a lot of really beautiful, amazing tanks. I’ve been around reef tanks a little bit, and feel like I’m capable of making tanks just as beautiful. Often I can…for a little while. But with only a few hours a month to work on a client’s tank, and God-knows-what happening to it the rest of the time, it’s almost always just a matter of time before something goes wrong. It’s not always devastating…as was the case with the most recent head-slap moment…but it all adds up.
I have a lawyer client who has a nice 150gal reef. I’ve worked for him for almost 20 years, and over the years the tanks have changed, and he has moved a couple of times. The building he is in now often turns the A/C off on weekends before June. On two different occasions, with the tank looking amazing, they have turned the A/C off on Memorial Day weekends when the temps in Chicago have gotten into the mid-90s. Cooked the tank twice…as in, nearly total wipeout.
This last year, I had a new client putting a 550gal into a new home build. Everything was on schedule, but there was a little wrinkle. The client was from Ukraine, and had a business in Ukraine. The war pretty much wiped out his biz. He then apparently had to choose between dealing with owing US banks millions of dollars he didn’t have, or dealing with a war. Looks like he chose war. Guy is gone. Now, not only do I not have a cool new tank to work on, but I’m down several thousands of dollars even with a deposit.
These tanks also have a shelf-life. I have a number of very long-term clients who are probably toward the end. A few are spending half of their year in places like Florida. I obviously still have access to the tanks, but now there are zero eyes on it at any point in-between. This is obviously problematic. It’s just too easy for little things to go in the wrong direction. This last thing to wrong…client headed south for the winter, and turned their heat down to like 60. Yeah, I’ve got a good sized heater on the tank, but not good sized enough to keep 500 gal of water in the upper-70s in a 60 degree house. Naturally, by the time I realized what was happening, the tank had spent almost a week in ~upper-60s or so water…pretty much everything bleached. Will a lot of it come back? Yeah…eventually. In like 5 or 6 months, if the corals live that long.
Anyway…just needed to rant. I’m at an inflection point. Businesses don’t run themselves. I need to decide if this thing is going to be a part of my next chapter.
I really shouldn’t complain or be ungrateful. I’ve been able to live a good life, work for real-life celebrities, work with reef-world celebrities, and make a good living doing what many people do as a hobby.
But it can just be so frustrating. Too many things I can’t control that I’m still responsible for regardless. It just gets disheartening sometimes.
I spend a lot of time on here looking at member’s tanks. There are a lot of really beautiful, amazing tanks. I’ve been around reef tanks a little bit, and feel like I’m capable of making tanks just as beautiful. Often I can…for a little while. But with only a few hours a month to work on a client’s tank, and God-knows-what happening to it the rest of the time, it’s almost always just a matter of time before something goes wrong. It’s not always devastating…as was the case with the most recent head-slap moment…but it all adds up.
I have a lawyer client who has a nice 150gal reef. I’ve worked for him for almost 20 years, and over the years the tanks have changed, and he has moved a couple of times. The building he is in now often turns the A/C off on weekends before June. On two different occasions, with the tank looking amazing, they have turned the A/C off on Memorial Day weekends when the temps in Chicago have gotten into the mid-90s. Cooked the tank twice…as in, nearly total wipeout.
This last year, I had a new client putting a 550gal into a new home build. Everything was on schedule, but there was a little wrinkle. The client was from Ukraine, and had a business in Ukraine. The war pretty much wiped out his biz. He then apparently had to choose between dealing with owing US banks millions of dollars he didn’t have, or dealing with a war. Looks like he chose war. Guy is gone. Now, not only do I not have a cool new tank to work on, but I’m down several thousands of dollars even with a deposit.
These tanks also have a shelf-life. I have a number of very long-term clients who are probably toward the end. A few are spending half of their year in places like Florida. I obviously still have access to the tanks, but now there are zero eyes on it at any point in-between. This is obviously problematic. It’s just too easy for little things to go in the wrong direction. This last thing to wrong…client headed south for the winter, and turned their heat down to like 60. Yeah, I’ve got a good sized heater on the tank, but not good sized enough to keep 500 gal of water in the upper-70s in a 60 degree house. Naturally, by the time I realized what was happening, the tank had spent almost a week in ~upper-60s or so water…pretty much everything bleached. Will a lot of it come back? Yeah…eventually. In like 5 or 6 months, if the corals live that long.
Anyway…just needed to rant. I’m at an inflection point. Businesses don’t run themselves. I need to decide if this thing is going to be a part of my next chapter.
