How satisfied are you with your reef?

[Studjunior]

I gave myself a 3 on the satisfaction level. I used to have a 150G which I was supper happy with (had for 5 years) but then I moved houses (1.5 years ago) and did a major upgrade to an 8 foot 240G plus 150G refugium in the basement. If it was FOWLR I would give myself a 8/9 but as I reef I seem to be stuck having no luck with my SPS (some of my LPS are going well). Parameters are where they should be a stable but still, corals won't encrust and grow..... I'm all for patience when dealing with a reef but this has me as my wits end....

 

[cancun]

I gave myself a 3 on the satisfaction level. I used to have a 150G which I was supper happy with (had for 5 years) but then I moved houses (1.5 years ago) and did a major upgrade to an 8 foot 240G plus 150G refugium in the basement. If it was FOWLR I would give myself a 8/9 but as I reef I seem to be stuck having no luck with my SPS (some of my LPS are going well). Parameters are where they should be a stable but still, corals won't encrust and grow..... I'm all for patience when dealing with a reef but this has me as my wits end....

I think your tank looks great....and sooo clean! What kind of fish do you have?

 

[Christopher Davis]

7

 

[Greybeard]

That is very well said....and you are soooooo right.....if there were nothing else you do.... improve....work on....etc.....it would get boring....and it wouldn't be a great hobby anymore.

Thanks

Luckily for all of us... we've got a LOOOONG ways to go before _anyone_ runs out of challenges within this hobby. Got an awesome reef? Set up a NPS tank! Lots of challenges there. Take a step away from corals, and try tank breeding fishes... talk about a challenge

The people that exit this hobby, and yeah, the percentages of this are very high... they're not bored with an overly successful tank. They're frustrated because they've spent tons of money and had little success.

This stuff is hard. The learning curve is steep, and as far as I can see, never ending. As hobbies go, it's near perfect

 

[Studjunior]

I think your tank looks great....and sooo clean! What kind of fish do you have?

Thank you! As a FOWLR I agree with 100%!! I want my reef back though.. I miss it soo much!!!

This is what I have in there now:

Naso Tang
Sohal tang
purple tang
Blue Tang
Kole tang
yelllow tang * 2
Harlequin tusk
Marine Beta
Picasso Clown (mated pair)
Yellow wrasse
McCosker Wrasse
Cardinal
Snowflake Eel
Lytail Anthia (1 male 1 female)

 

[andrewkw]

It's a hobby. You can never be 'satisfied' with a hobby, or you're missing the point. If there is nothing to do, no way to improve... it's no longer a hobby.

I've seen magnificent tanks in the homes of well off people who know _NOTHING_ about reefing... they're paying a maintenance company to handle everything, to them, it's just something neat to look at. It's not a hobby, it's an expensive decoration.

Might as well get a DVD of a nice reef, and play it in a loop.

To me, reefing has always been a hobby. I know fishkeepers that think of their finned friends as pets... I guess that's true, in some ways. My pets are my dogs. We've got three, two great Pyrenees, which are absolutely members of the family, and working members of the family, at that. The other is a shih-tzu. Basically, a dust mop that's happy to see you when you get home. Fish? Those are part of my hobby.

A hobby is something you _DO_ for enjoyment. Golf, shooting, hunting, fishing, boating... those are hobbies. Reefkeeping is, as well. I've been at this for a couple of decades now... and I'm still learning, still finding new and better ways to manage my reef. There is ALWAYS something that you could be doing to your reef. After all, that's the point, isn't it?

I'm going to partly disagree but I do overall agree with your sentiment let me explain :

We should all be so lucky to have 10/10 reefs at some point in our lives. Get to the point where you are absolutely happy with everything can sit back and nothing but enjoy the tank. Guess what though, that will not last. Corals will continue to grow. Maybe you're happy with basketball sized colonies, beach ball sized not so much... Your fish are going to age, this is going to happen slower but you're not always going to have all the fish you want AND they aren't all going to be the same size. ie waiting years for tangs to have streamers, wrasses to become supermales ect. Once one coral overgrows another the reef as a whole is not perfect ect.

I fully believe a 10/10 reef is within my reach. I also expect that would last somewhere between 2-6 weeks maximum. This is the time you take a ton of photos and videos. Something will change, best case it's overgrowth and then when you trim you don't trim to get back to perfection, you trim so the opportunity to grow to perfection is possible be it in 6 months 1 year or whatever. Worst case it's equipment failure, user error, laziness or some disease or other outside factor. I've been pretty close to 10/10 before and while I don't have that 10 reef now reaching that is not some sort of final goal for me or most people because it's going to be so short, it's going to be getting back to that 10/10 and or getting a different 10. There are many ways to have a 10/10 reef just like there are many different fonts you can type the number 10 in. 10 is not the end goal, it might be the peak but you don't stop watching your favourite sports team when they win a championship or stop watching a tv series after the best episode. You continue on.

 

[fish farmer]

I gave myself a 7.
Several years ago I set up to put a tank in a wall and let mushrooms, palys and other softies take over. I succeeded. I also have had great luck with some lps which I'm focusing attention to again after several years of neglect. There are some water parameters I would like to improve. I'm excited to see many nice tanks on this forum and many different ideas with regard to filtration, sump layouts, changing stations, etc. It makes me want to stay in the hobby even more, even for just the tinkering with equipment aspect.

 

[curiouser]

I went with 7. But after seeing other tanks in this thread that rated themselves lower I now would call mine a 4 . OTOH I enjoy looking at it and trying different approaches.
I guess it depend where you set the bar.
In high school I played trumpet and with a lot of hard work I got to be 1st chair. But near end of senior year I told my teacher I wanted to be a professional musician. He said that was fine if I wanted to play 3rd chair trumpet in a 4th rate orchestra. To this day I'm grateful he made me understand how little talent I had and to stop aspiring to be a professional musician. He helped me reset the bar. But I still love music.
Somebody (I think a R2R reefer) has a tag line on his posts from Teddy Roosevelt that "Comparison is the thief of joy". I couldn't agree more.
If we're happy with our tanks that's great, no matter what rating we give ourselves.

 

[Goby-won]

Well, I think most of you are shorting yourself. If we use the 10 point scale, well then in my mind anything below a 6 is a failure. I am by no means saying anyone that judged themselves below a 6 a failure, please don’t take it that way. I have seen some pretty amaizing pics on here - well above 5’s for sure. I rated myself an 8 or a low B. I think I have had above average success, but I am certainly not a 8.5 or a 9. I have a lot of things I wish I can do or did better, but all in all when I sit on the couch I am proud of my accomplishment.