Is Reefing Dying?

[Fumanchu]

That's exactly how I feel everyone trying to make it a business instead of a hobby can have make for a bad experience for the beginners and I have had bad experiences as beginner. This is just my opinion and you can't say there stupid or it's there fault there flipping beginners. Even those who Criticize have made those mistakes that's what makes us beginners We had to start from somewhere

 

[ycnibrc]

A beautiful reef tank is not necessary to have brand name corals. If u look at European reefer and their tank is gorgeous without RR JF WWC etc....in the USA a reefer willing to spend $300 for a frag while running $90 jebao return pump. Then the pump fail crash the tank then they quit.

 

[RoyalGrammaJohn]

Of course reefing isn’t dying. If anything it’s brought more people into hobby but overall is still less than 1% of all pet owners. And as far as corals go they are not that expensive like they used to be cause now most of it is fragged and aquacultured. Yes some new and popular pieces can be really high but they all seem to come down in price overtime anyway. And corals are way easier to keep than they used to be cause they have been fragged over and over throughout the years and I believe they have adapted to aquarium parameters where years ago almost all corals were wild caught. And the people that leave the hobby in a short time are not true hobbyist anyway. A lot of people seen finding Nemo and finding dory with there kids so they setup a saltwater tank and then realize “oh wow this is way more complicated then I thought” and then leave. A person who wants to really learn will be dedicated. Period.

 

[LEOreefer]

I don’t think the hobby is dying. With that said I do believe the problem is education. Like others have said I know people who have seen my tank and though “ that’s really cool, I want to get one”. They go out buy the tank sand salt and fish and wonder why they have issues. There needs to be a lot more education and it’s up to the people who love the hobby to spread the knowledge around.

I myself was in the category about 6 years ago, I went out bought all this fancy equipment, had no idea of basic water chemistry and within a month I had a 150 gallon system set up and stocked with fish. I would add coral and it would melt away within hours. Then I think to myself “ calcium must be low or alk must be low” without testing for it I would dump powdered calc and alk buff r right into the tank. I did not have a ato so the return would suck air on a almost regular basis. I was In live with the hobby and the creatures I can grow but had now idea why I was failing.

Fast forward 6 years , my current tank has been up and running since end of July , still has no fish. It only has a few beginner easier corals as well as 2 cleaner shrimp. I have used this time to learn my tank, how it responds when different things happen and how to correct problems that arise. I am glad to report for the first time ever I am seeing decent growth of my corals and by biggest problem is a little bit of alage. I contribute my success THUS far to the knowledge I’ve gained just from this site.

With all that said I know they’re are no LFS in my area that will question they system you want to purchase. Walk into any LFS pick what you want and bring it home. There’s no education, no LFS tell the customer you shouldn’t get that right now because......... people come into this hobby with the expectations of a beautiful reef in months not realizing the weekly water changes , the alage outbreaks, the testing , cleaning of equipment etc that has to be done almost every week. If I could sit down with someone who’s looking to get into the hobby I would tell them all about how you get success and the time it takes before I show them what the end goal could look like.

 

[Berlibee]

Expensive or not, difficult or not it's really up to the hobbyist to determine. You can run a beautiful tank for cheap or a high-end tank for expensive etc.

 

[Leaveitalone]

I think the hobby is far from dying. All hobbies feel the effect of a slow economy, but there is a lot of money changing hands in reefing. I agree that coral and equipment can be rediculously expensive and that scares a lot of people away. They don’t know they don’t have to invest $10k for a 75g reef setup. And everyone has waded through the ocean of quasi-expert and flat out wrong information available to newcomers. Not one website, YouTube channel, or book can put you on track to have a tank like Jason Fox etc. The problem is US. WE as hobbyists don’t share info like we should. The experts don’t share for the most part (gotta keep those $1000 frag prices) and the rest of us flood the web with stuff that is unproven, anecdotal, or just made up. I’m going to die while doing a water change or cleaning a skimmer, but we have to do a better job at making entry level more welcoming. -Nothing will rekindle your interest more than helping a newb be successful. -

 

[Newb73]

@Currby15

The story of your early years literally caused me pain.

I will concede that bad LFS advice has been the bane of the hobby for 30 years.

Other confusion comes with experts reefing on the fringe make risky reef keeping and mixing/stocking moves look too easy for beginners who attempt to replicate and fail miserably.

For those of you insisting technology is the enemy however......

.....Yes I realize that music was just noise in your day and no I won't get off of your lawn.

High Tech + Bad Husbandry = Fail
Low Tech + Bad Husbandry = Fail with more work and lower costs.

Low Tech + Good Husbandry = Suceed with more work and lower costs.

High Tech + Good Husbandry = Suceed with higher cost and less work.

The determining factor isn't your ability to brag about how low tech and cheap **** you are......

The common denominator among successful tanks is good husbandry period.


With some old school caveats......the larger the water volume the better, the more substrate the better, the more flow the better....and you should always have a back up every THING from heaters to main pumps to tanks.

To do it right you literally need 2 of just about everything and in some cases 3 or 4. Redundancy for heating/cooling, power outages, circulation and handling catastrophes like busted pipes etc. Don't buy one set up bulk heads...buy two. Don't use 2 wave makers, use 4, don't run just one heater, run 2.

Don't rely on flap valves, use anti siphon holes and a sump that can handle the top 4 inches of your tank etc....

Get a generator....

 

[B-rad]

It's declined slightly over the past 5ish years, but the aquarium hobby as a whole has increased. Reef-hobbyists are a small subsection of a massive aquarium-trade (If I remember the statistics correctly, Saltwater is approx. 30% of all aquairum hobbyists and obviously reefs would be smaller still). Like with any hobby there will be changes in interest, but just because community activity has decreased doesn't mean the hobby has. I have only recently started becoming active again in my own local club after a couple years of doing my own thing for a while. But I hadn't abandoned the hobby altogether. It'll pick back up as long as we continue to increase it's sustainability, otherwise PETA will continue to run us into the dirt till the hobby is done for.

 

[Newb73]

It's declined slightly over the past 5ish years, but the aquarium hobby as a whole has increased. Reef-hobbyists are a small subsection of a massive aquarium-trade (If I remember the statistics correctly, Saltwater is approx. 30% of all aquairum hobbyists and obviously reefs would be smaller still). Like with any hobby there will be changes in interest, but just because community activity has decreased doesn't mean the hobby has. I have only recently started becoming active again in my own local club after a couple years of doing my own thing for a while. But I hadn't abandoned the hobby altogether. It'll pick back up as long as we continue to increase it's sustainability, otherwise PETA will continue to run us into the dirt till the hobby is done for.

The last five years? That was just the inevitable die off the remaining "finding nemo" grade hobbyist and not a true reduction.

 

[Nathan Belz]

My take just for fun

- Big websites like R2R and RC are loosing a lot of traffic to localized social media groups. most people don't come to forums anymore to talk, but they do to research.

- IMHO people ruin the forum experience with all of the thread bashing. People love to criticize and tell people "there is a search bar for a reason" - This is one of those things that provides astronomical amounts of opinions and lots of out dated information. What was true a few years ago is not necessarily true today, but more than that... the communication gets killed and this become a place to look up stuff, not talk.

- Reefers get in and out of the hobby. It's a common theme for us to get in and out of the hobby. It can take up a lot of time for some people. How many reefers have i seen that sell everything and are still browsing the for sale adds thinking about getting back in.

Finally - I know plenty of people in the hobby who sell pieces at full retail on the side. I do as well. Typically though we are selling collectors pieces. The market gets these pieces by those of us who pay the higher premiums for rare pieces, then propagate them and sell them to make some of our money back. If we don't do that, the pieces never make it to the rest of the market. As each level of interest divides through propagation, the price drops. I buy a HW for 900, sell a few frags for 500. That person then sells a few for 300. The next thing you know you can buy a Walt Disney for 50.00 and everyone is happy.
-Most of us that are selling corals are also giving away the basics. You can't go a day on any of my FB groups where there isn't a person or 2 trying to give away corals for free if someone wants them.

 

[Ashish Patel]

I agree this is a part of it. The LFS have taken a massive hit after the great recession and never recovered while the switch to online shopping continues to kill them. There is nothing like staring at a vibrant colorful reef tank in person to bring new people into the hobby. Coming back to the hobby a few months ago after a few years off it does feel like to me that the hobby is on the decline. I think this is due to several factors:

• Fish parasites and disease. Based on the poll here recently and from my own experience managing LFS, people don't QT and either get lucky or lose a lot of fish either at once or over time. They will only go through so much fish loss before they throw in the towel.
• Cost. It's an incredibly expensive hobby compared to freshwater or keeping other pets like reptiles (last reptile show I went to in Los Angeles was about triple the size if not more than the most recent Reef-A-Palooza). From equipment to livestock the customer is getting price gouged from all sides. The reefing industry is incredibly greedy and runs on a huge margin compared to other industries.
• Steep learning curve. It takes a basic understanding of water chemistry coupled with regular water testing to maintain a reef long term. At the very least you would have to test specific gravity, calc, alk, ph? Either way, this is just more than most people are willing and able to do consistently and accurately. People on this forum, are moderate to advanced hobbyists or on their to way to becoming one and are already above and beyond the average hobbyist out there. So not only is there a good amount of reading required, it also has to be put into practice on a regular basis and this is considered "too much work" for the average Joe.
• The death of the use of Live Rock. Live rock was literally the key that allowed people to successfully keep more difficult coral species in captivity. Some businesses made a big marketing push toward artificial rock and dead rock while the live rock businesses stayed mostly silent while the trend was shifted. I think this was a huge blow to the LFS and to the hobby. Live rock was a popular and profitable product for the LFS to sell. The margin on artificial or dead rock was much smaller and yet the retail price remained the same or higher. It is a bad deal for the LFS and for the hobbyist. Besides that, a reef tank started with dead rock or fake rock has less margin of error and takes much much longer to mature into a thriving ecosystem, this leads to more problems like: algae, dinos, tank crashes, coral losses. A tank started with dead rock will most likely never have even a fraction of the diversity of micro organisms and other fauna that make up a thriving reef.
• The elitist and clique-ish nature of people in the reefing community. We all know R2R is the nice, positive and constructive forum so this doesn't apply here. But what I have observed locally and elsewhere across the web is a different story. At the reptile show I mentioned earlier, people were happy, friendly, and talked my ear off. Both other hobbyists and vendors. I'm not a particularly outgoing person and this is welcome and pleasant for me. At MAX or Reef-A-Palooza no one talks, no one is friendly, people that know each other hang out and it's a very clique-ish scene. The vendors are not outgoing and friendly it's very much just a job for them.
• Hobbyists treating it as a business and not a hobby. Maybe more of an issue here in L.A. but we've got a lot of hobbyists who constantly post FS threads charging full retail for their frags. Many people treat the hobby as a business investment that they want to see a financial return on. One would think everyone would be trading and giving away corals but instead they see a brush of the hand that accidentally broke a piece off a colony as an opportunity for profit. I recently bought a SPS frag from a local hobbyist. He told me that if anything happened to it, he'd replace it. When the coral ended up dying within a few days I took him up on the offer. He asked for a pic for proof and asked about my water and husbandry before making good on his promise. That is not a friendly thing between hobbyists and peers, that is a business transaction. I'm at the point now where I might as well not deal with any local hobbyists and just buy all corals online because the price and experience is nearly identical and I don't have to drive far.

Well done! You put a lot of thought into this... I approve this message

 

[ca1ore]

Lol. I am and will. So when you don't have a tank any more or life happens and you can't have a tank I guess you can't give advice. Makes sense. Saying show me your tank and then I'll listen to your advice is like saying looking at a members profile and assuming they have only been in the hobby since there join date. Great logic there. We can agree to disagree but you might sell yourself short on some great advice from an awesome member just because he or she can't show you there tank. I think for the most part, especially on R2R, people try to honestly help with there knowledge at hand. I just don't think a hobbyist should be discredited of there knowledge due to not having a tank at that time.

Anyone can give advice, it's just whether one should be listening to it or not LOL I see nothing wrong with walking the talk, though I think you're taking my point a bit too literally. Otherwise I think your points are false equivalencies.

 

[JaimeAdams]

Interesting topic.

I work full time at a LFS. I am the President of the local fish club.

I know that with the cub almost all of our old time members have gotten out of the hobby. We were almost dead a couple years ago, but had a resurgence. Currently the club seems to be on a downward spiral again.

Years ago people only had magazines/books, their local fish store and local aquarium clubs to gather their information from. Now we all carry google in our pockets. It's great for sourcing products, but can be a double edges sword for information. There is an overabundance of information out there on the forums and elsewhere but there are a lot of people who do not know enough to be able to decipher the good from the bad or enough personal knowledge to be able to implement what they are reading or watching to incorporate it into their own uses, I see people come to the store check out a product and then google it to see if they can find it cheaper on-line. I always want to ask them how Amazon's customer service is one fish or coral pests and disease.

I feel that the hobby has evolved over the years as with anything. Is the hobby dieing, I think that the online forums filled with the most die hard fans is probably the wrong place to get a real sense of the answer.

 

[B-rad]

The last five years? That was just the inevitable die off the remaining "finding nemo" grade hobbyist and not a true reduction.

It came out nearly 14 years ago... If they are the ones that are just now leaving they were full-fledged reefers regardless of their initial persuasion into this hobby.

 

[jda]

People just now having kids are still watching Nemo and Dory just like it is brand new to them. It will have an affect on this hobby for decades to come... after all it is one of the few kids shows that adults can enjoy too.

 

[Shon]

I have been reading for about a year, changed plans a dozen times, and all I have to show for it is an empty (holding fresh water actually..) 60g-ish tank with a drilled overflow. My paint job on the back sucks (queue frustration). Bought equipment piece by piece. Just to look at it new in box weeks/months later to wonder if I should have gotten this or that instead (queue more frustration).

Soon.. I will have my stand built and plumbing, then.. then I can say that day with my first load of saltwater, I am in the hobby. For now it is more like an inquiry. About 1,000$ inquiry.

--

I think the whole daily milliliters of this or grams of that kind of put off new people like myself. So I need to remember to check this element with this test and then dose X to get values of this. Wait, X tester comes with X tests and I have to use it every other day, but I need this test and that one too.. and then the $ screams in my ear.. Upkeep more-so than initial setup costs.

Then I see, oh just change x% water weekly. Oh you can use a fuge with macros to pull out n+p. You really only need these few tests. KISS, ok I can roll with this, read some more.

Then I see algae scrubbers and weekly water changes as viable alternatives and think "I can do that no problem." I have access to free NSW and prefer removing algae, heck I can get free wild Ulva to seed. So'n-so's tank looks great using this method. So I read some more..

Problem is.. I still keep reading. And it causes me to change my mind. lol

--

But yeah, as new to the scene, I dont think it is dying. If it is, I call dibs on killing it.

 

[Opus]

I've only entered the hobby in the last few years, but I've asked people the same thing. They all said fragging is what spiraled things out of control. He tells me he remembers when euphyllia starter colonies went from $20 to $25 and thought no one is going to pay more, they've always been $20 for however many heads comes on it. "Back in the day" a frag was what we now consider a mini colony. No one really named corals either. They just grew until they became a problem, were broken up and given away. But now, omg is that an "ultra soooper house fire staff of gandolph" (that you happened to just name on your own). Oh you're charging $700 for a shave off one of the polyp holes, it must be awesome!" I've personally had some crazy awesome wild SPS colonies in the past. Tips would randomly get broken off and in the sand, and I wouldnt even think or care. Then I see people on FB groups selling "frags" that are just tiny little tips where there is more super glue on the plug than coral and they're charging stupid amounts for pieces that arent even worth picking out of the sand. My LFS sometimes gets caught up into it also. He just tried to get me to buy some japanese gobies or whatever, and I said I dont want them because I'm not a fan. "oh but they're rare!" .....Yeah i dont care. I like what looks good and isnt inflated because of the "ultra" tag.
I just buy what looks good at a good price for me now. I also dont try to build a "dream tank" of coral anymore. All these crazy sps tanks you see jam packed from sand to lights with colonies, every single one I've read up on afterwards has "crashed" and been wiped out.

I agree on the "dream tank" for sure. There was someone on here a year or so ago that posted a pic of their tank which looked to be a 75gal tank. It was nothing but frag racks from top to bottom with every hole used and every frag was a "rare" piece. It was so full that if any of them grew at all they would be touching their neighbor coral. I figured there was $15k to $20k of frags in there. Everyone was going crazy over his awesome tank. I just didn't get it. It didn't look anything like a reef, just a "look at what I can afford" tank. Never saw him post again after everyone told him how great his tank was.

I'm one of those old timers. I remember when I could get a rock full of mushrooms for $20 to $30 and now those same mushrooms cost that much each. We used to buy live rock for $6/lb that was covered in ricordea.

As for the hobby itself, I agree with the poster that stated most just don't stick around for over a year or 2. As a lot of us do, we jump in not knowing how much work and/or money is involved.

 

[Richard baker]

I been in the hobby going on 20 years i think people see these so called amazing tanks go out spend a ton of money get ill informed next thing u know u got a one month old tank jammed packed with way to many fish and way to many coral with next to no planning what so ever then things start to go south things die algae sets in people loose interest.. you have to plan your build and your live stock selection build it and be patient once your tank is successful leave it alone don't mess with it don't change it let it grow and enjoy it ..And yes I to often get a laugh at frags or what some consider frags going for way to much money but is it dying I don't think so it's evolving but not dying just my two cents

 

[Frankyrivera]

Thanks for all the info and giving great posts to read with all the different view points. I agree with a lot and disagree with other points. All in all great feedback. Now anyone selling $20-$40 sps frags. Hahahahahaha help me keep the dream alive.

 

[Frankyrivera]

Ok so this picture has officially re invigorated me. Thanks