When was a time you felt "stuck" in the hobby?

[Gumbies R Us]

I feel like there are times when a problem or issues arises in the hobby, and we feel stuck. Maybe it is something not working right on our tank and not knowing what to do. Maybe it is a recent tank crash and wondering how to even recover from it. Or, maybe it is not knowing what to do next for our tank. I am wondering what was a time you felt like you were "stuck" in the hobby.

 

[Reefer Matt Verified Media Partner]

Sorta that way for me lately. I got to a point where all my tanks are full and have two full (ish) frag tanks. I reached the "achievement" that I wanted and had to think about what's next. It kinda gets boring when all I do is maintain the tanks and not add anything new. But then I fragged some coral and was happy again. (My favorite thing to do)

 

[kenchilada]

I’ve had several bad quarantine attempts in a row and it’s gut wrenching every time. I don’t feel like messing with my tanks at all when I lose one in QT.

 

[fish farmer]

Actually right now.

I did some aquascaping and working on eradicating mushrooms....this was in March. I got a minor red cyano outbreak which I address when I water change. I haven't addressed the mushrooms in awhile so where I scraped them back, they have taken over again.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Sorta that way for me lately. I got to a point where all my tanks are full and have two full (ish) frag tanks. I reached the "achievement" that I wanted and had to think about what's next. It kinda gets boring when all I do is maintain the tanks and not add anything new. But then I fragged some coral and was happy again. (My favorite thing to do)

Get another tank is what I say

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I’ve had several bad quarantine attempts in a row and it’s gut wrenching every time. I don’t feel like messing with my tanks at all when I lose one in QT.

That is understandable. Fish just not staying alive in QT?

 

[Reefer Matt Verified Media Partner]

Get another tank is what I say

Funny you mention it. I just cleared a spot in the Reef Cave for my dream tank (200-300 gal). I have a spare circuit with plenty of outlets available.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Funny you mention it. I just cleared a spot in the Reef Cave for my dream tank (200-300 gal). I have a spare circuit with plenty of outlets available.

There you go! Just got to get it ordered and purchase it haha

 

[Reefer Matt Verified Media Partner]

There you go! Just got to get it ordered and purchase it haha

Yeah, that'll be around a year, but I did this to help get me motivated. Tank #6.

 

[skydirt]

I'm feeling it now. I'm working 7 days a week and feel like I did all I could. I have around 700g between 3 tanks and haven't had time to do anything new. I almost want to sell everything (around 100k) all in for a fraction of the price!

 

[BurtG]

I’ve had several bad quarantine attempts in a row and it’s gut wrenching every time. I don’t feel like messing with my tanks at all when I lose one in QT.

I've felt the same lately. I'm getting my first "large" tank stocked and am trying to do proper qt. I've been going slow to get fish in and lost 2 tangs one after another in qt. Started to question the whole thing and started thinking about cutting my losses and tearing it down since i had been stairing at a mostly empty tank cycling for over 6 months at that point. Finally I decided I just needed to get some of the fish I really wanted in the tank and direct ordered a biota yellow tang along with some other fish I have wanted but haven't found in the local stores. I just tossed them into the dt figuring it was a low risk since they were aquacultured and direct shipped. I was initially hesitant to spend the extra money for Mail ordered fish and figured I'd save money by using patience and qt to get "cheaper" local fish (though ive probably spent $3-500 on just equipment and various medicine for qt at this point lol... i bought a lot of medicines i probably will never need.. but hey, better safe than sorry) . But hell... after the losses in qt... its really just cheaper for me to buy mail ordered qt or aquacultured fish then to accept the losses I was having doing qt myself. Though In the defense of diy qt.... I don't think it was a waste to try it. I now have a better idea of what to look for in fish health, have a lot of medicines on hand if a sick fish pops up and an idea of how to treat (or aleast where to look to find out how to treat). I just dont have the patience for the months of waiting to add the new fish to the dt and I dont have the heart for knowing some of the fish I'd buy wouldn't even make it through qt.

But now that I've finally got some cool fish swimming around the tank I'm remotivated to keep at it and excited about the tank again. Though I will probably just stick to ordering pre Qtd fish for now on.

 

[Propane]

I couldn’t keep my first hammer coral alive. I had no clue about what it wanted. It’s skeleton is on a rock next to my second hammer coral that seems to be thriving and happy. Still don’t know why it died.

 

[nkyreef]

Stuck now. Tank full. Extra coral so have to additional frag tank. Isn't self sustaining like I'd hope at this point. LFS flush with coral so little to nothing on trades. Feels more like a job and less like a hobby.

 

[EakTheFreak]

Went 4-1/2 years overall smooth sailing. First time trying corals had some losses but overall successful.

About 2 months ago, my power went out when I wasn’t home. Got back the next day got generator up but had already lost the 11 fish:
• Copperband Butterfly (conditioned 3 years old & kept Aptasia out of tank
• Yellow Eye Kole Tang - in group of first fish I owned
• Coral Beauty
• Flame Angel
• 4 lyretail anthias
• 2 bimac anthias
• Mandarin goby

All my coral survived but losing the bulk of my best fish still has me slightly defeated.

I’m also moving houses in November so trying to figure that debacle out in the meantime ‍

Love this hobby so I can never leave it but definitley massive hit to my success so far. Purchased battery power back up for wavemakers as lack of oxygen was cause of death from power outage.

 

[Mau1J1m]

I've felt pretty stuck since entering the hobby & standing my first tank up in the end of May to be honest

Not due to any hardships within the tank itself.... *knock on wood* my ugly stage has actually been rather gentle so far, just some mild waves of green hair that comes and goes, seemingly less abundantly each time it does.

I've even managed to get my hands on a couple dozen frags (mostly zoa's and shrooms + some euphyllia ) which I've been able to QT and add into the display, with only one not making it (pretty sure it just got beat to heck in shipping unfortunately). Managed to do so without even breaking the bank too bad, just by stalking around for decent sales from smaller online vendors.

My pain comes from trying to get my hands on basically anything specific that is on my "livestock dream sheet". Currently the only vertebrate in my display is a sailfin tang, & while I have come to grow rather fond of her and don't regret the decision in the slightest, it wasn't even actually part of my original list.... I just scooped her up because they were extremely healthy looking & I was sick of staring at nothing but wet rocks. Finally just got ahold of the blenny on my list I had been hunting & he is half way through quarantine now...

Still, a fish a month is pretty painful, especially after the amount of homework and setup that went in to getting everything going. 6-months-ago-me would never have believed the dirty, despicable things that current-day-me would be willing to do just to find a guy selling a legit Kole Tang.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

I'm feeling it now. I'm working 7 days a week and feel like I did all I could. I have around 700g between 3 tanks and haven't had time to do anything new. I almost want to sell everything (around 100k) all in for a fraction of the price!

You could cut back on the tanks and go to 2 maybe just 1 if the stress of taking care of 3 is too much.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Went 4-1/2 years overall smooth sailing. First time trying corals had some losses but overall successful.

About 2 months ago, my power went out when I wasn’t home. Got back the next day got generator up but had already lost the 11 fish:
• Copperband Butterfly (conditioned 3 years old & kept Aptasia out of tank
• Yellow Eye Kole Tang - in group of first fish I owned
• Coral Beauty
• Flame Angel
• 4 lyretail anthias
• 2 bimac anthias
• Mandarin goby

All my coral survived but losing the bulk of my best fish still has me slightly defeated.

I’m also moving houses in November so trying to figure that debacle out in the meantime ‍

Love this hobby so I can never leave it but definitley massive hit to my success so far. Purchased battery power back up for wavemakers as lack of oxygen was cause of death from power outage.

Hate that you lost that much. Hopefully you can get the fish back and they look better than ever!

 

[7of9]

Right now.

My last (and first) tank was in 2008. I was pretty broke and managed to get a 12g biocube and TBS live package and kept it going pretty well as my office tank and later moved it to my home. I was still establishing myself in my career and had small kids. I couldn't afford many fancy corals, but I had enough to keep my interest and I was able to keep up with maintenance and save up for upgrades. It wasn't the flashiest tank, but it was nice.

Fast forward to now. I'm well established in my career, but man have the costs gone up on everything and it's a struggle to justify it to myself to budget all this for a hobby and I do pretty well most of the time. It could be that I need to adjust my expectations, but what I was really going for was just a slightly bigger version of what I had in 2008 and even that seems difficult.

Inflation and wage stagnation sucks, but I guess it's teaching me more patience. I'll get there one day.

 

[Reefdiculous22]

I’m at this point now. I’m currently about 4 weeks out from a recent crash. Things are finally stabilizing . My tank is going on 15 mo and is depressing. It’s very empty for the age it is.
This is my first aquarium so it was pretty scary losing the corals and seeing how fast things can go down hill. So I’m feeling stuck at the moment. Lol

 

[Timfish]

As far as understanding everything that's going on in my systems it's a constant feeling of inadequacy. :/