Why do so many people leave the hobby?

[paul b]

Why do so many people get out of the hobby?

This hobby has been around for 44 years and yet you can count the number of tanks that are at least 20 years old on one hand. OK, maybe two, I didn't really count, but work with me. The vast majority of threads are very new tanks and the second largest number of threads besides disease threads is "Getting out of the hobby, everything for sale" threads. Why is that?

I think I know. It takes a special (weird) type of person to keep at this for a large number of years. By that I mean a person with more varied interests than just keeping some beautiful fish alive. When I started, me and Moses would sit and watch our guppies. After we managed to keep the fish alive we got so excited to see them spawn. Then we would sit up all night with an eye dropper so we could feed each one individually and watch it grow. We were horrified when one (or most of them) died. And they were guppies. Then when we were proficient with breeding different strains of guppies to get different colors we tried mollies, then swordtails and any livebearers we could get our hands on. But that got boring and we needed more of a challenge. There were so many fish to choose from. We had kissing gourami’s, angelfish, discus, zebra’s and bettas with their very cool bubble nests. We did this for years until that was so easy that we did not get excited when our fish spawned. Not being exciting is death to a hobby and we almost went on to other endeavors like trying to guess the phone numbers of Supermodels. But wait. Something happened just in the nick of time that kept us in the hobby.

Someone imported salt water fish into the US. I don't remember who that was but whoever he was, it kept my interest because now I no longer needed to watch my freshwater fish spawn as that was boring because everyone was able to do it. If anyone can do it, it isn't as much fun because we couldn't brag about our success and get fish Geek points. The thrill was gone.

But saltwater fish opened up an entirely new field that no one knew anything about. If a store sold salt water fish they had a huge sign in their window proclaiming that they had salt water fish. That usually meant they had a 5 gallon tank with three, ich infested blue devils and a depressed domino with a social disease on his way to having last rites. But those damsels were so fascinating because now, we again had bragging rites and although we were not very good at keeping these guys alive, no one else could either. Eventually our damsels spawned for us and we were again able to get out the eye dropper and stay up late at night feeding them one at a time. The thrill was back. Much of the thrill was that there was virtually no information available about these things, I mean none, and computers were not invented yet so every day that we kept a damsel alive was a thrill, sort of like bungee jumping but different. I really miss those days as now it is simple to keep most fish alive and to kill a damsel you need to lay it in the street and have a 1957 Chevy Malibu run over it, twice.

Now with the internet and advice coming from every little village on earth there is very little thrill at all. If you need to know something all you do is Google it and an entire plethora of information is at your fingertips. Of course almost all of it is wrong based on rumor, conjecture, supposition, guesswork, innuendos, and drug induced rantings by someone who started a tank last Tuesday and now is the resident expert.

 

I myself have been doing this a while so I know better on a few things but I can see how it can be overwhelming. I read so many things that I am so opposed to that it drives me nuts so I limit my posts on almost all forums now because of the arguments. Of course I am also old and opinionated so I guess I also am easy to argue with. My old school theories are debunked by young college grads with all sorts of book learning and a cell phone with a google app ready to find something to disagree with. That is fine and is the way of the world. But I think the main reason so many people drop out is that most of the thrill is gone. Almost every fish that can be kept, is kept. We can now keep fish for their entire normal lifespan with no problems.

Thank God for corals. Those gems are still a source of wonder as there are so many types with different needs and so many opinions as to their care. How much light? How much current? Do they need to be fed? What is the best temperature and salinity? How much nitrate can they handle and how much do they need, if any? Would a Supermodel be able to successfully keep a coral? No one really knows so the hobby has hope.

[LCDRDATA]

I think it's generally a combination of unmet expectations and/or life changes. For short-timers, the hobby turns out to be more [difficult | expensive | complicated | time-consuming | fill-in-the blank here] than they anticipated, and then something causes a tank crash or similar trigger, after which they decide to hang it up. For people who have been doing it longer, they've made it through the expectations vs. reality phase, but evolution on the home front creates a situation where it isn't "fun" anymore. The enthusiasm falls away, the negative aspects begin to dominate, and they decide to take a "no-fault divorce" from reefing. These folks, judging by what I've seen on the boards (and occasionally felt myself) are more likely both to depart gracefully and come back in the future.

[mogurnda]

 

 

 It takes a special (weird) type of person to keep at this for a large number of years. 

I think it's also unusual for someone to have a lifestyle stable enough to keep the same tank for that many years.  I had my first SW tank in 1984, but life got in the way:

8 moves from 1986 to 2000, in 4 states

No time 1986 to 2000 (grad school to the end of 2nd postdoc)

No money 1986 to 2000 (same reasons).

I always kept at least one FW tank, but SW had to wait for marriage, money, and mortgage.  

 

What I see when people leave is usually a change in lifestyle.

-Kids arrive, and priorities change

-Moving

-Divorce

-Too much travel for work

-Lost income

 

I am lucky that I have had the time and resources to automate as much as I can, so that the tank will watch itself when I am buried by work or out of the country.  I am even more lucky to have a wife who does not divorce me when a derecho sweeps through when I am off the grid in Baja .  

[dave w]

I think all the posts are hitting the point.  I started keeping saltwater tanks in 1984 and quit for a few years every time I had a tank meltdown.  But today it is different, anyone can go to the internet and get high quality advice from helpful experts (and lots of low quality advice as well).  So I think short timers today are more for reasons of lifestyle whereas short timers 20-30 years ago were caused by lack of information.   

 

Also, as good aquarium knowledge has become widespread, the numbers of species and diversity of reef setups have also gone wild.  I see this as a good thing, even though it might take 10 years of killing a certain specie before we learn the best husbandry practices.  

 

But during my first 10-15 years of saltwater, I saw all the same difficult stuff imported even though 99% of it was going to die.  At least today a much higher percentage of the difficult stuff can survive because the larger reef community has learned how to care for it.

 

I see the purpose of forums like this one to guide newcomers out of purchasing eye candy that they can't keep alive until they have a few years experience behind them and a lot of expert help to rely on.  

[sen5241b]

I personally have seen many people give up after a tank crash. Knew a guy who loved his tank but after a Marine Velvet outbreak that wiped out his tank in 24 hours he gave up. Somewhere int the newsletter archives, I wrote an article about all the tank disasters that can happen and how to prevent them. Newbies, you may want to check it out.

 

Been in the hobby about 8 years.

[YHSublime]

This is a great question, Paul, and one I often contemplate. Everybody has already provided some excellent points, and I think all of those are true. I think something else that is a combination that may or may not have been mentioned is patience.

 

I find there are a tremendous amount of new to the hobby people that don't think basic rules apply to them, or they simply don't have the patience to wait basic steps out. For example, cycling a tank, slowly adding inverts, fish, corals, etc. I think a lot of people spend quite a bit of money on initial startup, and instead of waiting to properly start their tanks up (which is essentially creating an ecosystem) shove as much as they possibly can in there and it's destined for failure. The frustration of spending so much money, putting so much time into it, and doing it all yesterday and not having anything survive, or get wiped out by a fish disease, or some sort of AEFW because of lack of planning or knowledge can be devastating.

 

You have to be pretty resilient to stick around in this hobby, it throws a lot of failures at you, but if you can turn them into learned lessons, persevere, and come out with something even better than what you started with, that's what is important.

 

I also agree with Dave W that the sharing of information now is what keeps a lot more people in the hobby. I wish more people just took the advice they asked for instead of thinking they are the exception to the rule and have to learn from their mistakes.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[paul b]

There are so many things I want to accomplish in this hobby but there are also so many things that I already accomplished so they are not as much of a thrill for me any longer. All my paired fish are spawning. That was my main goal but I still have not spawned all the fish that can spawn. I can keep corals, but I can't keep all corals. I can keep most, but not all fish. Now my biggest thrill in the hobby is building things. I already designed a way to build my rocks and most of my rock, I built. I already collected all of my rock using SCUBA which was a lot of fun. But after you fill your tank with rock and have a hundred pounds left over. You are done connecting rock. Building rocks opened up an entirely new aspect of the hobby for me. I have also dove with almost all the creatures I have ever kept and had a wonderful life of traveling just to dive in exotic places, some I can't even pronounce. I also like to build my other equipment and built my protein skimmer, surface skimmer and target feeders for mandarins and pipefish. I built the shrimp hatcheries and a way to collect the fry as they hatch. This week I built a water cooled LED fixture that I will install tomorrow. I am not running out of things to build or creatures to keep. I even have two patents on aquarium related devices and just published a book. I have done quite a lot of things in the hobby but the things I already did, some many times I am not as interested in any longer. People ask me all the time If I raise the fish that spawn. I do not. I did a few times and as I said in my first post, I really enjoyed that as that is the pinnacle of this hobby. But after you do that often enough and know you could do it, you lost interest in doing it again and prefer to do something else in the hobby. Maybe raise squid, jellyfish, hermit crabs, Supermodels or manta rays.

I still very much love the hobby and will always be in it. I just enjoy different aspects of it. I still get excited when my bluestripe pipefish or mandarins spawn. But not nearly as much as the first time. The first thing I do every morning is run my finger over the glass of the tank to check the temperature. Then I notice if the water level is where it should be. After that I know all is well and I go about my day knowing my fish are fine. Some of them have been in there for over 20 years so they are a part of my life. For me this is not a hobby but a way of life. I have had a tank now for about 60 years so it is really in my blood.

As for it being expensive, it is as expensive as you want it to be. I spend very little on my tank, I think I figured it out once at about $960.00 a year including electricity. But I don't have controllers, dosers, UV sterilizers or bio pellets. So that is a few grand I didn't spend. I have also had my tank when I was an apprentice electrician in the 70s living in a tiny apartment with my wife and then Daughter when I was bringing home after taxes $52.00 a week. I did side jobs to pay the bills and feed the fish. But then and now the fish eat mostly clams which cost about fifty cents a week. I also moved in 1978 and brought the tank, water, fish, UG filter and rocks with me.

There are plenty of excuses to leave the hobby and just times when we lost interest or one of our family members gets sick. I know how that is as my wife of 42 years has MS and I spend more time helping her so I have less time for my hobbies. But the hobby, to me is also a release and gives me an opportunity to experiment and get the creative juices flowing. I don't have any tank problems any more so I can concentrate on just pure enjoyment.

I love this stuff.

Thank you all of you guys for responding. I am glad this thread created some conversation.

[YHSublime]

Paul, when it comes to spending a bunch of money, you're right, it doesn't have to be that way, but not all of us have access to free saltwater and copod collecting sites. The synthetic salt alone plus an RO/DI is a reoccurring charge.

 

I agree with you about the rock work. The creation of the initial tank and getting it just the way you want it is what keeps me around. Plus I have met so many great friends and people through this hobby that all share the same passion.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[paul b]

My reef is 99% ASW. I collect some water in the summer but only about 20 gallons a year. I only change water about 5 or 6 times a year anyway. The amphipods don't save any money, they just make it healthy. I don't have test kits, dosers, reactors, two part anything, controllers, bio pellets, or any of that expensive stuff that I feel is not needed.

I do spend a little money on live worms but that's about it. I really don't know why so much money is spent on this. If you know kind of what you are doing, your fish should live for many years so you don't need much for them. I am just going to put some $20.00 bills in my tank so I don't feel bad about not spending much money on this stuff. I wrote a few things in my book about saving money but I realize many people feel they have to throw loads of money at this to have a nice tank.

My RO membrane is about 10 years old and my resins last for 4 months or so. Not to bad. I buy them in bulk so they are not much. If I feel the need to test the water, I bring some to the LFS and they test it.

Edited December 14, 2015 by paul b

[davidm]

Paul - How do you avoid spending $ on lighting the tank for corals? When I was using MH lighting it was not only a significant use of electricity, but the bulbs cost ~$100 each yr.  Now that I use LEDs the electric costs are low, and I don't expect to replace LEDs except for every other decade or so, but even though I ordered direct and soldered each LED light into my own 'reflector' (which is a sheet of Aluminum) - it wasn't cheap to buy all those LEDs.

[paul b]

I wrote this, it goes along with this thread. http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/why-do-we-find-marine-aquariums-so-fascinating-3382/

 

David I have not used MH lights in quite a while. I have an LED fixture. Just today I finished building a water cooled LED fixture and installed it an hour ago. Here it is on my workbench with the radiator for the trial run

 

As you know LEDs don't use much electricity but instead of complaining about utility bills, I do something about it. I installed solar electric on my roof about 6 years ago.

It's a no brainer and even though I installed these myself, you can now get them installed for free and you lease them.

 

I had an old oil burner for heat and hot water that cost me about $5,000.00 a year in oil. I got a big sledge hammer and broke it up and took it to the dump. Then I installed a condensing gas boiler that is 98% efficient. It is so efficient that it doesn't need a chimney. My heat bills are now $960.00 a year including hot water, cooking and my fireplace. When they come out with a decent American electric car, I will get one. There are many things we can do to make our tanks, homes and cars very efficient and instead of complaining we should get off our you know what and do something about it. My utility bills are now a joke they are so low. So my tank basically runs for free.

 

My LEDs were free. I went to an LFS and asked them if they had any old fixtures that didn't work because I needed them for parts. I got this one and un soldered the 100 LEDs, tested them and used them in my new fixture. I also used the fans and drivers. I would never dream to spend $600.00 on a light when I could build a custom made one for practically free.

Edited December 14, 2015 by paul b

[Keraxis]

Around here it seems to be people moving.  People come to this area when they are driven.  That means work may change dramatically over night.  I took down a nice tank when I moved and have been struggling with it ever since.  I do not plan on quiting but I get it.

[Jason Rhoads]

I have been tempted to quit a few times in the past. On each occasion it was due to finances, or job opportunities.

 

For me, the lure of this hobbies potential for tinkering will keep me in for life. I love building things myself (even though I am but a novice) and a reef tank gives me ample opportunities!

[paul b]

In the years my tank has been up Sandy was only one hurricane that turned off my power. I probably lost power 12 times in 40 years where it was out for more than a day. Sandy I was out 4 days. Once it was out for 6 days. But after the first outage I got a generator. Now, if you can afford a reef tank, you can afford a generator because it is less than a controller or some of the other equipment many people use. I think my generator was about 4 or 5 hundred dollars but it has saved me thousands not only in fish tanks but it food and heat for my family. In the early, pre generator days I used to use my SCUBA tanks to operate an air stone during blackouts. If I didn't have that I would just take water out of the tank every few hours and dump it back in. I never lost an animal due to a blackout. Of course most of those blackouts were in the warmer weather and if I lost heat, I would have been in trouble. But now my generator does that. During Sandy I ran out of gas for my generator so now I converted it to natural gas. I bought a kit for $200.00 for that and now it runs on natural gas and gasoline. I also have back up pumps and lights for emergencies. I am the type of person who is pro active, not re active which is why I have solar panels on my roof and a new heating system that reduced my heat bills by over $4,000.00 a year.

Of course we will have blackouts, that is a fact of life so we need to deal "before" it happens. Some people lost their livestock to ich. I have written articles about that and my fish are immune. Immunity is not much understood because many of us are under the impression that quarantining is the way to go. I do not and feel and think that quarantining is the worst thing for this hobby and feel it is the reason for so many disease threads. But don't stop quarantining as there is a lot more to it than that. That is why I wrote a book, because of so much old thinking I don't need the arguments. But there is a better way.

We can't help family sickness and I realize many of us leave because of that. That may happen in my life soon as my wife has MS. But as long as I can keep my tank, I will. I have many hobbies but fish allows me to do something in this hobby any time of the day and I can do things for free or spend a lot of money on it. Right now my algae screen is overflowing with algae and needs cleaning. I can do it now, or next week. It doesn't matter.

My tank is certainly "not" the nicest tank on here but that was never my goal. I started a salt tank before there were any salt tanks and it is just for my pleasure. I try to make it nice looking but my main focus is it's health and my curiosity. I try different sometimes radical things and if it works, it works. My lights just came on, on my brand new DIY water cooled LED fixture. It is working very well and that excites me. Inventing things is my main excitement, besides Supermodels of course.

[brad908]

The #1 reason is definitely failure, by a long shot. Then "life" as #2.

 

Luckily I haven't experienced #1 and #2 hasn't been much of a factor. I've lived in three different houses in the last 2 years, including one cross country move, but I enjoy having a tank and I usually keep them pretty low maintenance, so I don't feel like the tank is a "job"

[paul b]

I think many people are going about this the wrong way. We always read about "Battling" hair algae, "battling, ich, " Battling" nitrates, "battling" high temperatures etc. I don't know why any of us is battling anything. Why would you do that? It is a hobby and supposed to be fun. I never battle anything because after quite a stint at this, I have learned that those things are natural occurrences and there is no need to Battle anything. Hair algae is a normal, natural part of any reef and if you never see any, there is something wrong. It is all over any healthy reef in any sea. You may not see it because it is all packed away inside urchins, tangs, chitins, snails and slugs. It grows every day and it grows very fast, if it didn't, what do you think those creatures are eating? If you see a little algae, be happy. If it were not for algae, your parents would have never been born, and chances are, if your parents weren't born, neither would you. I have also learned that algae is stupid. It can easily be trained to grow where we want it, or at least where we can't see it. Algae is also healthy. It is much healthier to lower nutrients using algae then those silly bio pellets. You can change water if you like. That will do nothing to eliminate algae but if it makes you feel better, go ahead and do it. Ich, and other parasites are another foolish thing to battle. Parasites have been here longer than out fish and fish can get along very nicely living peacefully right alongside parasites. I actually like parasites and realize they are normal. We call them pests but I am sure they also call us pests. They just want to live their life in peace and maybe just text their friends occasionally. Our fish have an immunity to parasites if we just let them use their immunity. I have written extensively on this and don't want to go over it again because of the arguments and the name calling, mostly about me. But my fish are not dying from parasites and have not in decades and yours should not be bothered by them either. I am called lucky because of that. There are no Supermodels knocking at my door so I am not that lucky. I have just learned a few things on my own and not just re-hashed old theories that the internet spawned. Or maybe it was Brian Williams. So before you battle anything, think about it and enjoy this stuff.

Edited January 13, 2016 by paul b

[dread240]

I'm going to be selling alot but only because of a big upgrade. Some of us do stick with it, I'm 9 years into it now

[Joshwaggs]

Paul,

 

I agree with your assessment of the parasite situation in reef tanks. I don't bother "battling" it, either. If I introduce a new fish or I do something else that stresses my fish, I can safely presume that they will get a small outbreak of Ich. It has never been a big deal. It goes away on its own; but if it gets worse than I expect, the most I will do is add some selcon and garlic to their food, for a little boost.

I have been in the hobby for a whooping 1 year. In that year I have learned that you can accept Darwinism, or you can spend money to postpone it; but Darwin will win. I think this hobby's industry is the biggest problem in that regard. All the videos and googles say, in order to keep a healthy reef tank you NEED this and you NEED that; but who is posting those videos and googles? (Hint: the people selling stuff: BRS, Saltwater Smarts, Two Little Fishies, etc) Not to mention, all those "needs" are simply overpriced things that are often developed for other hobbies and/or industry(s), repackaged and renamed, and then sold for 5 times what they normally cost (i.e. $20 PH/kH buffer aka: $2 baking soda). The kicker to the price thing is: there are people on other forums that defend those prices and reject any semblance of common sense; because by buying those over priced things, you are helping the hobby, which is false.   

 

Then you have the type of people who think that they are all knowing and are happy to bestow some of their knowledge and/or opinion (those words are interchangeable in this hobby). A good example of that type of person is seen in the "Tang Police." The ones that know how the fish feel and how it/they will die if you keep them in a tank smaller than the ocean.

 

As someone new to all of this (prices, other hobbyists, equipment, etc.), it is very intimidating. 

      
When It comes to getting out of the hobby, I think it really just comes down to time, motivation, funds and the season. During the summer, many of us don't spend as much time looking at our tanks or working on them. So, if something happens with the tank, some aren't as enthusiastic about getting it back up. During the winter, it is the opposite.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Joshwaggs

[paul b]

Josh, thanks for responding.