Life after reefing
 

Well its been a few months without a tank, gotta say the adjustment has been weirdly difficult. There are good things and bad, ups and downs. Here are some thoughts...

Firstly, my electricity bill went down 47% a month since the tank is gone. 47%!!! All those years I told my wife it didn't make a big difference I was full of...:) But ya holy moly!

Secondly, its super dry in my place. My wife and daughter both quicky had the skin on their face dry up as I wasn't sending 2.5 gallons of evaporated water in the air. Didn't see that side effect coming...lol

I miss having something to tinker with in the evenings. I always had this thing that would temporarily make me forget about work or life or whatever, gotta find something to replace that, it left a hole for sure.

Maintaining a mixed reef was a challenge and doing it right gave me this sense of accomplishment, that's gone now, sure my life has other things in it but looking at that box of awesomeness every day and seeing everything happy in there really felt good. Flip side, I haven't had a coral die in a long time! lol I do feel better about that, I always had this little internal moral dilemma about keeping these animals in a tank. Small thing but...

I really miss trips to J&L, King Ed Pets, Fish Addicts, ect. Nothing like finding that coral you've been missing or that one fish you've always wanted. Talking to the staff about how your tank is going, all that fun stuff. I drove through Burnaby on Saturday and it really hit me, I have NO reason to ever go to J&L again, I went there regularly for 8 years. Are they worried about me? lol Should I check in and let them know its nothing personal?

I don't have to make water, change water, spill water, test water, dose water, put my arms in water... this is nice, when I get the feeling like I made a mistake taking it down I remember the maintenance I don't worry bout now and it changes my mind.

Is this gone forever? Hard to say, with the rising prices of everything in the hobby it may be. Maybe a nano creeps back into my life someday. maybe FOWRL, maybe a 300 gallon all sps monster tank...guess time will tell...

Oh and the internet, I don't look at fish sites, post on fish boards, shop for coral/equipment. I've had to unsubscribe from a zillion things and seeing reeftanks on instragram makes me low key angry? Its weird, its like you have to go cold turkey, you can't want videos from MrSaltwater Tank anymore...

Anyway, just some thoughts from an ex reefer trying to figure out if he made the right decision. Hope you're all well and still love your tanks.

Your friend, Animal Chin.

after 30 years of keeping a tank I can't say I've ever really considered what it'd be like to not have one so it was an interesting viewpoint.
so long as I'm physically, financially and mentally in good shape I think I'll always have a tank of some type. reef retirement for me will probably just mean downsizing to a 40g nano... I mean where else am I going to go to mindlessly burn hours of my life lol.

You’ll be saying this soon enough...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw-3e_pzqU

Very interesting post - thanks for sharing your thoughts. I won’t mention that electricity bill bit to the husband though. He brought up the higher bill once & I convinced him it was because of our cold winter heh heh.

Three years in and the tank is the first thing I think about when I get up and the last thing I attend to before going to bed. Yes I need help.

lol ya not gonna lie, I have had thoughts like "maybe a nano would be ok"...lol

Ugh.

well on the bright side you can start a new system anytime you want . But I dont think I could go without a system , not to mention I cant get rid of any of my sea pets so as long as they are living I will have a system . the power bill is quit crazy drop though

Hey Gord, I understand.
Many times I have thought of shutting it down, but my wife wants me to keep it running.
I'd like to miss all the maintenance and other required times I could be doing something else.
I'd like to forego the costs but the wife still says keep it running.
If I didn't have it I'd have some free time, but there are many nights as you mentioned that I'd be looking for something else to do.
I'm still on the fence, as I have been for nearly a year now.
Do I keep it running, or sell everything and move on ...
For me, if I shut it down and sell off everything, I'd never come back due to the costs of new hardware.

I don't spend the time staring at the tank that I used to because I don't have enough free time.
This is why I'm debating why do I keep it if I don't actually spend time looking at it?

What really got me was how quiet the house got. Turning off the Barracuda and Dart, plus fans, skimmer, HRV place went silent.

If push comes to shove, I'd shut down all my fw tanks but keep at least one sw tank. Right now I'm at 3 sw & 3 fw plus 3 fw at the school plus the school sw reef tank. So in total, 4 sw & 6 fw.

Cold turkey, I don't think that's going to happen unless I can't financially or physically take care of my aquatic pets anymore.

Anthony

If push came to shove I’m not sure what I would do if I had to choose

I still enjoy this hobby but like every reefer before me we have all had our ups and downs and joys and frustrations it would at this point in my 7 year career into the SW hobby take something very drastic to leave it and then even then I’d still probably be wondering what if I did this....

greg, I hear that, now that I have nothing starting again is just not happening. Just this weekend I thought a 20g with all zoa's and a cool clown pair would be awesome. Factor in tank, lights, filtration, salt, test kits, rock,ect ect its just crazy what a little start up would cost me. I made my bed I guess I'll lie in it...lol

mark, NO KIDDING. Its creapy how quiet the house is. My huge return pump was quiet but not silent, my 6 led light fans, quiet but made noise. When that system got unplugged it took us forever to get used to how quiet it was. The dogs barked every time a pin dropped they were so freaked out....lol