what keeps you going?

[SmallFry]

Originally Posted by Coralgurl

Standing on the ledge debating shutting down. Sat in front of my tank for an hour writing a sale thread and cried the entire time. There's nothing wrong with my tank other than lack of maintenance. Cyano bloom went away when I stopped feeding pellets, corals are growing (my rbta is at least a foot wide at its base, then another 6-8 in with it's tentacles flowing).

So overwhelmed with so many things and pulled in every direction. This should be a source of stress relief, instead its just one more thing to find time to deal with. I'm whining, I know, and I know there's been good responses in this thread already. I know an option is sell off live stock and restart down the road. I just need to vent.

In the glacial-paced build of my tank I've had a fair few misadventures, and they can be soul destroying. There are times like many others I've really wanted to throw in the towel - at one point I couldn't get GSP to grow..
After I had an attack of random in-tank deaths (particularly new additions), I stopped adding things and I'm now back to the old guard of livestock that seem pretty much invincible. I'm finding that if I don't push the envelope the maintenance isn't too bad - water changes and adding some baking soda is about it apart from feeding the fish and rounding up the frags the urchin 'relocates'.
Most of the stuff in my tank is pretty mundane, but I'm finding that watching mundane grow is very satisfying..I have simplified not by automating things, but by reducing the number of things I have to do..
I guess what I'm saying is I've learned there are some awesome tanks you see on here and they can be truly inspiring, but I have to temper that with an acceptance that I don't have the time, and something simpler that I don't spend all the time worrying about is actually relaxing, instead of being a millstone around my neck.

Try to relax a bit (easy to say I know) - the less you worry about the maintenance the less of a chore it seems...

And if you start to feel bad, just take a look at my build thread and see how damned long it's taken me to get to the pitiful stage I'm at!