Leaving hobby???

[marie]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

Danny IMO I Feel that people may be just getting or wanting a change in life. What I could never understand is that people that have 3-5 tanks setups in their house. My self I have a 170 with a 45 gal sump and a 20 refugium and that is lots for me in the hobby....

I can't understand people that only have one tank . More then once I've saved an animals life by having another tank to move it to.

It does get expensive though

[andestang]

Ya I've also noticed some longtimers leaving or downsizing. I've been on this board for sometime and was disappointed to see some leave. As for me I like variety and to try and keep somethings together will usually result in failure/animal lose. So this is why I have more than one tank.

[Delphinus]

Burnout.. pure and simple (and I can say this from my own perspective too). And summer in particular is just a bad time for it IMO.

I've been in the hobby long enough now to see people come and go several times over. It is a bad time in particular with a lot of people walking away, but I think it's just a combination of factors.

And seriously, one of the hardest hits for me this year was Big Al's closing. I had no idea how dependent I had grown on them just "being there" since they were close (I worked about 5 minutes away, so it was so easy to stop in at lunchtime or on the way home from work). With them gone, and the next nearest LFS being Golds, which is a minimum 2 hour commitment for me (drive there, visit and look, drive back), I suddenly find myself not wanting to drive to the others as much either. It's funny, but yeah, Big Al's being close-by, helped me mentally to visit the other LFS's more often.

I am still at a bit of a cross-roads myself. I think I've decided to stay with my current plans but I'm still unsure for how much longer. I've found myself completely burnt out on several things, it's not just the hobby it's just a total overall thing. I sure do think that downsizing to a single tank will help me. I also find myself missing out on some of the things I used to be more involved with, that would take away from the tanks, so by downsizing in the one maybe helps open the doors to get back into those things.

And the costs. The costs of everything just keep going up and up and up. But my income stays the same. It's just making things so tight. Something has to give.

Anyhow just my thoughts. I'm sure other people have different reasons.

[andrewsk]

I also think that is't a combination between money and time.

People need to understand before they get started that this is an expensive hobby. If you want a reasonable large tank, you better get ready to spend a lot of money to get it running and a fair bit of monthly maintenance.

I think my 225 gallon tank and 100 gallon sump will end up costing upwards of $10,000 when I am done and will cost over $250.00 per month for electricity, salt, RO, and suppliments.

Sure you can cut costs here and there, buy used if you have patience, and some of the DIY stuff is great, but that takes even more time to do.

A Salt tank is about $50 per gallon to set up new and about $1 per gallon/per month to maintain.

I had a friend ask me to help him set up a 50 gallon Salt tank the other day. The FIRST thing we did was look at cost. We priced out some new and used equipment and the overall cost was going to stretch his pocket book pretty thin. Add to the fact that he is busy with his job and it was just a recipie for failure. He decided not to get into it.

Once it is setup and running well, it really is worth all of the work and $ to me though.

[Chad]

I'm on the fence these days too. With trying to buy a house etc. I have a 50gal right now, was going to go to a 90gal. I may hold off, or I may sell off.

We will see..

[danny zubot]

All I can say is come winter time, when the long, busy, outdoor days of summer are long gone, all of you who got out today will be incredibly board.

[christyf5]

Hehe haven't you noticed? Thats when they all get back into the hobby

[danny zubot]

Hehe haven't you noticed? Thats when they all get back into the hobby

Where's the logic in those economics?

[Joe Reefer]

For the past 3 years I have felt like shutting down around this time of year. Thank god I give my head a shake and come around.