Burned out..what can I do?

[jonny]

I have had nothing but issues with my tank for over a year..without going into huge detail, lets just say I'm incredibly burned out...it's a daily internal struggle on "to tear down, or not to tear down". I know I really don't want to get out of the hobby, but I feel bad hosting livestock thats not doing well in my tank...which is sort of a catch 22; my tank does poorly because I'm burned out, I'm burned out because my tank is doing poorly.

Has anyone gone, or anyone currently going through this? What can I do to help get myself motivated again?

 

[Jimbo662]

I go through this every time I have a coral that looks like it's dieing. I decided to focus on just keeping the tank stable and sticking with corals that I know thrive in my set up. About two months ago I was seriously considering switching back to a planted freshwater tank. I had just recently picked up a couple of acans and noticed how well they liked my tank. I added a few more still with good success so I decided I'd have an acan garden. Now I've got about 20 acans along with a few palys and everything is looking great.

 

[Reef Scene]

We need to know the problems, type of equiptmet and maintenacen that is done.

 

[PostShawn]

I hear a lot of people go through this. Two solutions that I usually see happen.
1, Change some things around. Move rock structure, swap fish, or even go FOWLR for a while. This could even be just fixing whatever needs fixing. Save some money aside, and get some new equipment for whatever is not working. New equipment always cheers people up.
2, Take a break from the hobby for a year. Come back when/if ready.

But only you will know what you want.

 

[olesalty]

i have gone through it. To sum mine up every time i get something straight and all is good couple months later there is something that messes up. I was having bad power surges and we could not pin down the issue. Replaced old fuse box with new all that jazz. Basically over the course of the 4 - 6 months we finally found out a squirrel chewed the neutral and it was making anything with a bunch of draw pull it down a single phase. This fried lights, apex among others. Was at ropes end. Which ment even more neglect. I was basically feeling the pain you are having now. My live stock took a hit and while i did not have a ton of coral. The nice ones i did took a turn for the worst. So i was questing tearing down and selling off equip.
Started working on getting the living room and dining area together with new couch and all that for the little lady. My tank is next to the new dinner table and knowing i was going to be looking at it got me thinking. I know i can get this tank looking like it use to. Did some browsing at the forums at some of the nice tanks and started to get that little bug going. Got power issue fixed and decided to keep it. So far i am about 2 months later from this feeling and have got my tank parameters all in check and few coral left are coloring back up. Still having some issues with a toadstool that i havent seen open up in probably 5 months but i think i am going to cut it out tomorrow and see if it will frag since i see bumps.
I guess it is all up to you i have had friends who have took month long breaks until their bug bites them again. They are constantly rebuilding selling taking breaks then rebuilding again its funny. But hey nice new cheap equip. I wish you luck and hope that bug finds you again.

 

[MioReefer]

Get a new tank and start over (or a used one). Do all your aquascaping in the beginning, draw it out and make it fun! That's how I got motivated again. Choose easier coral to start off then add the harder ones later. Buy corals of different colors and spread them out, this way you'll be overwhelmed with the may colors and trust me, your tank will never be boring again. Don't add fish right away, do everything in phases and enjoy it one phase at a time. Just my two cents! Hope you stay in the hobby. :decision:

 

[Rpujol85]

Hobbies should be fun and source of stress relief.

Take a break, and a look back at what went wrong.

You can always get back in when you're feeling the itch.

 

[jonny]

Thanks for the ideas guys! Glad to know I'm not the only one going through this...i actually did change tanks from a standard 55gal to a 45gal corner because I wanted depth. That got me revved back up....for about a week. During the change over i used about 30 gals of old water and what was left in the 55 I had some corals sitting in while I got the new tank situated. Well...i guess the thermostat for the heater I was using was stuck open. (I have an apex, but it had been moved over to the new tank) and I was inadvertently cooking most of my coral in my old tank. Thanks to this I've lost at least half of my coral to STN, and some others are looking pretty bad even still. On top of this I decided to go bare bottom, and now my rockwork is shifting around which I had worried about in the back of my mind the whole time. On top of this, my skimmer pump is noisy and needs replaced, and my apex is sending false temperature alarms and killing my lights multiple times a day...of course only while I'm at work. I guess it all just seems overwhelming, and the loss of so much coral is a real hit to the wallet as well as to the ego.

I suppose I'm just going to have to buckle down, pull up the big boy pants and tackle things one at a time...

 

[Pete polyp]

I recently went through this. For a few months I didn't dose right etc. I just slacked and let it do whatever it was going to do. I left frags turned over, didn't clean the glass, fed the tank every few days. Heck I rarely even looked in my tank... I went and visited a friend who has a tank and it sparked my interest again. When I arrived home I cleaned off the glass (I can see in the tank again!) And I also brought my chemistry back up to where it should be. I'm sure in a couple weeks the colors of my coral will go back to the intensity it once was.

 

[jonny]

This exactly describes what I'm doing right now haha...i think I may have to finally jump on the LED train thanks to that awesome deal on the RR 165e...

It's like the more things go wrong the less motivated I am to fix them. Another huge issue is the fact that the nearest reefer to me is a good 45 minute drive..and my "LFS" is an hour away.....

 

[willi828]

For me, the best thing to do is eliminate "tools" that increase maintenance. Install a float valve on your ato so you don't have to remember to add water. Remove filters if you don't want to clean them out regularly, just make sure to clean your sump every month or two. Stop messing with stuff. What I mean is don't add anything new, and keep your hands out of the water. Dosers and reactors and all that crap isn't needed with regular water changes (obviously depending on coral livestock). I would still run carbon and gfo if needed. Remove the clutter and make it easier to work on the tank.

 

[currentking]

I think before we can answer this we need more information. How stable are the parameters? how much time do you invest in keeping the tank stable and checking parameters? Do you have enough time to properly care for your tank? are you understanding on what is needed after measuring your parameters? Are you understanding of the parameters each of your coral need? These are questions I ask myself when I see something not doing well.

 

[digitaledge]

Pretty much having everything on a controller made my life allot easier. (Im a tech geek so all this new tech keeps me interested.) All i really have to do is a 5 gallon water change every two weeks on my 25gal AIO, Everything is automated. I test the water once a week and do minor tweaks on my dosing A and B if needed. What I found Its really hard having a variety of different corals in the same tank, some will do awesome some wont. I also get discouraged at times, why are these corals doing awesome these are not. You cant make them all happy IMO, you have to find a happy medium some like certain parms some do not. I think Parms is what it comes down to because you can always move for flow and lighting. Stick to the ones that look good maybe trade the others.

 

[fishroomlady]

I just did a major "deep clean" of my tank after basically neglecting it (similar to pete polyp) - let algae grow, didn't clean the glass, didn't do a water change, left fallen frags alone, etc....I did continue to feed the fish well and turned on the lights but that's about it. When I did the deep clean this past weekend - I cleaned everything (pumps, glass, rocks) and rescaped to give a new look - changed all of my filter media (phosguard, carbon) and did a 15% water change. Also, cleaned out some gunk out of the sump - it was NASTY! well, now that it's all pretty and cleaned, I have a new energy and interest in maintaining it.

I might mention that others have good input in possibly considering a FOWLR or just keeping easier corals. You've obviously been trying sps but that type of coral is really much more demanding in terms of optimal tank conditions so maybe come back to sps at a later time. Softies and lps are much more forgiving.

I think it's totally normal to go through phases like this with our tanks. This hobby does require regular maintenance for optimal conditions but when the weather is nice, there are many more things to do besides cleaning our tanks. Now that the weather is getting cooler, I'll be inside more and the tank will be viewed and appreciated more so I'm more motivated.

 

[alohadood]

How old is your tank...? Are you Interested in biology, or chemistry? Do you dose, run filter socks, do regular water changes?

I've been at marine fish for 22 years now. Do I get sick of my tanks? Nope. Do I get sick of maintenence? Yup! Make water changes as simple as possible. And stop messing around with stuff. Do a simple 10% change a week. And viola.

 

[robert.wyatt.566]

I'm new to the hobby I have a four or five gallon nano cube with a few pieces of live rock and some snails crabs and a clown fish we bought it already set up from the store my problem is I live in a small town I have no exp and I don't know how my tank is doing or if I have the right equipment I know my tank is made by fluval I also have a hard purple substance growing on my rock and and the glass what is it and is it bad

 

[jstec]

I went through a summer burn out myself I try to spend as much time as possible outside fishing and hiking with the dog just recently decided to take my buddies tank off his hands and upgrade my own tank. Hopefully the new reef will be thriving this winter bc if it's anything like our last one I won't be out much. New equipment, Aqua scape, coral and fish have me feeling like a kid in a candy store again.

 

[racin2438]

Use coral epoxy putty on your rocks to help keep in place. Inspect all your equipment for stress wear, replace anything questionable.
Check your test kits dates, .use good Rodi water and salt. ......have patience and you'll get back on track...wish you the best and always count on everyone here on R2R to help you with any help you need..

One of my motto ' s is....sometimes one has to take 2 steps back to go 1 step forward. ....