How do you cope being burnt out, if ever ?

[Kooma]

After being some what lost and burnt out from reefing, I took a year off and stripped everything down and thought that I would never give it another go again. Yet, here I am, coming back after a long hiatus, restarting everything from scratch again.

I guess this hobby has a way of tempting you back in. Previously, I was pretty hellbent on " chasing numbers" or perfection, rather. Every single measurement not going my way, I would be pretty annoyed and were very stern on "correcting" the parameters and overreact on every little minor changes and taking drastic actions which then resulted in always worsening the scenario and eventually, leading into unhappy corals/fishes in my Nano Tank. I burnt out and set myself up for failure from the get go after years.


Started all over again this year! Tank is currently up and running already with a clownfish / some mushrooms / GSP(i know) and a duncan, keeping it mainly super easy and low maintenance as much as possible and only doing 10% water changes weekly to replenish what is lost/consumed. This approach hopefully, will allow me to slowly ease back into this hobby again without worrying too much about the "perfect parameters", this and that but just be consistent with the basics and avoid burning out.

My question is, what do you do when you are feeling burnt out ? How do you cope and what is keeping you going ?

Simplify your journey. Look at your life and commitments, and realistic time when your busy, not when your free.

I just went through this. My son was young and we were home a lot, I had a ton of coral and loved it. Testing nightly, frequent adjustments and even a spreadsheet.

He is older and we are on the go more. I’m tired and by the time everything is cleaned up I’m ready for bed. My new tank is a FOWL with a small frag area in my sump.

Other than feeding nightly, I can walk away from the tank for a week or so without maintenance. I built in a large ATO, added a glass top to reduce evaporation, have everything on controllers for temp and ATO and lighting/pumps, and my skimmer cup get cleaned once or twice a week.

Sometimes less is more if it means enjoying fish vs tearing it down. I’d rather a basic system that’s very little maintenance compared to one that isn’t running or overgrown with algae.

 

[BryanM]