Is reef keeping just madness?

[Forty-Two]

Here is why i do this

Thats exactly what Im hoping to get to (and a good part of my motivation as well)

 

[Gup]

I don't necessarily agree. It has levels of difficulty, and the "madness" component comes into play usually when someone has bitten off more than they can chew. After several reefs, I can say for certain that I am not the type that's ever going to have a 350g SPS/Acro tank with $5k collector fish. I don't have the patience for the coral, and the risk of incidents leading to fish mortality and/or requiring the tank to be shut down/reset is too great to justify the cost. Plus, I'm very content with relatively easy to care for corals and fairly common, hardy fish with interesting behavior traits.

I think there may be less margin for error in reefing (especially with SPS), but I have a hard time calling it "harder" than any other pet-related hobby. My father raised and trained pointers and retrievers. The level of commitment required to be successful easily rivaled that of reef keeping. Losing fish and coral is hard, but losing dogs was harder even if it happened far more infrequently. My fiancee comes from a family of equestrians which is infinitely more expensive, requires insane commitment (either hire staff, or spend multiple hours per day in the barn), and comes with a seemingly endless list of hurdles. Horses are incredible animals, but extremely fragile in so many ways and they can turn from healthy to near-death pretty quickly. If you're truly passionate about any of these, though, it's worth the effort and even the losses.


Again, I think a lot of this comes with biting off more than one can chew. Knowing what you're able to invest in terms of time and money is essential to having success in any hobby. I'd love to have a giant SPS tank. But I don't have the time to commit to making it happen and I'm unwilling to hire anyone to help. So it's not happening. I love reefing, but I also love traveling and spending time away from home. I build my reefs accordingly to allow me to be hands-off for a period of time. My livestock is all hardy and relatively low maintenance, and the tanks are equipped to be self-sustaining for up to a week or two. I build smaller tanks which are a lot less expensive to stock and run. I've run into issues in reefing, but the margin of error in my systems has generally allowed me to bounce back.

I think the person who would find cichlids as stimulating as reefing should never have been in the hobby to begin with. For many of us, the fish are only a piece of the whole. I love my fish (and cichlids are fun - I had some in my first ever tank), but most of us reefers press our noses to the glass and look for the tiny little things happening with the coral, in the rocks, in the sand bed, etc. Freshwater is no substitute for that.



It sounds almost like this is a reactionary response. I don't disagree that it's frustrating to deal with this stuff, but it comes with the territory and should be expected by anyone looking to get into reefing. It's like buying a horse thinking that it's all going to be sunset rides along the beach when the reality is that the vast majority of time is going to be spent feeding, grooming, cleaning stalls, paying vet bills, farrier fees, buying food, hay, shavings, dealing with colic, laminitis, allergies, worms, or just having a horse that's easily spooked. Not to mention, it's prohibitively expensive to most. But like reefing, there's a dedicated subset of people who knew all this getting into the hobby and did it anyway (and actually enjoy some of the dirtier work). Whether it's reefing or equestrian (or something else), you could call the people who know the risks but partake anyway "mad." But I'm more surprised at the people who in 2021 have access to a library of instant information at their finger tips and still manage to be surprised at how expensive, time consuming, and sometimes frustrating this hobby can be.

I agree with you on so many levels about, well any particular hobby.

It's the particulars about your commitment, say if you just dabble in SWF or a total Reefing commitment. It stands to reason you just began with FWF, then advancing into the world of aquarium keeping.

The deeper you are involved, the more commitment needed and naturally the more expense. And then the hobbyist will find more reward, should expect bigger challenges and at times , levels of defeat

 

[Cell]

It can be madness. Or it can be super simple. Some easy corals and fish in a nano tank can be maintained with just a small weekly water change and little else.

 

[Forty-Two]

Ya…there might be a *slight* perfectionist complex in the reefing community

 

[GeoSquid]

It's just a fish tank - ha. i've been keeping them since the 70's. One of my dogs has cost me over $1000 in the past year with skin cancer tumors. My 180 gallon tank isn't even close to that in upkeep and adding corals etc.

 

[ninjamyst]

Water, salt, oxygen and you have a reef. It's not rocket science. Anything extra is fluff because every hobby needs fluff. Reefing is as simple or as complicated as you make it.

 

[MnFish1]

I have been thinking about this a lot recently and if you really think about it, reef keeping is just plain madness. It is an extremely difficult hobby in fact harder than any other pet-related hobby by a wide margin. I know there are different levels of reef keeping with softies being the easiest then LPS and SPS with Acropora dominant tanks being the hardest by far. But the reality is if you are not a highly intelligent, highly conscientious, and diligent person you'll really struggle.

I guess I disagree, Reefing is not plain madness, nor is it 'extremely difficult' IMHO.
IMHO - its people who make reefing difficult (for themselves). My GUESS is some of the most successful reefers are the ones that try to make it as easy on themselves as possible, don't buy every new piece of equipment, or try every new gadget or method of algae control. if there is a problem they don't panic and jump for 8 chemicals to chase a problem.

IMHO - reefing can be as easy or as difficult as the aquarist wants to make it

 

[DaneGer21]

Average person looking at my tank, is it Madness?…No

Average person looking at my sump/fish room, is it Madness?…Yes

Haha!

 

[fish farmer]

It's just a fish tank - ha. i've been keeping them since the 70's. One of my dogs has cost me over $1000 in the past year with skin cancer tumors. My 180 gallon tank isn't even close to that in upkeep and adding corals etc.

I spent over $1000 on a cat last year and they couldn't get all the tumor...his nickname is Lumpy.

 

[Doctorgori]

Not even close. I really dislike the way people throw that word around. An obsession, sure, but not an addiction.

true, esp. if addiction(s) have impacted loved ones et.
the edit was to repurpose a poor excuse for a drug joke… a parody of the below