It’s been a while

[billyocean]

Bruh...you just gotta make it happen. The time this post has taken to create and respond to could have been spent on the tank. Not being mean...just motivating with real advice. There's never a time where I "feel like" working on the tank. Just bust out the work and you'll feel better about it.

 

[RobynR]

I need help
It’s been probably over 6 months that I’ve actually posted or been on here, it’s been nearly 6 months since I’ve done a water change, and nearly 6 months since I lost all motivation. I have adhd, so losing motivation on something makes complete sense, but losing motivation and watching your favorite coral die, watching your tank whither away shouldn’t be part of that. I’ve lost my favorite acro, my torch is nearly dead, my gonis, I have no idea where my shrooms are, I lost my favorite Duncan. And I lost that feeling of pride. There is algae everywhere, it’s not clean. And I’m not happy at myself. Everyday I start off the day saying, “today will be the day!” And it wasn’t the day. I go to bed saying “tomorrow will the day!” And turns out it wasn’t the day. I feel horrible since I got a free tank last summer, I came back from junior olympics the past February, saying only a couple more weeks and it’s finally being setup fully(meaning corals and everything are being moved), and it’s just in my room half empty. It breaks me to see my tank like this, to see a gift from somebody like this. I don’t know what to do. If anybody can help me that would be amazing. If you have anything nasty to say, don’t say it.
Thanks for listening and hope you have a nice day!!
I’m nearly tearing writing this, that’s how bad I feel

That doesn’t sound fun. I was in a similar situation recently. Let tank go for awhile had a crash and didn’t have motivation to start it over at that time from algae and aptasia. Was moving and said I’m not giving it up put too much into it so tried again with a new tank and a month I’m going great, added some new coral this week and off to a great start. Sometimes you just gotta restart and try something else to get out what you want

I love the way my tank looks, it’s not really that. It’s literally finding the movitcatikn to do anything reefing related, I sometimes completely forget to feed my tank, that’s how bad it gets

I don’t have ADHD, but almost every single person in my family/life does, so I’m used to it and working with people and their processes. My biggest preach is time management and diarizing tasks - which I do for myself. I have all the things I should be doing each day in my calendar with reminders. If I don’t get to ALL the things, I’m not mad about it, I just move it to the next day.

With tank maintenance, there can be lack of motivation, especially when I have to work late every single day, or would rather be outside with friends.

I’ve tried to designate small tasks for each day, Thursday is testing, Monday is fill up ATO reservoir, Friday is make water, Saturday early am is water change (I only do one tank per week/two to lessen the workload), Sunday is filer socks and skimmer cleaning, etc. that way it’s pieced up so there isn’t a giant wall of maintenance one day every week.

I just lost two fish to powerhead accidents while in quarantine, so I’m feeling really stupid, sad, and frustrated right now. It definitely hits the motivation when things are not running as smoothly as you envision or hope for.

I am an advocate for making your tank and maintenance a level that fits your lifestyle, this means if you are extremely busy you would be better off keeping easy, basic fish/coral and designing your maintenance plan accordingly. Baby steps. If all is going well, then you can swap things out over time.

And as someone suggested above, maybe now is not the time. If you can’t get joy from it and it’s a constant source of stress and anxiety, step back and take a break. Hobbies should be both challenging and satisfying. :)

 

[KrisReef]

Thing is, idk if I’m dorming or not, and the plan was to gift the tank to my parents, which is what my mom wants, and if I’m tearing it down, I’m not giving everything away, it’s gonna be sold :(

I would give mom the tank as a gift today, and spend the summer with her teaching her how to manage a reef. She would love the attention, and you can have memories of a life time from the efforts.

I suspect that you are struggling with “growing up” and figuring out what you’re going to do with your life. I remember being in your shoes, and I went to school, met a ***** what gave me a daughter, (who she threatened to abort) or we could get married.

4 years later she left me, and 6 years later the divorce was finalized. Man , you’re going to be having fun in school, learn from my mistakes, find your way, take a lot of entry classes(enology, etc!) and make the most of your opportunities.

I feel better now that we have written….

 

[stE26wy14]

Thing is, idk if I’m dorming or not, and the plan was to gift the tank to my parents, which is what my mom wants, and if I’m tearing it down, I’m not giving everything away, it’s gonna be sold :(

I would give mom the tank as a gift today, and spend the summer with her teaching her how to manage a reef. She would love the attention, and you can have memories of a life time from the efforts.

I suspect that you are struggling with “growing up” and figuring out what you’re going to do with your life. I remember being in your shoes, and I went to school, met a ***** what gave me a daughter, (who she threatened to abort) or we could get married.

4 years later she left me, and 6 years later the divorce was finalized. Man , you’re going to be having fun in school, learn from my mistakes, find your way, take a lot of entry classes(enology, etc!) and make the most of your opportunities.

I feel better now that we have written….

I’m so sorry about that man! Must be rough, if you ever need anything, I and this whole community is here for you :), I already figured everything out, aerospace or mechanical, and then probably airforce , I want to fly jets :), then work at nasa! Or work at rolls Royce or general dynamics and build jet engines!

 

[-XENOMORPH-]

Call a local fish store and donate it all tomorrow . After you get yourself sorted, maybe then try again later. You first….
. Fish second. Good luck

 

[Red_Beard]

I’m so sorry about that man! Must be rough, if you ever need anything, I and this whole community is here for you :), I already figured everything out, aerospace or mechanical, and then probably airforce , I want to fly jets :), then work at nasa! Or work at rolls Royce or general dynamics and build jet engines!

I have a cousin that is a turbine engineer for rolls royce, it is a neat place to work.

For any and all of those, you will need some serious discipline! Being able to make yourself stay on task even when you don't want to is going to be crucial for any of those positions. Maybe the tank is there to provide you an opportunity to practice up! ;)

 

[Jimbo327]

Best way is to actually find other reefers and go check out their tanks. If you have a live in-person local reef club, go join them and just participate. It's amazing what a human connection can do for your mental health. Once you do that, little by little, the motivation will come back.

Or you can just pack it up and keep it in storage, or just sell it. Going to college most likely would mean you will need to break down. So perhaps set it up afterwards. The hobby will always be here. Many people have taken a 5+ years break and come back strong.