The Lows of Reefing, How It Effects Your Life & How to SNAP Out of it!

[revhtree]

In life we have highs and we have lows. The same goes for keeping a saltwater reef tank. How we approach these down times and deal with them can effect us positively or even more negatively.

We've all been there. You walk up to your tank and you see it! A stark white SPS colony! NOOOOOOO!

Maybe it's a huge beautiful zoanthid colony that you've been growing for two years that's closed up and fading away! ACCCKKK!

Maybe you see one of your favorite (expensive) fish lying dried up on the floor! The agony!!

No matter what "bad" thing it is sometimes these events can really effect not only your hobby but your everyday life! So let's talk about it today.


1. What are the events or losses that cause you to get "down" about keeping a reef tank?

2. How does "getting down" in the hobby effect your normal everyday life?

3. How do you snap out of the funk? What are some things that help you regain that reefing high?


RTN Sps image via @gig 'em

Got this idea for the question of the day from @Pennywise the Clown! Thank you!

 

[MombasaLionfish]

1. What are the events or losses that cause you to get "down" about keeping a reef tank?Losing a fish or coral.

2. How does "getting down" in the hobby effect your normal everyday life?I am usually grumpy when that happens.
3. How do you snap out of the funk? What are some things that help you regain that reefing high? Look at the good things in my tank and try to fix the problem.

 

[Tiger Brown]

Well, the obvious occurrences that you mentioned are a sure-fire way of getting a good reefer down, i.e.- losing livestock. What I see most, though, on this forum and others that really bother reefers is the issues that occur trying to control water parameters.

How many have been driven from the hobby due to diatoms, hair algae, cyano that just will not go away despite myriad hours spent cleaning, researching, and making changes? A fish loss can be devastating, but you mourn the loss, flush, bury, or toss the carcass, and you move on. Looking into an ugly tank full of vile slime that defies your every attempt at eradication is beyond frustrating, it is hair-pull maddening.

To snap out of that funk you have to fix it. You fix it with time, patience, work, and great advice from great hobbyists right here at R2R. I'm a recovering cyano victim, and this was the best place I found anywhere online for help and sage advice. It also helps tremendously to know that whatever problem you encounter, someone that uses this forum has had the same exact problem and fixed it, AND, is willing to help you do the same.

 

[Pennywise the Clown]

The successes and failures of my reef tank definitely affect my everyday life.
I battled dinos for months, it was stressful and even my wife could tell that it was getting on top of me. When the last patch of them disappeared it felt like christmas had come early.
If my clownfish pair ever decide to live in my BTA, I might actually explode with happiness.
Equally, when things go well, I am on cloud 9.
At the moment I am trying to find a balance that a mixed reef brings. How to keep acros and hammer corals happy at the safe time. It is a challenge I'm not winning at the moment and I'm distracted in my everyday life, trying to work things out.

Thanks Rev for picking my question, I hope everyone enjoys the discussion.

 

[BradB]

You mean, does coming home after a hard day to unexpected gallons of water on the floor and the stench from hundreds of dollars of dead animals I was emotionally attached to, then staying up working on plumbing until 3am and setting my alarm to make a hardware store run as soon as they open, affect my performance at work the next day?

Bad things happen rarely and take a huge amounts of time along with a physical and emotional toll. But good things happen almost every day, and that also effects my life. Overall, reef keeping is a net positive.

 

[Reefs and Geeks]

1. What are the events or losses that cause you to get "down" about keeping a reef tank?

RTN on a colony, dinos or other algae making a comeback after seemingly being beat, Broken equipment that adds unexpected costs.

2. How does "getting down" in the hobby effect your normal everyday life?

Reefing is just about my only hobby. When I'm not working or playing with/taking care of my son I'm usually scrolling through R2R, tinkering with my tank, looking at coral pics...etc. When I'm down about the hobby, it takes alot of the fun out of all of my reefing activities and in a way fills my downtime with sadness.

3. How do you snap out of the funk? What are some things that help you regain that reefing high?

I have always found that giving my tank a good deep scrub of the rocks and glass, and getting the built up algae around the corners, cleaning the power heads, wiping down the stand and in general making the tank look nice usually gives me a nice mood boost. I also recently finally decided to mount a bunch of frags to my rock that I've just had on a frag rack because I couldn't decide where to put them. Surprisingly gave me a nice boost and made my tank look a good bit better IMO. Once in a blue moon, I will buy that colorful named frag, or get the nicer piece of equipment that's always been on my wishlist which always boosts my reefing mood. Sometimes I just have to switch things up a bit to revitalize my interest in the hobby.

 

[boostedbeast]

I may get a lil upset if i start losing corals/fish, but i refuse to let something as trivial as a hobby get me down. Always remember its just a aquarium. It can always be replaced.

 

[William Norman]

I tend to internalize failures in my tank. Even if it is small I get very focused on figuring out why it happened and how can I keep it from happening again. Some things I know that are function of my restrictions. Such as while I am waiting to upgrade my 55 to the 120 there are things that I dont want to address because they will go away once I move everything up to the 120. It is just like life. You need to focus on the good and not the bad or failures.

 

[Mhart032]

My thoughts on this are as followed. This is a hobby and supposed to be enjoyable as most hobby's should be, things happen and yes most the times the root causes of things happening are our fault weather it be bad advise we took, or not having the correct tools for the job and or equipment for what we want to keep. I believe your only going to get out of it what you put in, i am also a classic car enthusiast (have been for over 20 years) and have several cars ive restored that taught me this lesson. am i the best reefer and keep the best reef.. Absolutely not by any means.. i mean not even a little bit, im lazy and life gets in the way so i expect things to show that in my practice as a reefer. so if i lose 300 bucks worth of acro frags well thats my fault i should have watched the nitrates or phosphates or sometimes lack of them both and or salinity or the signs of the failures. now tech has come a long way in helping us with this, but its the same, your apex says your salinity is rising and you chose not to do anything about it whos to blame?... that being said to let a hobby frustrate you enough to effect your everyday life in a negative i dont think should happen. we have to remember this is just that a hobby for most of us and should be looked at in that aspect and should be enjoyed in that light.

 

[Mical]

I've had a few of "those moments" - velvet killing all fish, return hose break (still a mystery) and the dreaded Apex anomalies. But those moments are getting fewer and farther between as the tanks have matured. On the other side of the coin, the benefits of having my tanks outweigh the nuances that occasionally happen. They keep me Zen.

And probably one of the biggest things we as reefers have to remember is the equipment we use is running 24/7/365 and that's pretty rough on ANYTHING exposed to a salt water environment.

 

[ACF930]

I just had the worst month ever in reefing with back-to-back issues. Long story short, I went ahead and dosed Dino-X (as a last desperate resort to a 5 months Dino battle even when my gut said not to). Over the month, I lost 4 high end torches, 3 nice hammers, and few large acro colonies. After a big water change, a heater exploded in my sump, shattering its glass, dumping water all over my kitchen, and causing 2 tanks to sit in idle water for almost 20 hours as I scrambled to re-build a temp sump (lost some more stuff in that crash).

I'm finally getting things stabilized but lost thousands in coral in a month. It has made me obsessed and not focused on other life things. Wife said I should just upgrade to one big nicer tank (instead of managing 2). That cheered me up a little LOL.

 

[Flippers4pups]

An Essay: The Psychology of Reefing

An essay on the psychology of keeping a reef tank.

www.reef2reef.com

Don't let bad things in the hobby get you down! Talk it out here on Reef2reef!

 

[Salty Lemon]

I put down "no" because I'm not too worried over a sickly coral, but if I had my tank wiped out due to disease or something else, I would be depressed. So I guess my answer would be "It all depends".

 

[Jon Fishman]

 

[Steve_Skullsplitter0]

I got depressed when my trachy ate my anthias. Stayed in my fish room all day.

 

[User1]

Talk it out here on Reef2reef!

Lol. On my initial pass on this post I thought you said TAKE it out on Reef2Reef. Then I said no, that isn't Flipps saying that. Went back and read and saw I was a goof and misread

 

[BuBBly FiSh]

In life we have highs and we have lows. The same goes for keeping a saltwater reef tank. How we approach these down times and deal with them can effect us positively or even more negatively.

We've all been there. You walk up to your tank and you see it! A stark white SPS colony! NOOOOOOO!

Maybe it's a huge beautiful zoanthid colony that you've been growing for two years that's closed up and fading away! ACCCKKK!

Maybe you see one of your favorite (expensive) fish lying dried up on the floor! The agony!!

No matter what "bad" thing it is sometimes these events can really effect not only your hobby but your everyday life! So let's talk about it today.


1. What are the events or losses that cause you to get "down" about keeping a reef tank?

2. How does "getting down" in the hobby effect your normal everyday life?

3. How do you snap out of the funk? What are some things that help you regain that reefing high?


RTN Sps image via @gig 'em

Got this idea for the question of the day from @Pennywise the Clown! Thank you!

When my water parameters are off even after a water change it ruins my day/ week until back to normal.
It bothers me so much that it is all I can think about and most of the time makes me unbearable to be around.
When I get the water quality back to where it needs to be I get back to normal. If I had a controller to alert me when things are a bit off or about to go wrong I could one again regain my reefing high.

 

[Jon Fishman]

When my water parameters are off even after a water change it ruins my day/ week until back to normal.
It bothers me so much that it is all I can think about and most of the time makes me unbearable to be around.
When I get the water quality back to where it needs to be I get back to normal. If I had a controller to alert me when things are a bit off or about to go wrong I could one again regain my reefing high.

Stop testing. It’s liberating

 

[AndCoy]

I havnt been in the hobby long, but so far I kinna feel like it’s the opposite. When everything is going good, and I don’t have a lot of things come up that take time away from my tank, everything is good! But when I have time constraints on me and have a hard time finding the time for my tank is when bad things happen.

 

[MARK M. DAVIS]

1. What are the events or losses that cause you to get "down" about keeping a reef tank?Losing a fish or coral.

A: Down like in a. Sump breach b. Calcium Reactor pump leaking and pump seizure c. RODI leaking on floor d. Faulty equipment e. Chiller pump failure so water getting too hot f. RTN SPS due to redbugs g. Alk swing due to clogged tubing. All this stuff and more is expected in this hobby. The hobby is full of challenges and expenses. I don't get too down since, these issues are all part of the hobby.

2. How does "getting down" in the hobby effect your normal everyday life?I am usually grumpy when that happens.

A: I do a little worrying and thinking about all the what if's on repair, procurement, interim and irreversible corrective actions. Then I just grind it out and repair the issues.

3. How do you snap out of the funk? What are some things that help you regain that reefing high? Look at the good things in my tank and try to fix the problem.

A: I purchase things like an APEX so I can resolve issues before they become catastrophic. Fix before DEATH!!!!
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