Thinking seriously about

[Jarrod]

Getting out of the aquarium hobby.

I've got a LOT of money and time invested and am tiring of the work.

I still love to watch them swimming in the tanks but am getting tired of the work involved.

Call me old lol cause I am, I told my wife next time i find a hobby that requires this much work and money to keep it going to slap the hell out of me!

I still love the fish but just not the work it entails to make things right.

I still do my water changes and such, just am tired of it.

And t think at one time i wanted to be a breeder of fish, no more though I guess I'm entitled to change my mind.

George

[brewmaster15]

George,
You can sell the fish and tanks...have less work and more time on your hands... take a break for a year, 2, or more... in the end...you'll be back... once its in your blood...thats it....:)

maybe what you need to do is see if you can simplify things...maybe automate some of the tasks..

I'd hate to see you get out... but thinking about it is something most of us do from time to time....

If I added up the cost, time, energy and headaches this "hobby" costs me. and forgot to account for what I enjoy about it...... I'd have left long ago.....

Hope you find your answers.

-al

[billeagan]

George,

Just sent you an email - hope it helps.
Bill

[Kenny's Discus]

George, I'm sry to hear about this but we'll respect your decision. I understand how frustrating it can be sometimes...I hope you and Linda have been doing well. I will get in touch with you soon my friend.

Kenny

[alpine]

George, hobbies are kind of funny. I have many. One of them is very peculiar because of the cost ..
Four years ago I wanted to learn classical guitar , so I had a guitar made for me by a well known luthier , went and hire good teachers and really enjoyed trying to play the guitar. I left one of my other hobbies I had for years and made fun of it. It was model helicopters . You spend a great deal of time and Money putting them together then go to the flying field , enjoy flying them , spend more money modifying it , fly it and then maybe one day the thing falls out of the sky , out of control, burns to a crisp , you loose maybe $5000.00 , $6000.00 or more dollars . You swear you never are doing that again, three years later you find yourself building the latest and newest model helicopter in the market : ) ...
When I had the guitar I am saying to myself , I play this beautiful guitar , it accumulates value, it does not self destroy , I do not loose a penny..etc ..etc I said to myself how stupid I was being in a hobby(m.helicopters) where so much was at stake everyday you enjoyed it .
Well, nowdays , I have my helicopters again, I found out I am not gifted with guitar (I still love it ).

I do not know how this ties in with your feelings about leaving the discus hobby at this time but I think there is some kind of similarity to the experience.
I have always said to myself in this hoby of discus keeping , I do not know where all this is leading to, do not know how long I am going to be doing this , I might just close shop and sell everything but it is sure enjoyable ....
For what I know about you through the forums you have been commited to this hobby long enough and is kind of hard to think you will leave it altogether...

Roberto.

[Jarrod]

Thank you all!

I still haven't made up my mind yet on this, still giving it serious consideration tho.

And Kenny, you my friend I would miss deeply along with everyone else here.

As I've said interests in hobbies change and as well as times do.

At one point I will admit, I wished to be a breeder of quality fish based on my purchases of stock, Now this has changed I fear, as I told my wife lol, the "next time I favor a hobby" of live critters then PLEASE, slap the hell out of me!".

I have no hope of recouping what I've spent on tanks and stock and such, so IF I decide to "bite the bulllet" and get out of the hobby I will accept my lossses and just "chalk" it up so to speak.

George

[AmberC]

I dont blame you. My tank is still empty aside from a bunch of tetras lol. (Well.. I have the salt tank and the pond still which have a bit in them, but the 125 is empty.)

I am still happy I made the decision I did. I'm not stressing myself on tanks anymore. Which is a good thing considering everything else I've got on my plate. The pregnancy is causing me a lot of migranes and the sciatica is much worse with the pregnancy too, which makes water changes a pain. (Literally.)

Amber

[Harriett]

When it gets to the point where you feel exhausted by the prospect of doing all the maintenance chores, it's time to make a change. Some months ago I was feeling this way also--it was all just too much to cover: the number of tanks to do, the amt. of water to change, the time involved in doing the maintenance....I was starting to NOT have fun. I think what clinched it for me was setting up a basically NO WORK African cichlid tank and reflecting on the giant amount of difference in taking care of the Africans vs. discus. I decided to thin out the discus collection and number of discus tanks and see how that felt. I sold off 30% of the discus and shut down one of the 75g tanks. I changed some things in my water change plumbing set up so that the water changes are faster to do; I experimented with changing the number of water changes weekly and cut out one change without any ill effects--now I am doing 3 x week changes in the 3 75-80g BBs and staying with one big change in the planted 180.. Now it feels managable again. I offer this as a possibility, not knowing anything about your set up.....all I really know is that if you aren't having fun, make a new decision about where to go now! I think for folks who have been doing this for a while, we have all been through what you are talking about. Just do what works for you and be at peace about it.
Good luck,
Harriett

[CliffsDiscus]

George,
Have an aquarium service manage your tanks.

Cliff

[GrillMaster]

George...

I can sum all your transgressions and indecisions up in one word. ;) :D



Automate. :D :D :D

tc
Mark

[bikhu]

George,
I am right there with you my friend... I am really not too sure how much longer I will be in the hobby either... I love the fish but I notice that besides husbandry, there has been a general trend to the commodification of the fish for me. I have spent so much energy wanting this strain or that. I see someone's pictures and decide that is what I need to get next and it is a never ending hunger for me. I know i need to at very least, simplify and very likely get out all together. To be honest, I simply don't get the same joy out of it that I used to. I guess for me... sometimes I just need to know when to say goodbye. Maybe for me, today is when....
I know it is a difficult and somewhat agonizing decision... good luck with yours and I will keep working on mine....
peter

[pcsb23]

Hi George,

Long time since we last "spoke" my friend. I'm really happy to see you are still around, but a little ashamed I haven't contacted you before now!

I am so sorry that you feel you need to get out of the hobby. And yet I think I can understand your position.

We often try and achieve absolute perfection,or our understanding of it, for our fish. Sometimes we forget the main reason we keep them. They are not, or should not be, a punishment! They are not meant to be a chore. If that is all they have become then you are making the right decision.

So, do we need to do the daily w/c's of 75% or more? do we need the umpteen million tanks that somehow we seem to have collected? Nah, of course not with some common sense and experience applied!!

By now I would have thought that most of your fish are near full grown. So feeding frequency and amounts can (and should) be scaled down some. Even once a day is fine for adults. Given that you have around 5 or 6 fish in most tanks, at least as far as I remember :o, then with adults twice weekly w/c's of 50% is a reasonable maintenenace schedule. Discus are a whole lot tougher than we like to think. Trick here is to initially monitor the nitrates, if they stay below 20ppm or so then you're good to go. Much higher than this and my experiences tell me they will sooner or later suffer.

I know I have always told you I wanted your sunshines, and I still do, but I'd rather have their offspring if its all the same to you.

I have some wilds in a 100US gallon tank that I have been doing twice weekly w/c's on, recently because of certain issues I have reduced this to weekly changes. Wilds are generally a little more susceptible to water quality, so far though so good. Feeding is of course apprtopriate, these are adukts and growth is no longer the main objective.

Light stocking, light feeding equals less maintenance and more enjoyment imo.

Speak soon my friend.