From r2r - Are we ruining the hobby???

[piznac]

I'm not sure if it is allowed to post a thread from another forum,. if not please delete or direct me to do so, or just respond telling me to.

Being a "reefer" from old,. I found this very thoughtful:

Are we ruining the hobby???

I've been a marine aquarium hobbyist since 1965. Actually, we did quite well back then at keeping all types of fish, inverts, anemones, etc. I had many tanks and worked at Marine World in the Chicago area. Tanks were beautiful, basic, and most fish lived well. Myself and friends had all sorts of...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[piznac]

Thoughts?

 

[bzb]

Meh. Every hobby is like this, and has people like this. I get it, but I don’t agree with it. You get a different perspective when you leave a hobby for a while and come back to absolutely tremendous developments.

When I shut down my last tank 15 years ago, the hobby and the clubs and the community were nothing like they are today. Pumps and lighting are so insanely cheap now. No need for chillers anymore. An over abundance of available life support equipment. Overnight/2-day shipping on any supplies you’d need that the LFS doesn’t carry. LFS have tons of cheap, beginner frags that are gorgeous. The only thing that hasn’t really changed are the types of fish typically available in LFS.

My kids absolutely love the tank. I’m giving them options on the fish and corals we can keep, and letting them choose. They love feeding them and discovering all the new little creatures that are starting to pop up in the rock and sand. The wife didn’t want me to have a tank again, but as she’s seen how this thing has developed she has absolutely come around, and really likes it in our office.

This hobby is way cheaper than it was 15 years ago, but has way more options now.

 

[piznac]

I am about to go hit the sack,. but I kinda agree with what you are saying,. it's always better to advance in a hobby. Yes we have he ability to solve last years problems with cash now which is always good. And as far as the kids part,. I think he was referring to the next generation of reefers,..

Sorry I didn't have time to read your entire post,. I will tomorrow,. but I do question this:

"This hobby is way cheaper than it was 15 years ago, but has way more options now. "

It does have way more options,. but as far as way cheaper? Really? I don't think so.

Thank you for replying and I hope many more do. I wonder if the OP is right and we are ruining it for our future. I belong to so many aquarium groups,. and the one thing I do notice about all of them is, if anyone ask about Salty tanks you always get the majority of people saying :

1. Saltwater is SOOOO much more expensive.
2. Saltwater is SOOOO hard.
3. Don't even bother trying Saltwater.


When you and I both know that keeping a couple of Clowns and some xenia and VERY colorful simple corals is as simple as any freshwater tank so long as you can mix some salt in some water.

I think I am just saying that there is a place for the strive to be an advanced reef aquariust,.. and there is a place for the dappler in the hobby. If the average person doesnt have 5k to drop,. Im just saying.

 

[enderg60]

Totally true. The markup game on corals and the gata have the latest greatest equipment BS has sucked most of the joy out of the hobby.

Its gotten so bad we sell designer corals at rediculous prices that only look good under blue lights. Viewed in any form of daylight they are the brown colorless turds that wouldnt sell 15 years ago. Some of those $1500 for 1/2" acros look so bland when grown out.

Its turned into just another hobby of look what expensive stuff I have. When it just used to be, look at the amazing eco system I grew!

 

[Adam]

I'm not sure if it is allowed to post a thread from another forum,. if not please delete or direct me to do so, or just respond telling me to.

Being a "reefer" from old,. I found this very thoughtful:

It's perfectly fine to post links to other forums, even to RC Reef Central

I'd like to think there's room for both the people that need to have the latest & greatest and those, well, um... I'm not going to say cheap or on a budget... lets say frugal and/or fiscally responsible.
The technology improvements are in many cases what allow us to keep things we couldn't 20 or 30 years ago. But there's plenty to be learned from those advancements that can be DIY'd for a lot less. For me, building something that works just as good, if not better, as a high dollar product is part of the fun.

The only thing I advise is. No matter how low/high tech a persons system is do you're level best to setup as many redundancies as you can with things that are "Life support" dependent. Don't use one big heater, get two or three smaller ones. And run them on some kind of controller, that could be an Apex/GHL or a simple Inkbird. Have a spare return pump on a shelf, even better run two smaller pumps if you can. One fails the other is there till you figure it out.
Not only do these redundancies save you from equipment failure they can, in many cases, save you from yourself.

With the livestock get what looks good to you. If you like something with a crazy name that's crazy expensive, just wait. What's hot today will likely be a dime a dozen a year later in most cases. That's also one of the benefits of clubs like this. Members getting together and helping spread the wealth with their friends.

 

[bzb]

Welp, lost my response. It was timely too, because I had mentioned something about the folks who "get a little too deep" and clubs start having issues... then the DNS renewal issue popped up lol!

My original response was much like @anit77 - there's almost always an "old guard" in any club/hobby and some folks simply dislike change. Anecdotally:

I've been a DJ for almost 20 years, and the hate I received when I switched to MIDI from turntables was incredible. I lost gigs because of the smack that people would talk about my setup, even if it enabled me to perform better. Now everyone uses controllers.

I've been the charity officer of a large international costuming club. Some folks didn't understand why certain costumes can cost $5k+ and that you actually had to spend MORE money to update and maintain them. My push for more charitable works turned off a lot of older members - but they weren't really participating anymore, anyway. The types of members changed considerably, too. Some people don't like their territory invaded.

I've been in car clubs, motorcycle clubs, sport clubs... it's all the same. People are just people.

This hobby doesn't have to be expensive - I'm at $1600 on my 90gallon, and I'm done with the life support. My spend from here on out will be livestock, but I'll never spend a bunch of money on a coral. Some of the things I've noticed are cheaper AND better:

- lighting. LED is so vastly superior to MH for a hobbyist like me. It's cheap and plentiful, performance is great, low profile, never have to change bulbs or worry about an explosion, reduces power consumption considerably, and doesn't require a chiller.

- a single $100 gyre does what hundreds of dollars of powerheads and wavemaker controllers used to do in my DT.

- DC controllable pumps for $50? Come on!

- Aquacultured/mined rock that's sustainable and $1 a pound? Unheard of 15 years ago.

And on and on. If you chase the new and shiny, then yes, it will be expensive and frustrating if you don't have endless streams of cash. But if you just want to keep some beautiful fish and hardy marine life in your tank, it's pretty inexpensive compared to many other hobbies.

You can endlessly tinker with DIY projects and there is SO much more (and better) information out there now. The corals might be more expensive now, but I didn't have gigantic assortments of $10 frags as choices in 2002. And the locals and this club are insanely generous. New folks coming onto this forum every week. Nice people, fun hobby.

 

[civics14]

The biggest difference when I started this hobby 7 years ago is that people put a huge emphasis on name brand corals. Even then, with ORA popping out these amazing corals, I never seen it to the price they are today. But, if you have the money and it's worth it to you, whatever floats your boat. Who's to judge how you spend your money, right?

What I see that I disagree with is how these high end corals are being marketed. Pictures are taken in all blues/actinics and saturation turned up to show these insane colors that lead the uneducated reefers to think that's how it will look in their tank. That's why I like the classics, cause they look like their pictures (big fan of ORA corals and their work).

Also, I find it funny how everything has to have a name. Like my own grape limeade acro that when I was trying to sell it as an unknown shortcake, I had no response. So I called it VH (my initials) Grape Limeade, it sold very fast.

 

[Tanster2]

I think some of the arguments are kind of valid, but at the same time I don't think we're ruining the hobby in any capacity. I can start a tank up for less than $200 dollars very easily. I can stock it with frags I get for dirt cheap via clubs and what not. Nobody is forcing you to buy the latest Apex to go into your Red Sea setup filled with designer corals. You can buy a 20 gallon with a HOB filter and an aquaknight light that'll grow pretty much anything under the sun, and none of that is expensive.

He makes mention of "fancy dosing." A cheap dosing system and a gallon of 2 part costs less than $100... or you could, you know... do it by hand.

And again, nobody is forcing you to buy fancy zoas or Clarion Angelfish. Some of the most spectacular tanks I have seen are filled with very common soft corals and fish that you see every day. And sure, there's fancy corals that are photographed by shops under blue or actinic lighting to make them look better, but anyone who's been in the hobby for even a short amount of time knows that those colors aren't true.

If anything, growing technology and unique corals with fancy names have furthered this hobby and made it more interesting. Demand for newer, cooler things is ultimately what drives innovation in most hobbies.
My final point is, if you take the proper time to educate yourself about this hobby, you'll know that this isn't necessarily a rich man's hobby; anyone can do it practically, and it's easier than most people think it is.