Peter_Gun_Riff Posted November 29, 2005 Share Posted November 29, 2005 lately i have been thinking about leaving the hobby for awhile and paying more attention to my herps (want to get a few more) just wondering if anyone have left the hobby but ended up coming back later? if i do end up leaving it i know i will end up back soon and ill get into natives or getting rid of my tanks and just having the 1x 4x2x2 which i will have to buy $$$? and having filtration very high so maintanence is low Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndoboi Posted November 29, 2005 Share Posted November 29, 2005 Hey there Peter, Yeah - I left the hobby for nearly 9 years due to joining the military and constantly being on the move. I have gotten back into it in the last couple of years, but on a much smaller scale (still in the military). It drew me back in like a magnet!! Now im just running 3 tanks and am concentrating on breeding a few species at a time, ones that I havent been able to do in the past. It's a big change to when I was running 30 tanks... So dont worry, feel free to take a break if you need it to recharge the batteries or try something new. Just be reassured that you WILL be back!! Cheers Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ducksta Posted November 29, 2005 Share Posted November 29, 2005 I am in the process of scaling out of the hobby. I am planning some travel. The way I am looking at it is that when i come back I will have a clean slate and I can go nuts and stock things I couldn't have kept alongside current stock Some time ago (several years) I got the poo's and decided I'd had enough and drained my tanks. About 3 weeks later I'd started stocking them again. I doubt I could leave this hobby for any real amount of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
poncho Posted November 29, 2005 Share Posted November 29, 2005 I left the hobby for a few years while I was working interstate. However, i found myself constantly walking into LFS's or getting reallly excited when i went to someones house that i hadnt been to before and they had a goldfish! Now I'm just getting back into the hobby and the cool thing is i get to start from the beginning again, so i can learn from all my previous mistakes. I don't know if you can leave the hobby! You can sell all your fish and gear, but then you might spend all your time daydreaming about peacocks, tropheus or whatever. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GTR73 Posted November 29, 2005 Share Posted November 29, 2005 For me this hobby has always been peaks and troughs the last 25 years. In the past I've stopped or have scaled down to one tank. But I always come back to it. That's one reason why I've taken up Lake Malawi cichlids the last 10 years - when I lose a bit of interest and am in a "trough", my Africans are fairly hardy and pretty much can fend for themselves for a while. Mind you, I've been on a peak for the last 4 years! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Den Posted November 30, 2005 Share Posted November 30, 2005 You can leave the hobby , but you'll be back like the rest of us One of the traps I think we all get caught in is "maintenance burnout" where you've built a stockpile of small tanks. This is why I left the hobby the first two times, now I' back for round three and this time I'm winning. Since coming back to the hobby I have made a policy - less tanks but bigger tanks,so I got a 6footer, an 8.5x2x2 and a couple of 3ftrs used for fry,quarantine and hospital tanks. Now I can keep just as many fish in my big tanks as you would keep in 6-10 smaller tanks, it's hugely reduced maintenance time, and cause theres so many species in each tank there is much more interaction, making it more interesting to watch, and I got no probs with aggression cause there is heaps of swimming room, more stable water parameters, better breeding successes, the list of benefits I'm enjoying keeps going on.. I do heaps of traveling every year and with only a few big tanks it's easy to get someone to look after them while away, or to set up a couple of auto feeders. So my final thought is Big tanks are Best. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Gun_Riff Posted November 30, 2005 Author Share Posted November 30, 2005 have to agree with you there den thats what im sick of mainly ATM but its also bits of everything else but im sure within 6 months ill be back with a hose filling up either a 6x2x2 or a 4x2x2 in which ill house a yellowbelly lol very interesting i know lol but loved the look of them for many years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KiNETiC Posted December 2, 2005 Share Posted December 2, 2005 Yep, left it myself after roughly 12 years. It's now been 5 years or so, not "in" it...however, I'm getting back into it in the new year Guess it's impossible to stay away for good Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlakeyBoyR Posted December 3, 2005 Share Posted December 3, 2005 I left for a couple of years but found my way back. It was just a matter of finding out what really interested me, and it turned out that it was marine, not cichlids. I still love cichlids and their personality, but marine just sucks me in so much more. Whatever you do, don't completely drop out of the hobby, even if you scale down to a single 3' tank, I think you'd regret it if you got rid of all your tanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BaZ Posted December 3, 2005 Share Posted December 3, 2005 There's been a few times where I have wondered how much spare time I might have without this hobby and the work involved. However instead of leaving the hobby, I have used that energy to dive into a project which might reduce the workload involved. Installing an automatic water changer, or changing some of your tanks to run of a central system are both good ways to reduce the workload involved, and projects like that are also fun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peter_Gun_Riff Posted December 3, 2005 Author Share Posted December 3, 2005 and have the potential to get you out of the hobby by mistake lol yeh will be having a nice big sump etc from my next tank when i get it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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