What do you do when you lose interest?

I do the same thing with most of my hobbies. I occasionally: make chainmail, fold complex origami, brew beer, raise bees, do leathercraft, garden, rebuild motorcycles, do PC work, program in one of 13 different languages, home/yardwork, silversmithing, my four fishtanks, and hunting/camping/fishing. In addition to my constant hobbies of DIY anything, motorcycle riding, reading, cooking, and video games (PC, Xbox, PS2, and Wii). I can usually manage six or seven of those during any given period of time.
 
Fish Obsession said:
How about we don't attack people for the sake of attacking people.
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How about you stop attacking people for the sake of attacking people. I was just telling him that it is generally not a good idea to do those things and that that plant will die. Just trying to help him out in the future, so he doesn't write a post on, "How come my plant is dying?" The plant cannot live underwater indefinitely and the person at the store lied to him. If he doesn't want to go get his money back it's his business, but I didn't want him to carry on in the dark. So thank you very much.

And by the way I didn't attack him, I just pointed out some potentially harmful things about what he did to his tank. Now that he explained it more it wasn't as it first seemed. I just wanted to make sure that he wasn't a complete newbie doing things that my cause his tank to go out of whack. There was no way for me to know that until he elaborated more.
 
well, i haven't lost interest in going on 40 years now ... and i don't expect to in the next 40. ;)
 
wrigh003 said:
I just try to make sure that when I'm not feeling particularly super-interested in my tank that I'm not completely neglecting it. My first tank was back when I was in high school, and being an irresponsible kid who wasn't ever home anyway, I let it be neglected/ evaporate out to the point where the tiger barbs I had in there (that hadn't killed each other) were swimming in who knows what kind of toxic goo. This is pre-internet, and in the days of undergravel filters, too, so I bet it was terrible. Oh well. Didn't know any better, and I just shared that story because I remind myself of that now when I get complacent about my tank. The critters in it are living creatures, and even though they don't interact quite as much as my dog (at least they don't jump all over me and chew on me, though), they deserve just as much care, or at least enough not to have to live in terrible conditions while I am being lazy or disinterested.

Last week, I cleaned the tank out completely, scrubbed all the decorations, shocked the plants in ice water treated with Had-a-Snail, split my Java fern, and put some new mondo grass in the back. That only took about an hour, and the tank looks lots better. I do a little bit of that kind of stuff now and then to stay interested.
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Hope you didn't take out *all* of the denitrifying bacteria.
Mondograss - not aquatic despite PetSmart/Petco's marketing of it. Suggest replacing it w/ a truly aquatic low-light species (Java fern, Anubias sp...).

When my interest ebbs for alittle bit is when I'm glad I (usually) don't overstock. Tanks are less demanding that way.
 
Now that my tanks are stocked to my liking I have every fish I REALLY wanted I have lots of blood worms etc in my freezer everything is good, I have Melafix and other such meds stocked in my cupboards just incase!! I find myself NOT going to the LFS it has been almost 3 weeks...
It feels really strange like I have lost interest but I totally havn't I've just stopped spending money now I get to enjoy preparing meals for my fish having them on their schedule and sitting back and enjoying them...
But it does feel strange not spending money.. :dance2:
 
If I feel as though my tanks are more an annoyance then a pleasure I just redo the decor. Basically my tanks are planted so I do a rescape.

Most of the fun of the hobby is the planning. When the tank gets to what you wanted there was nothing to do but look at it. That can bore the best of us after a while. So if you're planted do a rescape, change to a rock tank, do a biotope.If you're not planted then start planning a planted tank. If your just tired of FW try your hand at salt.

There are so many different directions to go you really can't get bored with the hobby.
 
I am lucky. My spouse is fascinated by the tanks, so when I'm busy, travelling or disinterested (which is very rare), she loves to take care of them. Consequently, I'm not the only one "stuck" with the maintenance aspect of the hobby. I am constantly fascinated by the apparent change in appearance each time I do a gravel-vacuum/water change. I might be psyching myself, but I'm convinced that after a water change, the cardinals are a deeper shade of blue, the rummys' noses are brighter shade of red and there's a brighter flash of green on their heads. The rest of the fish are brighter and more colorful, too, including incredibly deep blue leopard skin discus. (Before I get criticized, I do 2 water changes a week in my big tank and one in the little one in my den.)

Also, I like praise and when the aquaria are in particularly good form, I get compliments from the people who wander through our house all the time. Helps keep me motivated to make them showpieces in our home.
 
Re-scape a tank.
Trade off the fish, try a new variety.
Go planted.
 
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