I lost the passion for reef keeping - what I plan to do about it! 

yeah, I hear you, I've been reefing for 30+ years, have a 1000 gallon reef, my interest comes and goes, as does the required maintenance, and the reef tank suffers accordingly, thanks for making this video, I like your approach!

Yes it sucks when your fav dies. I screwed up and lost my orange passion. I look forward to getting another and not messing up and killing it. Thx for great advice.

So sorry you are going through all of this. I hope someone can help you with this issue. I’m stumped like you are. I enjoy your video’s! We can all relate with not being happy with how our reef tank looks at the moment. I look forward to an update, soon!

it happens been doing this for over 30 years just don't get rid of anything or shut things down you'll regret it so much for doing it. I had a greenhouse and shut it down I had a huge fish room shut it down then restarted them it happens to all of us. best thing to do is join an aquarium group in your town and hang with like minded people and it helps you get over that funk :)

It happens when u achieve such beautiful tanks and maxed out on all the equipment, there is nothing else to look forward to, but to maintain and let things grow slowly.

I'm living a moment like this with my aquariums, i understand you very well.

Welcome to the world of fresh water fish. Look into my natural systems, the cousin to the reef.

wow man, this hit home so hard. first let me say i'm a newbie reefer and have only been at it 1.5 years so i got no business telling you what to do but i will ask if we can rule out the possibility that whatever pest this is that's blooming is outcompeting your biological filtration. my first experience with reefing was pretty horrible with over 5 months battling a massive dino problem and one thing i learned is that these pests are exceptionally good at outcompeting biological filtration because they can reproduce so much faster. nitrifying bacteria can take weeks and weeks to stabilize and who knows how many of those evolutions to reach a point of equilibrium (stability) with all the things going on in one's tank. anway i sure feel you 100%, there have been times where my mood, motivation and even happiness was somehow tied to how well my tank was doing (now i have 2) but because i have a family, kid, dog, old busto house with tons of things going wrong all the time and let's face it _way_ more enjoyable hobbies like moutain biking etc this can be soul crushing. luckily ADHD and all these responsibilities have taught me to decouple motiviation from doing and that's where you seem to be at. you got that mental toughness man!

You’re right, this hobby requires patience especially when there are other things you’d rather be doing. At least having a larger tank they are a bit more forgiving. I’ve lost corals in the past but then you try to learn from your mistakes. Reefing is definitely a labor of love. Your tank looks great.

As a 30+ year reefkeeper, I can only say, STAY THE COURSE. You will have both highs and lows with this hobby. It will come back. You seem to have a fair plan for digging out of this hole. I hope things work out. I will be watching with confidence that you will succeed.👍🏾

The microscope image looks like possibily a type of lyngbya. Maybe majuscula. Its a type of filamentous cyano. Usually cutting back on filtration and water changes seems to help. The stuff can be a plague.

I have been doing this for many years, and yes, there have been times i have considered getting out of the hobby, but haven’t. I have enjoyed it to much, even when a tank has issues. I had a larger system planned and everything purchased, but decided to sell it off before set up, as my life has become very busy due to work and aging parents. I downsized for ease of maintenance and time, but still allowing me to enjoy my hobby. As a thought…You might check your equipments magnetic seals for cracks. Same for heaters. You have been doing this for some time, so I’m sure you check those items on a regular basis. BTW, Love the butterfly! It’s stunning.

I have a freshwater tank and had issues with brown algae all over the glass, sand and plants for the last 2 months or so. S**t like that really kills the motivation. Finally it went away and the passion is back. Its not fun working on a tank thats not going as planned but when you see the light at the end of the tunnel its all worth it.

Thanks for making such a video, i am sure you will get back on it as soon as the first snowfall occurs 😂

Stay strong, brother! When did you change your RO filters last time ? Start looking at them first when trying to resolve the brown sand bed. Best of luck!

your fish is much better. mine always get ich, that don't feel good

If you don't think it's diatoms or dinos, look into "golden algae" or chrysophytes. I had it for a while. It was ugly and almost looked like dinos like it gets slimy but doesn't hurt anything. How did I get rif of it? not sure, it went away on its own. Not sure if it coincided with running a UV, but look into chrysophytes.

I feel it aswell.

Still thinkin Dinos. Coral death, system changes, low nutrients, in sand bed. Consider prorocentrum

Coralavore tank sounds amazing

Those slides look like there’s Dinos in there. Need to see video of the scope to for sure ID it. The cells I saw that were also in the algae you have has a chance to be Dinos (especially if your nutrients bottomed out).

It's trying to tell you it needs coral by going after the torch. I doesn't know how else to tell you

i sugges sharing those images to the macks dino group on fb. it looks like some kind of bacteria, not dinos

Every time I’ve dozed Nitrates after a month or so I always would get weird algae like that even with ultra low nutrients I don’t dose that shit anymore I just feed double amount of food haven’t had any issues for months and it went away after about 3 -4 weeks after I stopped dosing

If you have really low nutrients, have you considered dosing ammonia?

Have you changed your lighting intensity?

Drop the tubing and you will find it again....

Buy an expensive frag you will go back

Utter junk? Lol... 🥹😉