I think the biggest frustration regarding equipment, that I have is there's this certain company that keeps coming out with these great filters, but they push them in the pet stores instead of their bread and butter market (:cough walmart :cough) , and then, because aquarists associate them with ah...cheap, the filters don't sell, and get abandoned.

Yes; I have some of their filters. I'm not using them at the moment because if I do, I'll have to cobble together their equivalent of a bio bag.

By the time I got a Milwaukee regulator - with the thought of going pressurized - I discovered everyone had abandoned them for the latest shiny object. Tha's ok, still haven't sprung for a controller.

Algae it is for me, twice before. That and poorly growing plants (go together well ...)

I quit for a couple of years because of my living arrangements. The apartments I lived in only allowed one tank of 10 gallons or less. And I am used to having 1,000+ gallons so you can see why 10 gallons would only have been a tease. I suppose someone could argue that it was more of a hiatus than outright quiting. Either way....

Skimming through this thread and you pretty much see a common theme or two. Time, and skill level not lining up with tank goals.

I agree, it's presumptuous to make the blanket statement of "you should plan better" Someone can be passionate about the hobby, but being there are a limited number of resources and minutes in the day, that becomes a limiting factor.

For instance. I like plants and corals. Fish are ok, and I would always strive to keep some sort of finned critter in the water, but I'm in the hobby 99% for plants and coral. If for some reason I was told I could have aquaria in the home, but I was only allowed to have a cichlid tank, or a fish only community tank, or a fish only with live rock saltwater tank, I'd just as soon not have a tank at all. It's alot of effort to keep clean, and almost none of the rewards.

That brings us in line to skill level. The thing that has had me contemplating leaving the planted tank hobby entirely has been skill level. I would have shut my tank down several times if my wife and kids didnt love the fishies so much. They could care less about the plants, light, or substrate. Took my wife 6 months to even notice I had a pressurized co2 tank running under the stand. I have a vision in my head of what I want the tank to look like. I want it to either look like Tom Barr's best work, or an award winning dutch aquascape, or one of the amazing amano style mountain scapes.

Those types of tanks are incredibly difficult and expensive to make happen. Often dry started, and require almost daily pruning and replanting to keep looking perfect. With 50 hour work week, spouse in school full time, multiple kids, one being an infant, and a house and yard and other tanks and pets to maintain, I've just flat out not had the money or time to invest in making that kind of aquascape happen. And anything else is a disappointment. Perhaps I'm speaking in extremes here and being long winded, but I think that's the root of alot of people leaving the hobby. Becoming disinterested and disappointed with their work becasue of algae, or even despite following all the rules and making all the necessary investments, the tank just doesnt turn out the way we envision, and that can cause someone to lose interest real quick.

A catastrophic tank failure is also a certain death sentence. If one of my tanks broke or a stand failed or something like that and I flooded the house with 100+ gallons of foul smelling fish water, ruining electrical devices and costing thousands in repairs, you can guarantee that I would be out of the hobby indefinitely. Id miss it, but I would find something else. Most people do.

Or you come to understand your limitations and adjust your goals accordingly.

When I first started with a planted tank, lighting consisted of 2 shop lights and the strip that came with the tank. Planting was whatever I found at the pet store. I lucked up on that and found a huge Amazon sword mother plant. Fertilizer was...florapride, plantabs, and some iron supplement whose name has passed through the annals of time. I just know that what I was using was pretty much it. I remember being floored at the picture of a Dutch tank. CO2 supplement? What's what? It was vaguely mentioned in the article in FAMA, but they never bothered to tell you how.

My expectations started off pretty low - keep the swords green, see if you can keep anything other than swords and bulbs from walmart alive.

But...I hear you. I tried a nano reef. I don't have a nano reef. I made it maybe 6 months and threw in the towel. I had just enough info to be dangerous.

Sometimes it's a matter of realizing what type of tank really makes you happy. A number of years ago I made the mistake of putting in an Auratus (I wanted something colorful and I had some interest in cichlids). He uprooted my plants, meaning my planted tank became a fish only. Years later, when he passed on, I was ready to get out of fishkeeping altogether as I simply didn't have any joy in the tank anymore.

Still, I had some other fish still in there, and figured I'd wait to break it down till their lifespans were up. In the meantime, I picked up a crypt again, wanting to have something green in there, and suddenly found my interest reinvigorated. About a year later I overhauled the tank and turned it into a high tech planted, and I've loved it ever since. What I discovered in all that was that for me to be happy with a tank I must have both fish and plants or it's depressing for me. My error in not realizing what I really loved in a tank was what nearly made me leave.

I quit fishkeeping recently and the main reason was that I did not want to keep cleaning the tank, it was too much of a chore,the tank was fairly small so needed a lot of water changes, and I couldn't afford a bigger one. Additionally when my goldfish died anyway I decided to give the other 2 away rather than face them possibly dying too.
I agree it's a relaxing hobby though, I did really like watching them swim around. But I also like having the space clear and time for other hobbies. And I still like learning about fish.

Indecisiveness. I had planned about 20 different setups for my 55g, which I had for seven years. I never did put a single fish in it. I was too afraid to commit to anything that might not turn out to be perfect that I never did anything at all.

Also, trying to make money from the hobby. It's a hobby - you won't make money from it. You can offset the cost, but you won't actually make a profit unless it becomes a business. And once it becomes a business, it all becomes business, and you don't have a hobby to come back to when you need to relax. Since the nature of business is to produce things customers will want, not what the business owner likes, you likely will end up investing in things that aren't that much fun for you. You're also forced to do things in a low-cost and high-efficiency manner, which often results in the loss of beauty and peace. If the business isn't making money, or if it's too much work, people may switch to a more profitable business and get out of the hobby entirely.

Priorities.

The first 8 years I was married, I spent my time dealing with my FIL who was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after hubby and I got married.

In between doctors appointments, discussions about bone marrow transplants and swollen lymph nodes, I spent my time fighting with our local school system that wanted to load my son up on every drug possible.

When I wasn't doing that, I had a job that I had a love / hate relationship with. That job was taken away from me from a a now out of business company that thought they were all that. People always use the expression "If you build it, they will come." Nobody talks about how fast a group of the most arrogant people I've ever met can destroy a multi-million dollar private business. I'm still bitter, just not as much.

Fretting over water chemistry and whether the fish keeping community would approve of my plant choices or not wasn't a blip on my radar. Much of the drama that occurs in the fish community today still does not create blips on my radar because, priorities.

Going into the service is one thing to knock me out of the game. Moving from a house with basement, all fish killed by a heater failure, going on the road in an RV? There are just lots of reasons to quit for a while. I recently stopped breeding and selling fish due to the idiots that want bargains and no bargain is ever good enough.
There are almost as many reasons to stop as there are to start?

I took a year hiatus after keeping/breeding fish for 15 years. I moved a couple hours away, changed jobs, bought a new house, and in effort to simplify life the house was 1/3 the size of my former home. I sold my tanks and fish, and honestly didn't have time to restart the hobby immediately. I did keep most of my pricy equipment for future use but that was it. I started small with a 56g column tank and only had it and a 50G for the next year. The last 2 years my hobby has grown to 10 tanks at home with a focus on SA/CA cichlids and low tech planteds. I was focused on making my 2 preferences of cichlids and plants work with a maintenance routine I can deal with...so far I'm the happiest I've ever been in the hobby.

Breaks are good and sometimes dumping your livestock for something new is okay. Gives us a chance to refocus

I had a 29 gallon hex and a 20 gallon show in my first apartment. I am a chronic renter, have been for three decades because of the California housing bubble. My hex sprung a leak after my first move. My show tank got crushed by furniture movers during my second move. I wanted another tank, but didn't want to deal with the problems of moving them every couple of years. A couple of years ago I found out the hobby changed drastically. You could have nano tanks and grow plants successfully. I always wanted to keep Bettas again. I now have 5 tanks in sizes from 2.5 - 12 gallons. I would love to have a larger tank again someday, but I am here to stay now that I can scale down.

For me it would be:

Stems - Cutting stems over and over and over, get's old fast. Now I use mostly ferns, moss, etc.
Tall Tanks - Scaping a tall tank. If it's not heavily scaped it's not a big deal, but if it's uncomfortable to get to the bottom it's not gonna be fun long-term.
Low-tech - If things stay static for too long, I find it boring. I'd rather see the plants pearl, put out new leaves. Stems are too fast, but ferns and things I find more interesting to me with co2 and good light.

That sums it up for me also.

I feel for you. Pretty much the same thing happened to me, but my disaster was a flood. Lost a 90 gallon and two 55 gallon tanks, plus all my equipment and several backup tanks. Everything was submerged in river water (and some raw sewage) for over a month. It didn't even seem worth trying to clean up the couple of things that might have been salvageable. I didn't think I would ever want to get back into the hobby. I made it almost 4 years, then the itch hit me again. Now I've got more tanks than ever.