My biggest accomplishment is turning a 10g freshwater aquarium into enough saltwater to make income via Craigslist and Facebook. Learning everything I can along the way on here helped me achieve my goals thus far. I have not had a "boss" in 2 years. All I do is sell corals and equipment along with setup and free advice comes with any purchase. (Sometimes I regret the free part when my phone blows up at 2am because of something google can easily find the answer to.) I currently support myself, my girlfriend, 2 dogs, 3 cats, and all from the comfort of my home.
I have had complete success with my 90g reef and the only losses were aggression by angelfish or jumpers, which has been fixed. Corals that have died are from my tunnel making engineer goby...shame on him but I love him. I do have a possible brain casualty from a rock slide though...we will see.
This success did not come easy or without failure. We just lost an entire 30g reef to heater rust. I rescued the corals and fish quick enough to really just lose sand and rock, so it wasnt a total loss. That tank now houses freshwater angelfish. Poor 30g. I've recently started a nano tank of 14 gallons to practice on a more delicate body of water. It seems my 90 can handle anything that gets thrown at it. I'm curious to see the parameter differences between the tanks.
Goals to come:
Breeding clowns-mine are still too young, or were genetically stunted. Idk. I've had them since October and they were 1.5 inches.
Sps- I have yet to buy any sps for my tank. They don't sell well here due to higher husbandry requirements but my light is up to par and once my cyano is back to gone its time for an acro or 2. I had them before I moved and had great success fragging them. Green slimer maybe? Its been a while.
Expand- someday when I can find a local tank that's the perfect shape to fit down my basement I will setup an actual frag tank. I would love to have a website for coral sales at the very least. I would also like to design my own equipment. I'm pretty good when it comes to designing particular equipment. Sumps, wave devices, heck I could make the first all in one that doesn't require modding!?
-own or run a public aquarium or education center. If I can expand enough or prove to investors that this is a good idea and fund a public aquarium I would be in heaven. I've always wanted massive fish tanks and i haven't seen a fish or animal that doesn't peak my interest. Even damsels are cool the way they aggress towards others 10x their size.
-write a book. My life is insane. I live in one of the least exciting places in the world but live like I'm in A movie. The weirdest things happen to me on a daily basis. Even normal occurrences happen in strange ways. From high school insanity to college conformity, there wasnt a week that was not worth telling about. Most of it is funny, some of it is touching, and some is beyond tragic. I could write for years and still have stories to tell. Monkeys attacking us in Japan would be a great chapter. Even a book about aquariums would be awesome.
-make money from my own music. I've played in paying bands before and mostly it was cover bands. Not a fan of cover bands to be honest. I never saw a point in getting payed to play other people's music. I appreciate cover songs, usually these are rewritten to suit the genre of the band playing them like Hendrix and his bob Dylan covers. When bands go and play as close to the original as they can I get very discouraged to listen. Play the radio, save your energy, and write your own stuff. Come on people. If that's your only means of income I am sorry. I take it personally. I also don't get how they can get paid to play covers...if they made a cd they would have to pay for the rights. It just seems like a dead end as far as music careers go. "The most famous cover band is still a cover band."
-have kids. This will be the toughest decision of my life. I'm never going to be fully ready for a child. I like kids, and i want 35 but i know at this rate i can't offer much. I'm 99% busy and my income has a major gap and fluctuates like gas prices. When te opportunity arises for a solid income base off my fish I will feel I have truly succeeded And make babies. In private of course with no threads.
Maybe my goals will change, maybe I'll meet them. Any help I can get I will gratefully accept, and give forth as well.
