I was in this hobby around 10 years ago. At that time, I had a 150 gallon tank in my office with many bells and whistles. Then my youngest daughter had a bone marrow transplant when she was five (it was successful). During that time, I turned over my tank to a service to take care of and as you can imagine it went to hell and a hand basket while I was gone. Then I moved my office. I sold the tank and got rid of a lot of my equipment.
In celebration of the 10th anniversary of our daughter's medical success, I decided to come back to this hobby. I do not feel like I was successful and that I have an incomplete that I need to finish. We are very thankful that our daughter had a good outcome and know that is not true for many other parents.
My goal is to try to have water in the tank by the end of the year. Our daughter's actual transplant date was in the middle of December. So that seems fitting. Also, the last week of the year is a good time for me to spend a lot of time tinkering with getting water in and the tank running.
I have made a list of all the things that I need to get done and I have been diligently working to get these things taken care of. Initially, I decided that I did not want to do a "build thread" because I was concerned that I would get obsessed. But now that I am 3 or 4 months into this process, I have changed my mind. So we will see how it goes. My biggest fear is that I will get the tank set up and running and then get ahead of myself and have a mass kill off. I have seen several people who did that and then decided to shut everything down. I do not want that to be my result too. So patience is the name of the game.
My name is Ken. I am 59 years old. I got married later than my siblings and I have a great wife and 2 kids. My oldest daughter is a senior at Baylor University. She is planning to attend law school in the fall. Also, on a side note (sorry have to brag on her), she interned at the White House a year ago. She was one of three interns in the West Wing every day as the President was impeached. Someone asked me during that time how much it cost us to get her that internship and I laughed and said that it did not cost us anything because we had nothing to do with it. She did it all on her own.
Our youngest daughter is a sophmore in high school and she is the one who had the bone marrow transplant. She was born with a very rare condition that affects her arms and she did not make platelets well. The transplant addressed her platelet issues and they are normal today. She is very smart, but needs extra assistance to do certain things. She is a big gamer and has spent the pandemic sharpening her skills on whatever games she is playing now. I have this fear that one day there will be a knock on the door and some "gamer" guy will show up and say that he and Laurel are running away to some gamer utopia. Ha!
I am trying to keep myself in check on this. My wife says that I have a tendency to go all out on everything I do. When I was in the extreme Christmas Light Hobby I was in the New York Times and on Good Morning America. So there is a risk of that.
So remember I am trying. My water volumn will be around 100 gallons total with tank and sump.
So it all begins. If at this point you are thinking, "Boy is he wordy" this may not be the thread for you. Ha!
In celebration of the 10th anniversary of our daughter's medical success, I decided to come back to this hobby. I do not feel like I was successful and that I have an incomplete that I need to finish. We are very thankful that our daughter had a good outcome and know that is not true for many other parents.
My goal is to try to have water in the tank by the end of the year. Our daughter's actual transplant date was in the middle of December. So that seems fitting. Also, the last week of the year is a good time for me to spend a lot of time tinkering with getting water in and the tank running.
I have made a list of all the things that I need to get done and I have been diligently working to get these things taken care of. Initially, I decided that I did not want to do a "build thread" because I was concerned that I would get obsessed. But now that I am 3 or 4 months into this process, I have changed my mind. So we will see how it goes. My biggest fear is that I will get the tank set up and running and then get ahead of myself and have a mass kill off. I have seen several people who did that and then decided to shut everything down. I do not want that to be my result too. So patience is the name of the game.
My name is Ken. I am 59 years old. I got married later than my siblings and I have a great wife and 2 kids. My oldest daughter is a senior at Baylor University. She is planning to attend law school in the fall. Also, on a side note (sorry have to brag on her), she interned at the White House a year ago. She was one of three interns in the West Wing every day as the President was impeached. Someone asked me during that time how much it cost us to get her that internship and I laughed and said that it did not cost us anything because we had nothing to do with it. She did it all on her own.
Our youngest daughter is a sophmore in high school and she is the one who had the bone marrow transplant. She was born with a very rare condition that affects her arms and she did not make platelets well. The transplant addressed her platelet issues and they are normal today. She is very smart, but needs extra assistance to do certain things. She is a big gamer and has spent the pandemic sharpening her skills on whatever games she is playing now. I have this fear that one day there will be a knock on the door and some "gamer" guy will show up and say that he and Laurel are running away to some gamer utopia. Ha!
I am trying to keep myself in check on this. My wife says that I have a tendency to go all out on everything I do. When I was in the extreme Christmas Light Hobby I was in the New York Times and on Good Morning America. So there is a risk of that.
So remember I am trying. My water volumn will be around 100 gallons total with tank and sump.
So it all begins. If at this point you are thinking, "Boy is he wordy" this may not be the thread for you. Ha!
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