The month is young yet.I didnt get my build thread done in time, sorry you can't nominate me. I know you were holding out, but maybe next time ok?
I gotta redo my entire overflow system and I custom ordered an external box which I haven't even gotten a ship date yet
plus I'm not @tbrown I don't win EVERYTHING 
13 days! That's almost 2 full weeks!
The name of my reef tank is Sublime.
I began my reef tank journey in 1996.
I was immediately captivated by living coral and read and re-read all of the literature at the time available to me. I became very successful at keeping coral alive and thriving rather quickly.
This became a side job and then a permanent job for many years, until I Joined the Army in 2002.
While in the Army I was stationed in Germany and got to see some of the most amazing reef aquariums that I’d ever seen and quickly started a reef tank.
Shortly after this, I was deployed to Iraq for thirteen months, starting in 2004 and ending in 2005, where mostly I was a gunner on top of a truck on a combat patrol team. We performed security escorts, reconnaissance and were a QRF team.
This experience changed my life forever, not only from the explosions that caused a brain injury but the loss of life that I had never experienced before. The experience also resulted in moral and ethical injuries that will never leave me.
Returning from Iraq, I still kept and maintained reef aquariums but over the years I wasn’t experiencing the same happiness from it as I once use to. Eventually, I became an alcoholic, developed extreme anger issues and my mental health and well being declined so bad that I ended up in a stand off with the sheriffs department and I had two officers pinned to the ground.
Luckily for me, a lady named Lory Ott that was a news reporter got involved and help create a veterans court which lead to treatment instead of prison for me.
I got sober and my mental health gradually was getting better and I got back into reef keeping.
After few years of sobriety and reef keeping and aquarium maintenance as a profession again and obsession again, life started to throw me a few curve balls and I started drinking and using drugs.
This went off and on for several years and again I left reef keeping but this time it was for 8 years.
I ended up institutionalized and released into to a new program the VA started implementing, called WRAP. After 2 years of sobriety and meeting with other Veterans daily in this program, I started to feel better but still had quite a bit of anxiety and depression. One of my peers in the program asked me what do I do that makes me happy, truly happy and something that I can do to break away from when things aren’t going well.
There were many things I thought of, like walking my dogs in the woods, fishing, my garden etc…
But I was told to keep looking and those aren’t what really make me happy. When I really started to think about it she was right, because while I enjoyed doing these things, they were more of a routine for me that I kinda enjoyed.
So for two years I was asked this question and my answers never satisfied my peer support counselor. Well after two years in the program I finally found it and it was right there all the time, I just couldn’t see it. I found reef2reef and started reading about everything. Some things have definitely changed in the last ten years but It sparked my old passion that I never thought would come back to me like it once was and that I remembered.
So in October 2024 I started a reef tank and I’m on cloud nine again. I love to get on reef2reef and help people that are new to reef keeping and I love looking at all of the members reefs and pictures of their corals.
My Sublime and reef2reef is my happy place.
My reef tank thread…
Build Thread - Red Sea MAX Nano G2 XXL
I’ve been out of the hobby for 8 years. I’ve been keeping reef tanks since 1996. I started this tank in October 2024. 30 lbs or so dry rock and about 5 lbs of cultured rock. Substrate is crushed coral labout 3/4 inch deep. I used Dr. Tim’s and ammonia to start cycling along with a few other...www.reef2reef.com
You're very deserving!I am working on my write up. I really don't feel I qualify knowing all the others out there that have done way more then me but won't accept the nomination.
Hear, hear!
Thank you for your support, that means a lot to me and all veterans.
Im humbled but I would like to see others win this more than myself.
