- All right. So every great story has a beginning,
a middle and an end.
I'll let you guys decide which one this is,
but you can see the tank just left
and we still have the stand in there.
We have a bunch of other stuff,
but some come in and you'll probably see other people moving
this stuff, including Randy there, with our water mist
fire extinguisher. You may remember that one,
but I'll let you decide where this is, but I want to share,
you know, now,
like what it was like to experience all of this,
not just the factual elements of what happened,
but you know how it feels to want to set up your, you know,
forever tank, your dream tank,
put all your heart and soul in and have it
not necessarily go the way that you would have liked.
And what do you do with that information
and how do you make it not happen to you?
Because I think that there's actually a lot of lessons
in here, certainly for myself.
But all this whole story really started with the
Reef-a-Palooza, where I did a presentation
on a five-year tank. And at that moment in time,
I realized, you know what, I've set up a lot of tanks
for two years, one year,
but it was never really any thought into
how long it would last per se.
It was set up a beautiful tank and then maintain it.
But now that we have all these beautiful tanks
and they'd been up and you're starting to think,
what would it take to set it up for five or 10 years
in a world where, you know, everything is going to break
and everything that could possibly go wrong will go wrong
inside of five or 10 years.
How do we plan around that so we don't lose, you know,
this beautiful investment and, you know,
harm the animals involved.
And so I think that,
that was also the moment in time where
I moved in this house. We saw this like opportunity,
whereas like, ah, you build this tank in my house.
I'm building what I think moving into what I think
is my forever house. I'm moving into this house
where I think that my family is going to be
at here for decades.
And I also have this story of a forever tank,
all like really the last 20 years or 17 or so years
of being a fish tank owner, as well as
owning a business for, I dunno, in a sense,
I think it was 2005 or so
2008 doing YouTube channel on this stuff for, I don't know,
maybe probably 1500 videos so far,
all I felt like this is all leading
to this one moment in time.
Like where all of that experience,
20 years of doing this or something years of doing this,
you know, knowing all the people that are in the industry,
getting all the advice from livestock people,
the dry people,
communicating that, all of you
building this into this thing,
it's going to be really cool.
Again, all of it coming to this one moment in time.
And I just felt like this was maybe one of the
most exciting builds that we'll ever do.
I think it still will be,
but it started to fall apart right away.
Because what I really wanted to do
is I really thought that I had the time
to share with all of you. I thought that, ah,
you know, I'll bring it home and at home,
I'll have more time to shoot little funny new videos
and share with you all the little tips and tricks that I
learned. I'll have more time there than I have
at work to do this stuff.
That turned out to be a total false, so it's actually
the opposite, but I thought that it'd be really fun
to share this journey with everybody as well.
And I do, man, I really thought it would be
and parts of it were.
But almost immediately it started to unravel.
When we started to figure out the complexities
of the big tank. For instance, we had to take this big door
out to be able to even get the stand in.
And the store had had to come out in the winter.
And then we found out carrying a tank up the hill in the
winter just isn't realistic.
You're gonna carry a thousand pound tank up a hill
with ice on it. That's just not reality.
And, so when we look back at it, it's like,
that stalled us out for almost a whole season.
And at the end of that season, COVID.
You know, we're told that 1% of the population
is going to die, man.
Like that's three and a half million people
in the United States.
And now, you know, like, is it reef tank?
Or am I thinking about my family?
Or am I thinking about, you know, all kinds of stuff.
Meanwhile, everybody's hoarding toilet paper
and people are hoarding meat, all kinds of crazy stuff.
And then I'm thinking about work, as well,
because there's people there that I need to protect
and I have a responsibility to, as well.
And those people, now we made the decision immediately to,
you know, pay people like 40 hours,
have them only work 20
and then give them a bonus on top of that.
So there's half the time and half the exposure to this
crazy disease that nobody really knows anything about.
Yet, you guys actually start ordering 50% more stuff
than ever because we're all locked in our house
and what are you going to do except for your indoor hobbies?
So half the people, doing 50% more work, total chaos.
Trying to figure out how to do that safely and reliably.
I thank you guys, by the way, for all of your patience,
during that period of time. It was a rough for all of us.
But, at the same time on top of that,
my wife is pregnant that spring. Finds out she's pregnant
and that we're going to have a baby in the fall
or early winter.
And like the thought of going to a hospital at that point in
time, middle of we're all gonna die message, it's scary man,
my wife's terrified and telling her she's gonna have to wear
a mask on her face during her entire pregnancy.
And they're telling her that if she has COVID,
they're gonna have, like rip her baby away from her.
Like it's just ugh,
it's total chaos, undesirable event to be in.
The tank is like a million miles away from the priority.
But still, what you're seeing is bursts of energy.
Like, you know, Randy and I are like, all right,
this week, man, let's go in there and jam it through.
And you're gonna see us build out the walls of the fish
room. You're gonna see us get it full of water.
You're gonna see Jeremy and I plumb the tank.
You see bursts of energy, where all of a sudden taking,
like a big jump of progress.
And one of um is when it gets running,
we get it full of water.
And then like, you know what?
I was going to take my sweet time now
and I'll let this thing cycle forever.
I just don't want it to be a headache when I turn it on,
turn the lights on. And so we let it cycle for what,
I don't remember exactly the date, but like,
I want to say more than six months,
which is longer than, like,
I've ever cycled a tank my whole life.
Turn the lights on, goes total to shit.
Like, it's just, there's blooms and algae blooms.
There's like green blooms. There's bacterial blooms.
There's gunk all over the rocks.
It's just like, what the hell just happened here?
And it's not fun.
Like, and meanwhile, like not only just not fun,
but like the most public not fun of all time.
Cause I'm sharing it with you guys.
You gotta share the good along with the bad.
But like, this is not supposed to go this way.
You would think that, like, I've done this enough times
and I've cycled this rock longer than I've cycled anything
and put more thought in this than I've ever put in anything.
And I haven't done anything uniquely bad here.
What is it that is causing all these problems?
You know, eventually we get to the other side of that
and you know, we start putting corals and you know,
you're seeing it burst to
like all of a sudden, bam, here's a ton of coral.
And all of a sudden, you know,
the tank is where we want it to be.
But I'm not actually sharing it with you guys because
I don't really have the time, again.
My best time was, to take care of the tank,
was between 7:00 AM and noon on Saturdays and Sundays
where I'm trying to take care of my tank.
So take care of the kids and the tank.
I got little kids tugging on my feet asking,
daddy, why aren't you paying attention to me
while I'm scrubbing algae off the glass.
And the balance here just isn't right.
And I will tell you, prior,
like going back just a little bit,
prior to putting the corals in,
what I really had come to terms with is my work,
tank balance or life balance.
Work, life, tank balance is out of balance.
This thing should be a fish tank only.
I should fill it up with a bunch of fish that I love.
A bunch of angel fish or something cool.
I share that with my family,
it will match the time and effort that I have
to put into this. It won't require anywhere near
as much maintenance.
And I had come to terms with that was the reality of it,
but I hadn't come to the terms of disappointing all of you.
I knew if I came out and said
a message of, I give up, I'm going to make this
a fish only tank.
It just like, wasn't something that I was going to say.
And like, I ignored it.
I like decided we're going to power through.
I'm going to make time out of nowhere because I refuse to
tell that message that I give up.
It's not going to be a reef tank anymore.
And it's kind of sad because like what,
what is disappointing about a fish only tank with other
things that I love in it?
And I think that message is actually unique to a lot of
people, because some people love SPS tanks,
some people love LPS tanks,
some people love a fish tank and you know, it kind of,
everybody just kind of wants you to do the
thing that they did,
including myself.
And so I don't know, it was a missed opportunity
and probably a lesson that I'll describe a little bit later,
but I should have done what really matched
what I had time for. And it would have been more successful.
But in the end, we eventually get the tank cycled.
We eventually beat back all the problems.
I eventually decide on a hybrid solution
between a fish tank and
a SPS tank was an LPS tank.
We fill it up with your euphyllia.
I find out that I thought I liked euphyllia.
And I do, but I really love ganiopora.
That is actually something that excites my soul.
I didn't realize how many of those variations
of that coral there really were. Like in my mind,
you'd only be able to find six.
And what I found is I've found like 40 and I hadn't even
touched it.
So, some day I may have a goniopora only tank.
But alveopora actually as well, very similar,
but no a little different.
There's this point here though, like I've achieved
the dream. I'm missing one piece though.
I'm not able to share it with all of you
because I don't have the time to do it.
If I pull three hours away,
three hours away of important time with my family.
I don't see them enough as it is.
And,
so the next piece of this thing is
I'm walking through the house, I see it here,
and a lot of times there's more algae on the glass
than I would like to admit.
And a lot of times the sand isn't as clean
as I'd like to admit.
And the result of that is part of me is
I don't really want to share that.
I don't want to like get out the camera
and like the share that piece,
because this thing is actually supposed to bring joy into
your life. You're supposed to take great pride in what
you've achieved, because most people will never
even see these corals, like in their life like, alive.
You'll see them in a picture or in a video or something.
And like we're maintaining these things in our homes.
It's just like one of the coolest hobbies there is.
It's supposed to be enjoy and excitement and pride
into what you've achieved.
And when every time I walk by and see the glass is green,
it actually brings you the opposite.
It brings what I would say is disappointment.
Or maybe even shame, man.
Like I'm not doing what I set out to achieve.
Every time I see it, man, it's just like making me feel
crummy. Like I just, I'm not happy with that whole thing.
So do I get to the other side of that?
I guess I'll never know exactly
because at some point my wife tells me she wants to move.
That what we thought was our forever house
actually has very few kids that live in the neighborhood.
And the street we live on is totally unsafe to play in
and the parks are largely empty.
So, definitely I've learned I would not get in the way of my
wife's happiness or my kid's.
But in this case, I also agree with her.
What we thought was the right move is the wrong move.
As hard as it is, I have to, I mean the big thing here,
right? Care less about the house, really.
It's the fact that I poured a couple years
of my heart and soul into this tank.
It took hundreds of hours to put up.
It took four hours to disassemble.
So what are we going to do now?
So I'm going to move and I'll tell you already
that people have asked are we gonna set up a new tank
and we're going to build a new tank.
And I've already instructed them to put in a footing that
would allow for an eight foot tank that is three feet wide,
by as tall as I want to make it.
I don't really know when we'll be there
and they haven't put any desire to plan it all out yet.
But that space is there and available to me with a foot
thick concrete to make sure that it can support
what I want there. But now this is the question, is like,
is this the next leg of the journey.
Is now we're going to bring this thing to my office.
And I'm going to tell you right now that I have this giant
tank in my office it's gonna look absurd.
But, I like, it's gonna be exciting.
This is a place now where I was wrong.
I'm going to be able to enjoy it on a daily basis,
spend eight hours in my day, every day with this tank,
actually, instead of taking three hours away
from my family here, where there's a disappointment
attached to that. If I spend three hours on a tank at a BRS,
somebody will come by and say, high five man,
or give me a high five and tell me, man,
you did good work today.
And the reality is, is I get paid man,
to take care of tanks and learn something new
and share it with people for a living.
Let's put more effort into that and I'll probably be able to
share the journey even more and better in that environment
than I can here.
So we're also gonna put the sump out on the other side of
the wall. So when you're walking through the hall,
or you could see all the fun gear.
If you actually actually come to a BRS and ask for a tour,
a person up front and will walk you through it,
you'll be able to see it all.
And yes, you can actually come into my office
and see the tank as well.
And so like there, I'll get to share it with you guys more
in person and in many cases, but through YouTube, you know,
Facebook or Instagram videos or photos like this one.
I'll get to actually work on it more.
It'll be more successful.
And I think one of the like big points here is like,
it wasn't that I didn't have time for a tank.
Cause like, you know, that's the obvious question to me
is like, well, what if I don't have time for a
tank in the work, life, and tank balance?
Well, the answer isn't that it's, I actually had
figured out the answer and the answer was a fish only tank
would have fit my balance.
And the reason for that is it just doesn't take as much
effort. It doesn't take as much attention.
The lights usually aren't as bright.
They don't grow as much algae.
It's just a lot easier environment.
The organisms are less sensitive.
They don't soak up as many, you know, chemists,
uh elements of chemistry.
It's just like something that you can really enjoy without a
lot of effort. The other thing is, you know what,
like I could have done something totally different and add,
you know, a little 60 gallon tank or a, you know,
a 20 gallon NUVO in my kitchen and filled it with
goniopora, filled it with something cool,
like a cuttlefish. I could have like, you know,
found a different angle on something that could manage my
time and still be something I love.
And it didn't have to be huge, to be huge and full of fish.
It could be small and something cool, but like,
I've learned that I don't want to not have a tank at the
house. I've learned that the 50 tanks at BRS
isn't really enough. I want to share this stuff with
my family, but I need to figure out how to do it in a way
that matches that actual, you know, balance in my life
I have at the time. And so I think that's the message that
I would give to everybody. If there is one thing to learn
out of all of this, it's considering not just the end desire
that you aren't, but consider like, you know,
how much time and effort you have to put into it.
And if it's infinite, like, you know,
my first tank I set up,
you know, I like, you know,
had no kids and my fiance at the time worked nights,
like all my time was my time. I can do anything I wanted,
you know, I get, it's been six hours, you know,
chiseling out the perfect aquascape and nobody's ever
bothered me. It was perfect.
Like for this obligation, what type of tank?
Now it's just different thing.
So I don't know, like, I'd be curious to hear
what you guys think in terms of what
you would expect to be achieved
and maybe I should get out of the way there a little bit
cause you can see the stand rolling on out.
But, what I'm excited to do now is live off to the next leg
of the journey, the next leg of the journey being,
how do we make the 360 the tank that it was supposed to be?
How do we share more of the journey with you
in a more timely manner instead of in just a little quick
burst, a more prolonged journey,
more information, more lessons, more updates
and in the end show something really fantastic.
But every time that I see it, I say, man,
my life is better because this isn't it. I'm excited.
It's a piece of what I find joy in this life.
And I can't wait to share it with all of you.