Drifter

Getting long now, and got the "wolf" beard going (black with gray chin aka -wolf). Growing about 4 months, a good 3" long now when combed out.....

Well.....I'm back bitches Anyway. Dave wanted me to update the office/aquarium thread, so here's the latest. The 265g tank will have water/fish in the next 2-3 weeks, but there was a nice addition to the room over Christmas. My sister and bro in law got me this for the office which goes right next to the 265g tank. A 51" flat screen plasma TV I do have some cool new fish, I'll post pics of them later.

Yeah yeah, you missed my sexiness I know Never give up man. I don't know how long you have been hear, but if you know my past....I'm 42 and started smoking when I was 21. I stopped smoking when I was 39. I tried quiting so many times, finally did one year. Don't give up, if you really want to stop, you can.

I haven't been around much lately but just wanted to wish you guys here a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hope you are all well this holiday season. Steve

I started typng out a long response to the above, but I think I'll just erase it all and say this- I am seeing more and more why some of the more mature/older guys like Doc, Jaysin and a few others left this place. I believe I will join them as well because I've seen too many times where people's beliefs are just shit on by others like yourself here and I really don't care to deal with it any longer. Goodbye and take care all.

Happy Thanksgiving all.

20 years ago that statement would have been true, but in 2013 I have to disagree with you. When I go out and pay $9 for a hamburger..$4 for a plate of fries, then $3.25 for a fountain drink...that is already way overpriced so the idea that they keep prices down on the food by not paying the staff as they should no longer holds water in my book.

And therein lies the problem. Just because a restaurant owner is too cheap to pay a decent wage then why should the customer have to pay extra out of their pocket? I do tip yes, BUT I personally feel tipping is in fact bullshit. If you don't like the hourly pay then don't take the job, if you own a restaurant then pay your damn waitstaff a decent wage and stop expecting your customers to pick up your responsibility for paying your employees.

I'm on the list .....

......

I know it sounds like a cliche, but you can never move forward if you are looking back to the past. I totally understand your depression and thoughts of "why go on?" I had those problems myself back in my 20's, but truth be told I made a lot of my own problems for myself. I don;t want to oversimplify this, but to put it as plain as I can, you simply need to be happy about yourself and other things will fall into place. Far as the thoughts of death. It depends on what way you are thinking about that. If you mean your just thinking about mortality, then that's normal we all do that. Now that I'm in my 40's I think about my own mortality more now then I ever did, especially since my dad died when he was only 52 yrs old. I have the same genes so that worries me. If your thinking suicidal thoughts then that is different, you really should try to talk to someone in person about those thoughts if they are at all serious or often. Because that's a serious thing there and you don't want to let that happen again. Life is short man, 70-80 yrs is nothing but a blip on the radar of eternity, so don't waste your limited time here feeling sorry for yourself or wondering why you are here. We're all here to simply enjoy the gift of life that we were given so make the most of it because once it's over there is no hitting restart. Glad to hear you are feeling better today though for sure!

Mike I have never seen that video before but I gotta say wow. What a great video. I actually just saved it to my bookmarks. And honestly that describes me and the way I have lived my life for the past 8 years to a tee. There's one line in there where he says - “If you say that getting the money is the most important thing, you'll spend your life completely wasting your time. You'll be doing things you don't like doing in order to go on living, that is to go on doing things you don't like doing, which is stupid. Better to have a short life, doing what you like doing, than a long life spent in a miserable way." That's something I have been saying to my family and friends for the past 8 years. Some of them understand me and some don't. For the first 15 years of my adult working life (from age 19 till age 34) I did "What we are supposed to do" which was to have a career. I did not come from a rich family and I was just getting out of high school about the time a lot of you guys here were just being born so back then there were less people that went to college than in this current day and age. So not going to college I went into the learned trades field and I became a welder/fabricator. I did that for about 15 years and then about eight years ago when I lost my job welding I was bringing home close to $500 per week, which for a single guy without a college degree in 2005 was pretty decent money. When I lost my job I could have pretty easily went to another place and got the same type of job because I was an experienced certified TIG welder and that is a trade that is always in demand, but I decided not to do so. I ended up taking about six months off of doing anything and went up to my cabin on the river and spent some time there just fishing and thinking about life and what I wanted to do. When I came home I had made the decision that I was tired of spending 50% of my life doing something that I did not "want" to do, getting up at a time I did not want to get up at, taking orders from someone I did not even like (I hated my old boss) and simply was just tired of throwing away half the time in my life in exchange for money. So what I did was I decided since my true love in life, the one thing I loved to do more than anything else in life was to fly fish and to enjoy everything to do with fishing and the outdoors, then I would take something that I enjoyed doing (building custom fly rods) and turn that into a business so I could do something that was related to something I loved. So that's what I did and have been doing for the past eight years. The real trade off there was giving up a steady income and not making money the goal in my life. Because back then I worked so I would get that paycheck on Thursday. Now the past eight years I really live pretty much month to month. Rarely do I have more than a few hundred "extra" bucks in the bank after I pay the bills each month. I don't have any real insurance if I get sick, I have something called "care credit" which is basically a credit card used just for doctors which I pay for entirely myself like you would a credit card. Yet I'm happier now doing this than I ever was when I was making good money as a welder. Because I enjoy what I am doing There's times when I actually work longer hours now than when I punched a clock, perfect example was today. It' Sunday, yet I worked on rods from 1pm till 11pm today so that's a good 10hrs of work today. But it's different when you enjoy what your doing. While working today I had on some fishing videos, had on a couple movies, watched "Deck the halls" to get into the Christmas spirit since that is coming up, and just did my work while enjoying movies and shows. So I built rods for 10 hours but can I say I really "worked"...I dunno, you be the judge. This lifestyle is not for everyone though. I'm single, no kids, not looking for a wife and not looking to have a family of my own, don't care much for fancy namebrand stuff or any of the other high dollar items or such. I call those kind of people "plastic people" and that's just not me. But I understand people that want wives and families or big houses and all have to do careers they may not enjoy, that's just not me though. Like I said I don't have the money I use to have, but that's fine with me. As long as my bills are paid each month and I have the few things I enjoy like my immediate family, my aquariums, and being able to go fishing when I want then to me that's all I need to have an enjoyable life. Money is something that is man made and is the cause of a lot of pain and suffering IMHO. Just my .02

Just leave them in the tank and most likely if kribs are like all the other cichlids then the majority of the fry will become dinner for the parents. You may still get a few that hide well enough to grow out but then you can sell those to the local pet shops and not have to deal with raising a ton of fry.

I am starting to bro. I honestly have never had my hair longer than maybe 1-2" most my whole life, but right now it's probably 3"+...I think I may let it grown out longer too.

Well beard is well over an inch long or more. Now I am thinking of other things, like my hair lol I have never in my 42 yrs of life let my hair get more than about 1" long, but now i's at least 3+ and I am thinking of just letting it grow out maybe long for the first time in my life Gratuitous beard shot...

Well been waiting for this post for a while now, the past week I have most the "in tank" work done now. All that is left is the plumbing work, building the spraybars for the filters, adding two more 48" lights and adding four acentic bulbs, adding a pair of inline 300w heaters, and thats about it. Here's the "done" pics. since the last I have done....150lbs of white sand, worm wood, and manzetia branches. I also added some fake plants. I hate the plastic fake ones so I added silk ones which I bought from Micheals, then I cut them apart into smaller pieces, siliconed them together, added some dark green and brown fusion painted accents to add some lifelike look to them as well. Did much more, but I'll just post the pics and hope you enjoy the3 way it is. Hopefully in a few weeks the next time you see it there will be fish in it 8) This has been 6-8 months of work, so hope you guys enjoy. The next post should have water and FISH

Actually it's not that bad. Modern aquarium equpiment has come a long way since the old days of power draining T12 lights and other high draw equipment. Now with the advances like T5 lights and energy efficent filters and heaters it's only a fraction of the power consumption they use to be. I average around $140-$160 per month for the electric bill.

Spent some time yesterday working in the filter room behind the tank getting it cleaned up so I have room behind the tank for easy tank maintenance and decided to build a stand for the dual filters. I always hate bending over to do maintenance on filters so I figured I'd make things a bit easier and get them up a bit higher so I built a stand for them using leftover wood and red oak that I had left from one of my 55g stand builds. Figure if I was gonna go to the trouble to make a filter stand then might as well make it nice even if it is hidden behind a wall ;D Also found a use for one of the spare 20G hood/light combos I have had laying around. Repurposed it it into a light over the filter table.

He's about 4.5" to 5"

Just got home with this guy, picked him up from a local fish club friend. I don't want to say its a "rare" fish, but it is not a common species by any means. Paid $40 for him but very worth it IMO. It's called a Green Face Mloto.

I received my order of Pond Armor / Pond Shield the other day and after getting home from the fish auction yesterday I spent the evening coating the entire background with Pond Armor. For those that don't know what that is it's basically a clear 2-part epoxy that is used for sealing/waterproofing ponds so it is fish safe non toxic. What it does is it seals the background so that fish like plecos will not be able to damage it, algae should wipe right off easily, and should make the background extremely durable for years of use in the tank. And four complete tubes of GE silicone I* later and the whole background is now permanently installed. Making some real progress now. Hopefully my goal of having fish in it by Thanksgiving will be attainable still. . . Also started working on the cave lights as well. Using the same style internal inverter cold cathode light bars on this one as I have my previous builds. Testing out the right side cave lights here.

yep. . .