Updated Life - Updated Fishroom

[Larry Bugg]

Thought I would kill two birds with one stone and give an update on what is happening with me and an updated video of my fishroom. I haven't been very active here for the last 6 months or so. I've worked for UPS for 35 years. I grew up in a era where the average person worked for the same Company for most of their lives. I think it is one of the things that helped make America great and it saddens me to see it change. I worked 6 years part time and 29 years in F/T management. For two thirds of my time at UPS the Company was management owned. Because we were the stockholders we took great pride in what we did and what happened with the Company. UPS went public and this all started to change. Over the last 6 months the hours and stress have taken their toll. The Company that used to care so much about the well being of the individual is disappearing. I reached retirement age/length of service about 4 years ago but haven't been ready to stop working but my family (and hobby) had started suffering because of my job situation. About 6 weeks ago I came home from work around 10 PM after a 14 hour day stressed to the max and my wife told me to go in the next day and turn in my retirement paperwork. I did just that. Last week was my last week of vacation and my retirement has now started. I'm not ready to stop working but I am looking forward to a new era. I will be looking for a job that is less hours, less stress and I enjoy again. I'm really looking forward to enjoying the Thanksgiving/Christmas Holiday which I haven't been able to do for the last 35 years..........

Oh yeah, I should also mention that my days (and nights) for the last 4 weeks have been consumed by the newest member of our Family. Ella is a rambunctious 11 week old Yellow Lab. While the whole family loves her, since I am home all day for now, she has been my constant companion. One of my goals upon retirement is to lose some weight so Ella and I have started a great walking routine. Truly mans best friend. We just have to get past the biting/chewing stage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxSyEst0KiU&feature=youtu.be

And now the fishroom. 31 tanks ranging from 20 gallons to 125 gallons. All the tanks except for the center isle are drilled and plumbed for draining. Two 330 gallon storage totes for water changes using pond pumps to fill the tanks back up. Half the tanks are for discus and the other half are for breeding Rams, Apistos, and Angels along with other occasional Cichlids. My local club (Atlanta Area Aquarium Association) runs a Breeders Award Program where we get points for each species we breed to give us a ranking. In the 125's I'm currently growing out some Severums and Heronia (from Ryan)to get pairs and earn some more points.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCIet5Y6xos&feature=youtu.be

[roclement]

Congrats on the new phase of your life Larry! Enjoy your family, and hobby, you earned it!

Rodrigo

[Second Hand Pat]

Larry, you have a smart spouse. Enjoy your new era.

[troysdiiscus]

Hey Larry, great looking tanks, very clean and beautiful. Love it.
Love the litlle lab, I have a 3 year old chocolate and love him, enjoy your new life and keep the updates coming, hope to see all the discus with fry....they would be very nice and a great grab to get....

[Chicago Discus]

Just as cute as she could be your poor wife has her hands full..Tell her I said hello :)....Josie


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxSyEst0KiU&feature=youtu.be

[Chicago Discus]

Very nice and clean Love it. But you know that I have always said that your fish-room is one of my favorites....Josie


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCIet5Y6xos&feature=youtu.be

[Trier20]

Enjoy the next stage of life Larry!

[8ftbed]

Congratulations and welcome to the pool!

IMO, part of your state of the mind at the end was simply burnout. I totally agree with you on how today's workforce is generally transient and temporary. Always trying to move up but I also feel the new generation doesn't have the stones to stick with something. They're always running towards allegedly greener grass on the other side.
I did 20 in the Navy and was going to stay for 30. One day I realized I'd had my fill and was becoming a mean cuss and retired. I followed that with 14 in corporate world. Again, all the fun I had getting paid for computer skills that began as a hobby became muted by the crap and increasing amount of plagiarizing contractor pukes. I fit a loophole which allowed retirement, although the company did not have 'early retirement', so I took the ball and ran at 53.
I'm approaching 1 year of retirement on a fixed budget. Every day is Saturday and it beats the hell out working.
Make staying free your new job and enjoy the freedom!

The fish rom and dog ROCKS!

Blaine

[DonMD]

Larry, thanks for posting this. I'm sorry to learn about UPS, we've always felt that they were a good, decent company but from what you say, that may be changing.

Ella looks like she has SHARP teeth!

A couple questions on your fish room. In the tank with the leopards, you've got some strange looking plastic bottle with white media of some type in it. What is that thing?

Then, I notice that you've got heaters in your tanks, making me think you don't heat your whole fish room like many advanced hobbyists do. Any reason for that? And how do you manage to adjust temps in all those tanks?

I enjoyed meeting you at the NADA show in Atlanta, and you're making me look forward to my own retirement, maybe sooner than I planned, too.

[Discus-n00b]

Congrats Larry!

[Larry Bugg]

Just as cute as she could be your poor wife has her hands full..Tell her I said hello :)....Josie


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxSyEst0KiU&feature=youtu.be

LOL, thanks Josie. Amanda just finished her course work for Phlebotomy. She started her 5 week internship at a local hospital yesterday. After that she takes the State board test and will then be job hunting. Since she is so much younger than me it has always been our plan that I would retire and she would go to work. So, she won't be putting up with me under foot all day long, lol.

[cupido]

Enjoy some freedom for yourself! Always like your vids.

[Larry Bugg]

A couple questions on your fish room. In the tank with the leopards, you've got some strange looking plastic bottle with white media of some type in it. What is that thing?

Then, I notice that you've got heaters in your tanks, making me think you don't heat your whole fish room like many advanced hobbyists do. Any reason for that? And how do you manage to adjust temps in all those tanks?

I enjoyed meeting you at the NADA show in Atlanta, and you're making me look forward to my own retirement, maybe sooner than I planned, too.

Hey Don, the bottles are K1 media. I have them in all my tanks now. You can find out more about it here. Josie sells the K1.
http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?98431-Crystal-Clear

My fishroom is in my unfinished basement. It is a really big basement that is studded but no wallboard so it is virtually all open space. The ceilings are about 11' high. All this means that trying to heat the fishroom vs the tanks would be difficult.

Enjoyed meeting you at NADA Atlanta also. Did you realize that NADA Austin is less than 1 year away!!

[BOBT00LS]

Enjoy your well deserved retirement Larry.


Bob

[Skip]

Did you realize that NADA Austin is less than 1 year away!!

WHAT??!?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qORouZ-qOgg

[RichT]

Congrats Larry. Well we will have to send something your way to celebrate!!!

[Chicago Discus]

Congrats Larry. Well we will have to send something your way to celebrate!!!

Im in :):)

[Kal-El]

Wow... you have a nice collection of discus... One day I hope to have a fish room like yours... Thank you for sharing...

[Chad Adams]

Hey Bud,

Sorry I missed commenting on this. The homesteader neighborhood gets a little crowded. Lol.

Congrats on your retirement. I too miss the days when a company was concerned about well-being of employees.

Tell Amanda good luck on her job search and if I can do anything to help let me know. Wish you luck also.

Chad

[YSS]

Congrats, Larry! As you demonstrated, greed is root of all evil and stock market is the best representation of it. Hope you find something you really enjoy doing. I am far from the retirement age, but I seriously started to think about doing something I really want to do instead of what I do now to put the food on the table.

[John_Nicholson]

Looks great Larry. I also agree with you about sticking with a company. I have works for the same software company for over 20 years. Not bad for a 47 year old...LOL. Now that you have more time I expect you to start cranking out discus like crazy.

-john

[Larry Bugg]

Thanks guys. One of the best by-products of the retirement has been the ability to go down to the fish room any time I want and fiddle around. I find myself just sitting a lot and observing. Something I never really had the luxury of doing before. No more midnite water changes either, lol.

[Disgirl]

Happy Retirement Larry, now you can really get in to fish =)
Barb

[OC Discus]

Larry,

Don't know how I missed it before now. Your fish room looks awesome- better than many retail outlets I've seen. I hope your fish can develop into the supplemental cash flow you desire and give you satisfaction at the same time.

What fish do you have currently for sale? In January you had a batch of Santarem fry. Are those all gone? I'll be passing through Atlanta in a couple of weeks. Would love to see your set up in person. I've had rams a few times before and have been considering a dedicated ram tank. I've also admired apistos in the past- cockatoo? What do you get for your blue rams?

[Argentum]

Hello Larry.

I have a couple of questions here, I see most of your breeding tanks are with sand substrate. So, do you have to swirl it? And how do you manage to feed the fry the quantities they need and avoid uneaten food accumulating in the substrate?

How do you manage the poop, do you vacuum all your tanks?

Sorry for the hassle, but I have 3 tanks and its time consuming to care for them properly, so I am wondering how fish room owners manage the number of tanks without making it a full time job. Maybe I am doing things the hard way.

[Larry Bugg]

Larry,

Don't know how I missed it before now. Your fish room looks awesome- better than many retail outlets I've seen. I hope your fish can develop into the supplemental cash flow you desire and give you satisfaction at the same time.

What fish do you have currently for sale? In January you had a batch of Santarem fry. Are those all gone? I'll be passing through Atlanta in a couple of weeks. Would love to see your set up in person. I've had rams a few times before and have been considering a dedicated ram tank. I've also admired apistos in the past- cockatoo? What do you get for your blue rams?

Sorry, I've been at the ACA convention and haven't been on the net since last Wednesday. The only thing I currently have for sale are some proven pairs. The Santarem were sold a long time ago. My fishroom is in my unfinished basement and during the Summer the temp gets up in the mid 80's. My storage water stays in the low 80's also. Due to this spawning activity really slows down for me during the summer. Coupled with this, I was gone for the NADA convention and now the ACA convention so I had several weeks that I would not have been able to care for fry so I didn't keep any that did spawn. I also sold all my rams about a month ago. I have a couple of pairs and now that I will be back home for a while I will start working on breeding them again. When I do have them available I usually charge $6 each. Not cockatoo, it is Cacatuoides.

[Larry Bugg]

Hello Larry.

I have a couple of questions here, I see most of your breeding tanks are with sand substrate. So, do you have to swirl it? And how do you manage to feed the fry the quantities they need and avoid uneaten food accumulating in the substrate?

How do you manage the poop, do you vacuum all your tanks?

Sorry for the hassle, but I have 3 tanks and its time consuming to care for them properly, so I am wondering how fish room owners manage the number of tanks without making it a full time job. Maybe I am doing things the hard way.

Actually all of my discus grow out tanks are bare bottom. The only discus tanks with sand in them are my wild tanks. 2 - 125 gallon and 1 - 220 gallon. The smaller tanks (20's and 29's) with sand in them are planted and are for apistios, rams, angels, ect.

[Argentum]

Actually all of my discus grow out tanks are bare bottom. The only discus tanks with sand in them are my wild tanks. 2 - 125 gallon and 1 - 220 gallon. The smaller tanks (20's and 29's) with sand in them are planted and are for apistios, rams, angels, ect.

Yes, my question still stands do you vacuum the bare bottoms daily?

And though your sand substrate tanks are not for discus, however doesn't their fry also need several feedings and so left over food? or are other fish more tolerant?

[Larry Bugg]

Yes, my question still stands do you vacuum the bare bottoms daily?

And though your sand substrate tanks are not for discus, however doesn't their fry also need several feedings and so left over food? or are other fish more tolerant?

My discus grow outs get 100% water changes daily so that means they also get the bottom vacuumed daily also. As for the other juvies they do not get fed as many times daily and they are not as sensitive to the water as discus grow outs are. I do water changes (50%) on those planted tanks every 3 to 5 days as needed. To clarify this is only in the planted tanks. If I have really large spawns of say angels or rams then those grow outs will go in bare bottom tanks and will get the daily water changes as well as the discus.

[Argentum]

Thank you.

[slout]

Larry,
Just viewed you latest YouTube. Your fish room is amazing, nice job. I loved the snow leopard and spotted leopard discus. I'm interested in a few of the fry, if they grow out (If you sale separate). Please PM with details, I'm in Georgia also. Thanks

[Larry Bugg]

Larry,
Just viewed you latest YouTube. Your fish room is amazing, nice job. I loved the snow leopard and spotted leopard discus. I'm interested in a few of the fry, if they grow out (If you sale separate). Please PM with details, I'm in Georgia also. Thanks

Thanks, they had the wigglers right before I left for the ACA convention. When I got back home they had been eaten.