Hi, my name is Alan and I live in Hampshire, in the UK (40 miles west of London). I am married with three sons (16 to 21) and have been keeping aquariums on and off for 45 years. Over this time I have had mainly a mid sized community tank but I did delve into Marines about 30 years ago but which turned out to be a costly disaster.
Three months ago I converted my 200l tank into a discus tank having not realised that discus from 3.5" plus are far more hardy than the juveniles.
I have just ordered a 60" x 30" x 24" custom tank, sump and cabinet (approx 160g incl. sump) from a UK supplier to provide a more stable and spectacular environment. I have been learning lots from this forum about the Overflow & plumbing options, Auto WC etc. I am looking at a Coast to Coast overflow and I intend keeping a diary of this tank build when I take delivery and will post it up on the forum. My wife is threatening doing likewise but from a more humorous stance, i.e. from the perspective of a incredulous wife who really can't see the motivation beyond what we already have got apart from far greater expense on equipment, another £700+ of stock, a greater risk of leakage over our wooden floors etc. Worth every penny I say as she isn't the one having to do two manual WC's a week using four 25l tubs. She knows it keeps me happy so she is fine with it really but I am reminded of the adage '... many a true word is spoken in jest!'. The way I see it is that if writing her own journal helps with her stress it is a lot cheaper than therapy! :-)
My other hobby is Metal Detecting and I am a member of a few clubs that organise digs in the UK which involve the county archaeology finds officer, so quite legitimate! We find generally find iron age, bronze age, Celtic, Roman, Anglo Saxon, hammered coins (medieval) artefacts and coinage.
Metal Detecting is my outside passion whilst my Discus tank is my inside passion and takes a far greater proportion of my spare time (plus time that arguably isn't spare when 'her indoors' points at the 'to-do' list! lol!