MOTW - Feb 10 - Feb 16 2012 - Deranged Chipmunk!

[deranged chipmunk]

everybody had enough of me? or do i need to add more?? please tell me you're sick of reading my drabble...LOL

[flybyferns]

everybody had enough of me? or do i need to add more?? please tell me you're sick of reading my ...LOL

You're kidding ...right ? You're are allowed to 'drabble'. It's you're day !

[deranged chipmunk]

ok, i know the stuff Lynn wants to know. i got my love for plants from my mother, who spent her entire adult life as a florist. i remember being young and hanging out in the flower shop my mom used to own. i would take the 'prayer plant' into the bathroom and turn the lights on and off, hoping to see the leaves fold up. yeah, i was a dumb kid and forgot a flashlight. lesson learned. from then on, i always had a love for plants. the same basically happened with fish. we got our first family fish tank when i was about 6 or so. i spent hours in front of it, watching the fish swim. not long after that, at the church carnival, my brothers (2) and i each won a goldfish. they were superman, batman and robin. hey, we were kids!!LOL well, mom, not realizing what she was doing, displayed them proudly on the nice, big console tv. needless to say, after school i was the one to inform mom that superman, batman and robin all learned the same, new trick. how to swim upside down!! i thin that was the day i decided i needed to learn how to care for fish my own darned self!! LOL when i was 13, i asked dad if i could get my own fish tank. i was told, sure, go get a job. and i entered the working world. that paper route paid for my first tank, and the rest, as they say, is history.

i have always had hobbies that challenged my creativity. i learned how to play a little guitar, i have done woodworking, including turning my own pool cues on a lathe. i even spent many years tattooing. that was fun!! oh my, the things i got to do and see while tattooing. definitely NOT pg-13....lol i also LOVE to cook and bake. and i am rather good at it there are only 3 things in this world where i have a bit of an ego. my tanks, my job and cooking.....lol but of all the "creative stuff" i have done, i was always drawn back to fish. well anything in a glass cage really. when i saw my first paludarium a while back, i knew it was my "calling". i get to use all the knowledge i have about aquatics, terrestrials and animals? i'm in!! i LOVE a good challenge, and have never backed down from one and i never will. so, if you ever want to get my creative juices flowing, just challenge me with something. i may pull it off, i may not, but i will give it my all.

one last thing. i want to thank ALL the people on the forum for being so kind and welcoming. that even includes the lurkers who never post. i belong to a lot of forums, but i spend the most time on this one, because this is like "home" to me. so once, again, thank you everyone!!

that's all for now, i need to hit the viv section to start a new build thread

[FriedrichsFrogs]

congrats Bill u deserve it dude! BTW that duckweed adds a real nice touch to my tank. it hasnt overgrown yet but im defintly going to look into natural greenery in the near future so youll be seeing me again...and i get to see ur latest project lol

[Geo]

Congrats Bill

[deranged chipmunk]

i missed pic day!! sorry folks, i was dealing with the flu last week. i took a few pics of my enclosures and tanks tonight and figured i would post a few:
the brown mantella temp enclosure. you can see a bit of my hissing cockroach tank and some of my white's tank in the pic. space it tight right now with the 125 rebuild going on"


my 75g planted tank. this just underwent a replant. hence the floating plants. it now houses all of my rare cryptocoryne species:




oh, and the 2 plastic bins you see at the top of the first pic is my hissing cockroach and dubia breeding bins. they get awesome heat from the t5ho lighting.
this is my 30g yellow and crs shrimp tank. :



current pics of the Mantella tank, including my new mini phaleanopsis orchid:


my white's tank:

sorry for the poor pic, but it's the only one i have of it and it's currently housing a very poor looking maidenhair fern i am trying to revive for the 125.

a sneak peek at the 125 rebuild (i made this intentionally dark). planted it temporarily with a very large bird's nest fern. i swear, all i need is leaf litter at this point and it will look awesome!!LOL

[deranged chipmunk]

and now the froggies!!


and no pic set would be complete without my doggie Mandy. she's the apple of my eye and my bestest friend:

[Lija]

Bill! WOW! i was just starring at your mantella tank for at least 10 min, people even run to check if I'm ok lol I. AM. SPEECHLESS! and that doesn't happen often lol wow

[Sasha]

Very impressive tanks. I have a brother that has been into building things his entire life, he currently makes kitchen/bathroom cabinets. When he was 18 he built a 100 gallon fish tank to house his two tiger oscars. A few years ago he built another tank, he posted the build on the web I'll try to find the site. Anyway, seeing your builds makes me wish that he lived closer to me, he would totally be into building a frog tank and he'd have to pick your brain for ideas!