Hahahahaha my journey, what a road. A couple spare tires & an oil change along the way, one of those.
I'll try to keep this short, no guarantee. 1992, 11 year old daughter wants a fish tank. Being pre internet the only research is a couple shops, the usual 10 gallon setup with half baked stocking & half ugly colored gravel. A few looks at books, let's keep with these few smallish fish, tank survives for years & a move to a new house, cool.
Time moves on, 1998, Dad has an apartment down the street. I stop by a few times weekly, one day there's a 55 gallon, set up, stocked, in his living room. Guy down stairs got evicted, Dad is "fishsitting", glad these guys humped that thing up to the 3rd floor. Look online, basic fish care, he's no way capable of slinging buckets due to med issues, I'm there all the time, I've got this one.
Five years later, 2003, multiple med issues are getting the better of Dad, he goes into a nursing home after 5 years of fishsitting, (they never came back!) 55 goes down the street to my place. Time for a bit more research, hit some forums, join the local fish club. Fish club. Enablers. Big time.
Club guys sell fish, cheap. Same with used gear. Get a group of angels, they pair & spawn. Get a truck load of used tanks cheap. Build racks, stack tanks, breed & sell angels. Nice money, buy more tanks, sell more fish. Get into modding, then admin on a large forum. Fish eat a lot, get into selling live blackworms & dry food to support the little buggers food addiction. Make more money, buy more tanks. Large forum gets sold to an ad agency, they suck I bail. This leaves a lot more time for, you guessed it, more tanks, more fish, more consumable sales. All the fish & consumables sales leads to driving to club events all around the Midwest, making lifelong friends, and causing untold trouble in the process with these friends.
As it sits now, 30 tanks, 1k gallons, easily another 500 gallons of empties waiting for my daughter to get her furniture out of here so I can expand. A couple refrigerators for worms, a stack of gear for auctions & swaps, and a long list of local to worldwide friends who I really have a good time with. Honestly, half of this is about fish, half about people. Fish people are crazy, I seem to fit in well!