Even though my grandfather bred swordtails before I was born, fish first entered my life when, at 11, I found a 1-gallon fish bowl with three albino convict cichlids on the side of the road. I brought them home, and they lived in that bowl for six months, bred, and raised their fry. That started a love affair with everything aquatic. About four years later, I worked in a fish store as one of the "saltwater guys." My interests were heavily focused on reefs, macroalgae, and invertebrates, and a chance delivery of the wrong seahorse species led me to start breeding seahorses. Eventually, I burned out from aquariums during medical school and took a break for about six years. In 2020, I returned to the hobby, but this time with a heavy focus on freshwater, particularly plants. I keep about 700 species/varieties of plants, and growing. I am breeding a few species of freshwater fish, including corries, killies, livebearers, and many egg layers.