S2-E37: Fuck Your Ego, It's Costing You More Than You Think with Kent Wallace

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Deep End with Eric Triplett

Episode: S2-E37 – "Fuck Your Ego, It’s Costing You More Than You Think" with Kent Wallace
Air Date: April 17, 2026
Host: Eric Triplett (“The Pond Digger”)
Guest: Kent Wallace

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into a “silent killer” of progress in the trades and pond industry: ego. Through candid stories and technical deep-dives, Eric and Kent unpack how ego can block innovation, collaboration, and growth—sometimes stalling industry progress for decades. The heart of the episode revolves around a prime example: the 20-year standstill of the Nexus pond filter and the birth of Kent’s new self-cleaning retrofit kit, “The Fix”—a solution to a long-standing problem, finally realized after egos and missed collaboration held things back.

The conversation also weaves in technical wisdom on pond filtration, the value of repurposing and improving legacy products, the creative process, and the generational wisdom within the water feature community.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Hidden Cost of Ego in the Trades

• Eric opens by naming ego as a "silent killer" in the industry—a force that keeps people from collaborating, asking for help, or seizing opportunities.

  "Sometimes it costs decades of progress within an industry... That could be the exact thing that's holding you back right now or me back right now from our businesses." (Eric, 00:45–01:44)

• Kent and Eric recount a watershed moment where two top industry minds (Jasper Kuiper and William Lim) refused to collaborate over personalities, stalling a technical solution for seemingly personal reasons—costing innovation for two decades.

Technical Deep Dive: The Nexus Filter and “The Fixx”

History of the Nexus Filter's Problems

• Kent recalls the evolution of the Nexus filter, from its micro-screen days, plagued by maintenance issues and failed self-cleaning designs, to less effective upgrades ("the Answer," sponge blocks, and “Easy center”).

  "Here one guy has a problem, the other guy has a solution, and they're both like, screw you. No, screw, you know." (Kent, 09:55)

Ego Blocks Innovation

• The original Nexus issue could have been solved through collaboration between Jasper and William, but personality clashes (“screw that guy!”) prevented it.

  "It's just a shame to think about, you know, what might be today. You know, like, how many of these might be out there is still working." (Eric, 38:47)

Kent's New Self-Cleaning Retrofit: The Fix

• Kent explains building “The Fix” (a floating micro-screen retrofit kit) to revive dormant Nexus filters, restoring them to their self-cleaning intent—solving what ego left broken for years.

  • He details the step-by-step technical evolution, challenges, and solutions in engineering the kit.
  • The kit is receiving international interest since he posted it online.

  “When I first posted it on the internet, I got a thousand hits in the first two days... two or three people called me from around the world saying, how soon are you going to have a kit available?” (Kent, 14:42) "This episode is the fix to the answer. This is the fix to the Nexus." (Kent, 15:55)

  • Plans are in place to extend the solution to Helix filter bodies as well.

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How Legacy, Innovation, and Ego Intersect

Repurposing the Old, Not Just Replacing

• Kent champions the idea of modifying and improving existing equipment rather than discarding and replacing:

  "It's a container. Just fix it... Why charge them $2,000 for a new filter when you can charge them $500 to fix theirs and then do some other stuff for them?" (Kent, 46:12)

Water Feature Filtration Principles and Industry Learning

• The episode is a masterclass in filtration design, touching on:

  • How moving beds come from wastewater treatment, not koi-industry invention (21:09–21:34)
  • The importance of matching expectation to technology—"It's not what you use, it's how you use it.” (19:32–19:49)
  • Insights on proper biological and mechanical filtration, and the myth of the "magic box"
  • Innovations like Kent’s air driven dilution reactor and adapting moving bed concepts
  • Importance of an initial settlement tank for low-maintenance, healthy ponds (30:09–30:44)

• Practical Advice: How to use pond waste to fertilize gardens and work in league with “Mother Nature’s rules.” (31:44–33:49)

Ego Stories from Industry History

• Eric connects the Nexus saga to other tales of ego in the pond world, like the breakup and shelving of Pond Sweep after the Wittstock family split:

  "My ego got in the way...I was nervous that that product would get shelved and that was not good enough for me." (Eric, 43:33)

• Both hosts reflect on the sad but common pattern: collaboration blocked by stubbornness, and industry progress stymied by personal rifts.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Kent, on industry personalities:

  “When you get old… it just comes out. My wife has always told me I don’t have any inner dialogue. It’s all out.” (Kent, 04:21)

• On missed collaboration:

  “So here one guy has a problem, the other guy has a solution and they're both like, screw you. No, screw you." (Kent, 09:55)

• On the emotional weight of innovation delayed:

  “It stings when you realize the only thing stopping this wasn’t some big technical mystery. It was just ego—someone saying ‘I’m not calling that guy.’” (Eric, paraphrased)

• On building solutions:

  "Sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same… if you just go back and just have a slow enough water moving in a vortex in a tank and you have the water moving slow enough to let solids settle out...it works so good.” (Eric, 27:52)

• On legacy and giving back:

  "I think I am the single most prolific technical writer in the pond industry. In the world. Only because I was forced at gunpoint for a blog..." (Kent, 73:26)

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Key Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment | Details | |-----------|-------------|---------| | 00:45–03:44 | Introduction & Theme | Ego as a “silent killer” in business and trades | | 04:52–13:30 | Nexus Filter History | Technical backstory, failures, and evolution | | 09:14–14:42 | Ego Blocks the Fix | Story of failed collaboration: Jasper vs. William | | 14:42–20:06 | The Birth of the Fixx | Development, modifications, and online response | | 27:52–30:44 | Filtration Fundamentals | Gravity vs. pressurized, importance of space and system design | | 38:28–43:38 | Ego and Lost Legacy | Other historic ego-driven splits (Wittstocks, product shelving) | | 46:03–52:37 | On Repurposing Filters | Modify, don’t throw away—creative solutions for aging tech | | 63:37–68:49 | Technical Deep-Dive | Air-driven dilution reactor; roots in industry experimentation | | 66:41–70:04 | Pond Trade Magazine | Kent’s writing legacy and lessons from tenured pros |

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Takeaways for Listeners

• Ego can cost you decades: Don’t let pride block you from innovation, partnerships, or even asking for guidance.
• Collaboration beats rivalry: Often, the best solution is sitting between two people—if only they decide to talk.
• Technical wisdom endures: The principles of good water management—settlement first, slow flow, right tool for the job—never go out of style, no matter what new tech emerges.
• Fix, don’t just replace: Creative modification of legacy systems can serve your customers better and more affordably.
• Industry is community: The deepest knowledge—and the best stories—come from long-term relationships and real conversations.

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Final Reflection & Call to Action

Eric closes with gratitude for community and a challenge to listeners:

“Where in your life or your business is your ego slowing you down, holding you back? Where are you refusing to listen, collaborate, or even have a conversation that could change everything? That's the work.” (Eric, 81:14–end)

For pond builders: Got an old Nexus filter? The Fix is coming soon. Stay tuned, reach out to Eric or Kent, and don’t let great ideas die in the boneyard.

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For More

• Connect/Order “The Fix”: Contact Eric or Kent directly; more info coming online and possibly in Helix-compatible kits.
• Community: Join the TWT Contractor Circle on Facebook, and The Pond Professionals Alliance for advanced discussion, accountability, and learning.
• Pond Trade Magazine: Dive deep into the knowledge base—Kent is the world’s most prolific technical writer on the topic.

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Episode tone: Honest, unfiltered, practical, with the humor and warmth of trade veterans sharing stories over wine by a pond.

Transcript

[Eric Triplett]

Welcome to the Deep End with Eric Triplett, the pond digger. This is the show for contractors, tradesmen and entrepreneurs who want more from their business and from themselves. Eric brings decades of experience as a seven figure contractor with expertise in leadership, sales systems, and the discipline it takes to build something real. Shaped by years in the aquatics world, his insights are rooted in precision, craftsmanship, and performance. If you're done skimming the surface and ready to go deeper, it's time to dive in.

There's a silent killer in business that not many people want to talk about, and I'm even guilty of it at times. I have to admit. It's not competition or pricing. It's not even the economy. It's ego. Ego is the thing that makes you say, I don't need that guy. It's the thing that stops you from picking up the phone and collaborating when you really need it, from solving problems that are sitting right in front of you. And sometimes it costs more than a missed opportunity. Sometimes it costs decades of progress within an industry. And today's conversation is with my dear friend Kent Wallace. And what we get into here isn't just theory. It's not exactly how I thought this interview would go, but it's kind of like the way it landed. And it's real stories from inside the industry, the pond industry, Real moments where innovation was right there on the table, right at someone's fingertips, and nobody would move because of ego. This episode kind of turned into a gut check for me because if you're not careful, the same thing that stalled a really cool and creative progress product in an. In a. In our industry, like something that stalled it for two decades. That could be the exact thing that's holding you back right now or me back right now from our businesses. We have to become self aware. And I think these stories are really interesting twists to our industry and. And I hope you enjoy it. Welcome to the Deep End. Hey, what's up, everyone? Welcome back to the Deep End. It's triplet here. Listen, you have one of those friends. You know which one I'm talking about when you're together with them and they just think differently than you and you think like, I'm afraid to get inside that person's mind, but wow. I think I could learn a lot from just being around that person. But you're terrified of what it would be like inside their mind. Yeah. That's who I have on the show tonight, one of my dearest friends in the industry. Right now, I'm in Las Vegas, sitting in a beautiful Backyard. The desert is perfect. Right now it's maybe 69 degrees sitting next to a beautiful pond that's about 25 years old. Big, beautiful fish in there. Some water falls in the background of the sides. And I've already been inside this person's mind for an hour before the podcast. And I said, just quit talking. Let me go get the. Let me go get the headsets and the rodecaster. Because every time I talk to this guy, I feel like it should be. Should be pressing record and documenting the journey. One of my dearest friends, Kenton Wallace. Welcome to the show.

[Kent Wallace]

Hey, welcome. I'd like to welcome myself to your show. Yes. It's like, when somebody says it, nice to have you, you're always supposed to say, well, thanks for being had.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, nice to be had. You know, I. When, you know, when I got through my. My cancer battle, you know, and people would be like, hey, it's great to see you. I'd be like, it's great to be seen, bro. Trust me. Like, trust me. It's great to be seen. You know, some people don't understand. They don't understand how to take that. Like, what the hell does that mean? But, like, unless you've been in that weird position, you don't really know. But I'm. I'm glad to be had by Ken Wallace.

[Kent Wallace]

I love saying absurd people just for sport, because when you get old, you know, I'm going to be 70 this year. It's like, I don't care. It just comes out. My wife has always told me I don't have any inner dialogue. It's all out.

[Eric Triplett]

It just. Just comes out. No matter what, no matter who you're talking to, what's going on. Yeah, you're always fun to be at parties with.

[Kent Wallace]

See? Yeah. Sometimes it's just not wearing the lampshade at a party. Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

What's. What's new for you in the. In the. In the pond world? What are you doing? What's going on?

[Kent Wallace]

Well, what's new for me? Well, I'm working on my. I think I showed it to you last time you're up here a month or so ago. I'm working on the autofill dedicated to a pond autofill and in wall dedicated autofill. But then I've had this thing in my brain and you've seen it a couple of times now. The. The Nexus fix. I'm naming it the Fix fix.

[Eric Triplett]

It used to be called the Answer. Right.

[Kent Wallace]

Well, when Nexus first came out, what was it, 25 years ago or Whatever, you know, Jasper Kuiper I believe is who created it in England. And it was around. Since I've been in the coin industry and I've never actually installed one. I've made parts to repair them. When the boots and things would fall off. I used to make rings to fix them, repair them and things like that. But I've never actually. That's Casey.

[Eric Triplett]

That's our God. There's a guard dog, might have been a cat that was going to attack us right now. Right.

[Kent Wallace]

Okay. So anyway, I've had this. Like I said, I've been around nexuses my whole life. I've never ever installed one. You know, it's a moving bed and a pre filter and they had a lot of problems. So in the beginning with the center portion, which was the pre filter, it was a micro screen that Jasper Kuiper had created. I, I mean I'm pretty sure he did that and I've met him for.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, I talked to him.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, I like Jasper and. But the answer was a stationary micro screen that had a motorized spray bar assembly that spun around on the inside of it and they had a lot of problems and they failed. So then they put in a big sponge block which was just a big giant sponge filter which didn't do the same thing at all because you have to clean it. And then later on I'm not sure who it was because I think the ownership got transferred to, To. Who is it that is marketing the Nexus now?

[Eric Triplett]

Evolution.

[Kent Wallace]

Evolution Aqua. I'm sorry, my brain. Yeah. So you know, Evolution Aqua and they made their easy center is what they called it and it's just the same media as a static pre filter but you still have to clean it. They made an air blower thing to clean it and everybody kind of hated it, even though, I mean it works until you have to clean it and it's pain. It doesn't. It wasn't the floating or it wasn't the micro screen that it was created for, which meant all you had to do was just drain it once in a while. You didn't have to clean anything because it was self cleaning. Well, about 15 years ago or so I was at the Jacksonville, at a Jacksonville Koi Club event and I was on a bus with Jasper. We were going back and forth to some event there and I told Jasper, I said, you know, William Lim has purchased the rights to the floating micro screen. He bought them from Aquatic Echo.

[Eric Triplett]

It was a patent, is a patent.

[Kent Wallace]

And it was patented then. Okay. So I was on a bus going back and forth to something at this event. I don't even remember what. It was a long time ago. And I told Jasper, I said, you know, William Lim bought the rights to the floating micro screen from Aquatic Echo. And you need to call him and collaborate because that would bring your Nexus back to its original intent. And the floating micro screen really has no moving parts because the screen floats with the water.

[Eric Triplett]

So nothing mechanical at all.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, it has spray bars, but the spray bars are stationary. There's no pump involved. It just uses existing pump pressure, about a thousand gallons an hour off the existing pump. And I'd been installing Williams micro screens. I've got one over there on my pond. It's 18 years old. You know, it works great. So Jasper looks at me and he says, william Lim. Screw that guy. I can't send William

[Eric Triplett]

rightfully. So William's kind of a pain in the head.

[Kent Wallace]

Well, he is. He was always. Yeah, sure. But, you know, he mentored me into this industry. In fact, I met you through him at an event at his place. I thank him for that, you know, and he calls me all the time still, even though he's retired. So I called William and I said, william, you know the Nexus unit, you know, Jasper's got a problem with the micro screen in the center of it, and you have a product that can fix that. And he goes, oh, screw that guy, Jasper Kyber. Screw Jasper Kyber. So here one guy has a problem, the other guy has a solution, and they're both like, screw you. No, screw, you know,

[Eric Triplett]

terrible.

[Kent Wallace]

So that was a long time ago, like 15 years ago or more. I don't even know. So, and then right after that friend of mine from our koi club had a couple of Nexus units and he was moving and he did put him somewhere. So he asked me if I could storm for him. I've got room over there. So they had literally been sitting over at the side of my house for at least 15 years in the sun, just baking. Yeah. And I'm not sure what the plastic is they use, but it is phenomenally UV resistant. I know it's not super salt water resistant because there are a lot of people that have had deterioration problems in a heavy saltwater environment. But out here, all the guts on the inside were rotted out. You know, the tubing stuff. So anyway, and then, you know, the show was coming up and clear.

[Eric Triplett]

The All American Koi Show.

[Kent Wallace]

The All American Koi show was coming up.

[Eric Triplett]

The third annual.

[Kent Wallace]

Okay, so this was about two months ago, probably maybe a month and a half. And I'm trying to build a new shop, I'm trying to clear space, get rid of stuff. And these two Nexus units, I mean they're big, they're huge, they're 4 foot wide and 3ft tall. And I got them stacked and I can't see around them and I was like ah, okay. So I drug one out front and I cleaned it up. I replaced all the aeration through some media in it, got that part working and I had, I've got a whole bunch of Williams micro screens over here so in different phases of apartment and together. So I put one of the micro screens in it, made a center hub for it, built a spray bar assembly and the thing works. It was just too big for it, the big micro screen. But I knew William made a smaller one or the 55 gallon drum size or the, or his wave 24 tanks and so I had some pieces for one of those. So I, because the bigger one fit too close to the sides. The Nexus unit really doesn't have a large enough settlement pre filter area. It needs to be like twice as big as it is but with a micro screen on it. That works it, it'll work. You know, if it was, didn't have a micro screen and it's not nearly big enough. So I sat out there and put all the pieces together and made it work and I got it running. I thought wow, this thing has been in my brain for 15 years. Works just exactly the way I thought it would.

[Eric Triplett]

That is so cool.

[Kent Wallace]

But the screen like I say was too large. So I took the smaller one and put it in and that allowed more space between the wall of the inner chamber and the screen. So as the particles got blown off the screen they had a chance to fall to the bottom with the bigger screen the screen was so tight to the side, you know it self clean but the stuff couldn't fall to the bottom.

[Eric Triplett]

So it just gets stuck again.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, it just gets stuck again. But it worked, it worked great. And I had it running out there and I used a William Lim one. I used a. God, it's probably 15 year old William Lim one, 15 horsepower pump and it's sitting on my quarantine tank. Works perfect still. I put it on there and it was about the right size for a Nexus because the Nexus is only made to handle 14 inch bottom drain and it maxes out at like 3,600 to 4,000 gallons an hour. That's all it's meant for. Which is fine if you know, I mean people always try to Use filters for either more than they were meant for or something they weren't meant for. And then they complain about it.

[Eric Triplett]

Hey, it's Tripoli here. Let's be real. In a world of reels, swipes and virtual trends, it's EAS easy to forget what really moves the needle. Pawn Trade magazine isn't chasing clicks, it's preserving the craft of water features, arguably the last stronghold of long form education in our industry. Where real pond builders, koi pros and innovators share their knowledge unfiltered and unrushed. You won't find gimmicks or clickbait in pawn Trade. You'll find depth, detail, strategy, story. From advanced filtration systems and aquatic plant care to retail strategies and contractor spotlights, pond trade is where the best in the business speak freely and where the next generation of pond builders learn what it really takes. If you build ponds for a living, maintain them, design them, or dream about doing it all better, this is your magazine. Delivered free, written by professionals, respected, respected by the entire industry. This isn't just content for the algorithm, it's content for legacy. Subscribe [e-mail] stay connected to the heart of the pond. Now back to the show.

[Kent Wallace]

I went through two or three modifications on it and it worked great. So I, I put a filter on, a really cool filter for the spray bar assemblies because I'm making my spray bar assemblies have smaller nozzles and they're easier to build than, than Williams were was. So I solved all those issues and I probably modified it three different times until I got it the way I want and then I took it to the show last week and to show it off. But when I first posted it on the Internet, I got a thousand hits in the first two days and, and two or three people called me from other parts of the world saying, how soon are you going to have a kid available? Yeah, you know, and have a bunch of people here that are all saying let me know when you're going to have a kid available. You know, and I'm not saying it's an upgrade. I mean it's an upgrade, I think from what the Nexus is now. It's not an upgrade from what it was its original intent was. Because all this really does is it brings it back to its original intent in a way that will actually function. Because the answer didn't like life, it just died.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

So anyway, this is the fix to the answer. This is the fix to the answer. Yeah, the fix to the Nexus. So I'm really excited about that. I've remolded the top and the bottom, and I'm gonna assemble the screen differently because I never really liked the way it was assembled. And I'm gonna actually embed the screen material into the molded parts instead of nut and bolting them to it because those nuts and bolts are always hitting things and smacking things, and they're just in the way. So anyway, it's in my brain, so I redoing it. Plus, I needed it about two to two and a half inches shorter because the ones I have only have about an inch up and down. And that's not enough for. To make up for how much a pond might go up and down. So I needed at least three inches of flotation. So I'm making the whole unit shorter. But I'm not giving up any screen space because the way I'm remaking the top and the bottom makes up for the distance without having to shorten the screen. And the screen's already more than what the answer had to begin with. So it'll probably actually end up being better in the long run. Just because.

[Eric Triplett]

Just because.

[Kent Wallace]

So I'm. I've got the molds for the top and the bottom done. I'm working on my jig for the screens. I was doing that today, and I'm really excited to see what happens.

[Eric Triplett]

It's. It's very cool because I know there's. I know there's a lot of Nexuses in boneyards. Like, like people took them off because they got maybe frustrated or something like that. Right?

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

I mean, it's still in the marketplace. Right. But what. How do they change it now?

[Kent Wallace]

So we're like, I don't know, because they're selling it with the easy center,

[Eric Triplett]

and so it's just harder to clean.

[Kent Wallace]

It's just harder to clean.

[Eric Triplett]

So this is the self cleaning.

[Kent Wallace]

Yes, this is the self cleaning version, which was its original intent. And interesting enough, now that I've started doing this, I started following couple of guys in England that have been talking about one guy. His claim to fame is he's yanking Nexus units out and putting in box filters that are his big claim to fame now. You know, we all know that the, that that inline box filtration is as old as it gets. That's what the Japanese were doing ages ago.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

You know, there's nothing new there. Yeah, he just has his new version of the same old thing and he's putting it in there, and all of a sudden the water clears up. Well, The Nexus was never made as a fines filter. It was only meant to pull the heavy fines out from a bottom drain and have biological. And have biological. And you're supposed to do your fines control and your water clarity with a secondary unit of some kind. You know, pick your my favorites and upflow Santa gravel filter. But it could be a bead filter, it could be brushes, it could be anything that you want to use to do fines control. But then that's not what the Nexus was ever made for. But it does a great job as a single bottom grain unit.

[Eric Triplett]

Separation tank and biological.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

It's interesting because you said you know what it was meant for and I think, I don't know if it's done, if it's marketing or people ignoring marketing, but people's people end up with certain expectations. You know, it's just like when you meet that person that has a 250 gallon McCourt plastic tub and they're like, oh, I have a filter. Like, hey, tell me about your filters. Oh, I got a filter and it's in the bottom of the thing, but it's that little shoebox with bio balls in it and a pump that's got a fountain on it. And that's their filter. And it's like, well, that's their expectation that that's my filter. So it's very interesting. It's either the marketing or the, or ignoring marketing that people run into trouble.

[Kent Wallace]

Right? Yes. Yeah, exactly. And I think most people don't really understand fil. I mean, a filter is just a box. It's what you do with it. You know, what's in it, how does it operate, how easy is it to clean. But it's still just a container.

[Eric Triplett]

How fast the water goes through it.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

What's inside of it?

[Kent Wallace]

What's inside it? Yeah. How to clean it, how to clean it. Yeah. So you know these. I, I know. And then I talked to a couple of people that show that told me now that I have this fixed, they're gonna start looking for old Nexuses that are in boneyards because he says they know they're out there.

[Eric Triplett]

I literally have two in my boneyard right now. And that' saying like I, I, I need, I need the fix to the answer.

[Kent Wallace]

Are you looking for the free one or are you the first customer?

[Eric Triplett]

No, I'll pay. I'll, I will pay and I'll market for.

[Kent Wallace]

I'll know. Oh, you know what? You're worth it.

[Eric Triplett]

I'll, I'll pay and I'll market For you. Let's get it done. I'll say no, I have a couple. Because I think I always thought it was really cool and I learned a lot from Jasper. You know, it's. I feel like it was longer than 15 years ago, but. But it could have been around that time. I remember being at a koi show with him and having long conversation like this is way pre podcasting, but we talked a lot about moving bed, moving bed technology. And it stuck with me. And many years later, I was in Illinois with Mike White, God rest his soul. I was with Mike White and he was doing moving bed stuff. And then that's when I came home and I was like, I'm going to build a moving bed waterfall filter. Kent, I need your help.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, right. And we did, and it worked great. And you know, the interesting is moving beds come from the wastewater treatment industry. Nobody in the koi pond industry invented them, of course. They just packaged them in a unit like the K1. It's somebody's commercial wastewater treatment media. Nobody made it for the pond industry.

[Eric Triplett]

You know, it's out there and there's

[Kent Wallace]

a dozen of those or more.

[Eric Triplett]

It's in the aquarium industry.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, yeah. It's everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. If you go to one of the. Is it. I've been to a couple of the WEF conventions that are the waste wastewater treatment industry conventions. You'll find a dozen or more different manufacturers all with their same media.

[Eric Triplett]

Dude, we need to go to one of those. They have. They're probably in Las Vegas, right?

[Kent Wallace]

The one I went to a long time ago was in New Orleans, but I don't know if they've ever had one here. They have every convention on the planet here. That's why I like, like going to them. But.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, why, like, we gotta go to one? That'd be fun.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah. They have all kinds of neat stuff. Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

What do you think Jasper's up to nowadays?

[Kent Wallace]

I have no idea. Like to talk to him.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. You think he's got a big exit

[Kent Wallace]

and like, I'd like to send him a photo of the fix.

[Eric Triplett]

Oh, he's like, remember I told you double X. Double X. Oh, my God. Hey, it's triplet here. Listen. In a world where quality is often overlooked, Helix Life Support stands for proud bringing you American made excellence for your koi ponds and water gardens. And I want you to know I worked in the field for over 15 years and had professionally built nearly a thousand ponds before I designed my own proprietary filtration equipment. So trust and believe when I say that Helix Life support is a product line that was crafted for those who demand durability, advanced technology and a deep commitment to to fish friendly designs. Now at the heart of the product line is our patented award winning Helix pond skimmer. Built with the safety for your koi and other fish as our top priority. No sharp edges, no unnecessary risks. Just an innovative fish friendly skimmer you can trust. And every piece of Helix equipment that's made is with high quality materials so you can get a filtration system that's as tough and reliable as it is efficient. Whether you're a first time pond builder or a professional contractor looking to elevate your game, my team and I are ready to help you realize that vision for personalized pond design assistance or to get your hands on Helix Life support filtration equipment. Give us a call today at 800-522-5043. That's 800-522-5043. Support American craftsmanship and choose Helix Life support for your pond. Built for koi, built for life. Built for you. Have you sent it to William?

[Kent Wallace]

No.

[Eric Triplett]

Is, is there still a patent on that?

[Kent Wallace]

No, it's, it's, it's gone. It's up.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

William bought the patent rights from Aquatic Ecosystems, who bought them from the guy who was the original inventor of the floating micro screen. And I think that there was some agreement because William still had to pay that guy for every unit sold. And I. So I think he bought the rights to that guy from Aquatic Ecosystems originally. So. And he changed, he changed some things on it when he, when he did it.

[Eric Triplett]

You know, I talked to that guy's son one time.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

At one of these koi shows. I wish I could remember. I don't have a memory like you, like you're inside of your head. Scary. But I remember I talked to the guy, it must have been in Del Mar. And the guy came to me, he's like, hey, my dad invented this. And he talked about it for a little bit.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

He looked around for a while and then boom, he evaporated. I never got his name or anything.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah. You know, Yeah, a fun. Yeah, that would have been an interesting conversation because what. The original one had one spray bar, so I don't even know how it worked because even with Williams with two spray bars, they work fine. But I always had to put some kind of a filter on the inlet because, you know, it doesn't take much to clog up a little 8th inch hole over time when you got biofilm and algae.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

Living all over everything. And how many spray bars in a fix? Three, of course. Three spray bars. And I've alternated the pattern so each, each spray is a quarter inch apart.

[Eric Triplett]

Got it.

[Kent Wallace]

So instead of having long spray bars that are spraying the same spot on either side an inch apart, all the way down, I'm covering every quarter inch all the way down in three spray bars. So if you look at the bars laid out, they're all staggered. The, all the little nozzles are staggered.

[Eric Triplett]

So I'm trying to, I'm trying to, I want, I want to take a second here to try and get the, the listener through audio to understand it. So what, the one that's on your pond, is that, is that a way 48?

[Kent Wallace]

No, no, my pond, it was built before William had the wave 36.

[Eric Triplett]

Okay.

[Kent Wallace]

It's a big, it's a big cone shaped tank that's like 5ft in diameter from poly tank. Because at the time that's what William was using.

[Eric Triplett]

It's like the big blue tank.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, yeah. It's short, it's shorter and it has a cone shaped bottom.

[Eric Triplett]

Okay.

[Kent Wallace]

And it's, it works great. But that was right before William made the wave 36.

[Eric Triplett]

And so that screen in there just literally floats. Yeah. And it, it runs in a circle.

[Kent Wallace]

It's like, it's right. It looks like a five gallon, like a five gallon bucket made of screen with a flotation ring on the top.

[Eric Triplett]

Is there okay? It's just only on the top.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah. And what holds it in place is the outlet comes up through the center of it and that's the guide to keep it in the center. And that can be 2 inch, 3 inch, 4 inch.

[Eric Triplett]

And you'll customize it for whatever.

[Kent Wallace]

Well, on the nexus they're all four inch.

[Eric Triplett]

They're all four inch.

[Kent Wallace]

They'RE all four inch.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

I make an adapter that, where you pull the center out of the Nexus, take all the guts out of it to where it's bare, and then the center piece snaps down in there. You can literally assemble this thing in five minutes. Two screws.

[Eric Triplett]

Wow.

[Kent Wallace]

Take the kit out. Well, depends on how long it takes you to take your Nexus apart. But put them back together. You just put the centerpiece in, throw the screen in, lay the spray bars across the top. There's two click clamps that you line up on either side. Put some self drilling screws right through the plastic, hook up your water and you're done.

[Eric Triplett]

You know, sometimes the more things change, the more they stay the same. And I feel like technology is always kind of changing but like if you just go back and just have a slow enough water moving in a, in a vortex in a tank and you have the water moving slow enough to let, let solids settle out and you suck the water from a different spot with a little, a sponge or a filter or whatever. Like, it's, like, it's so basic, it

[Kent Wallace]

works so good, but it takes space. And that's the one problem that all of us run into now is yeah, we have our, our wealthy clients that have tons of space, but I also have wealthy clients in a 10 million dollar home that have no space. You know, they're giving me the amount of space for swimming pool equipment, for a koi pond. And it's, it's, you need more, you need 5 to 10% of total pond volume infiltration. And they don't allow you that, you know, so a lot of it is, is people buy a filter and they overflow it, they run too much water through it, or you know, they're not maxing it out because of space constraints or they're just impatient or they don't want to spend the money and the time because filtration is expensive, especially if you're doing gravity flow because that's larger than pressurized. So it's an interesting situation, you know, to get into because you gotta have the space to do it right. And I don't think that when people say, oh, I want a koi pond, they don't realize that yeah, you have a pond. But then there's this whole, what the term you like to use a life support system that has to go with it and it requires. Mother Nature already has her own rules and you just can't remake those rules. And she's got a great sense of humor. And when you decide you're going to cheat one of her rules, she slaps your ass. Oh God, she snaps your ass. And then everybody's, why is my water green? Why don't I have clear? Well, because you didn't follow her rules. Well, I didn't know her rules. Well, you didn't learn, you didn't ask somebody who knew the rules.

[Eric Triplett]

You know, I'm working with someone in, in, in California, like LA area Basin and they, you know, they've gone through our how to build a koi pond video series and they like wanna, they want to match it every, you know, they want to do almost everything, but they don't have room for the settlement tank. And I'm like, yeah, that's like, right, Quite possibly Like one of them, the most important foundational piece. It's like the most important piece of the whole puzzle. Like, it's all important and it can work without the settlement tank. But the result is just a lot more maintenance. So much more maintenance.

[Kent Wallace]

Because you don't want those heavy solids from the bottom of the pond going in to your biofilter. You don't want them in your fines filter. You want to pull those out and have fines going into your fines filter. Or, you know, you don't need those solids. We need to scrap a lot of stuff.

[Eric Triplett]

We need to collect them and put them into the garden. The vegetable.

[Kent Wallace]

Yes. That's the nice thing about having a settlement tank was when you like my yard, it's all trench for 2 inch drain, waste and vent line. And I pull the valve and it all floods down the side of the house to the garden area. And I've done. You know, there's two ways you can get rid of your solids. You can either give it away back to the city through the sewer, which is fine, because no matter how nasty it is, it's still the best water they'll ever see. Yeah. Or you can flood your garden area with it. You know, you can't run it through a sprinkler system because of the credit.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

But you can, you can blood flood areas once, and you're only doing that once every, you know, month.

[Eric Triplett]

And just, you know, the way I look at it, like, you know, I spent 25 years in Redlands, currently we're in Cherry Valley. But like, in Redlands, like, we ran furrows to all of the orange trees and.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

Avocados and like, so, you know, there's, there's lots of spots for us to do that. And like, people don't think that, you know, even in a smaller backyard, there's rose gardens and there's camellia gardens and all, like all this little, all those little flower beds and perennials. Like, you can just flood your, your settlement tank water into those areas and just plants. Beautiful, beautiful.

[Kent Wallace]

Well, and the other thing is, you know, ponds are naturally. They naturally go acidic because the fish are producing acids, their ammonia, you know, the waste from the food and all. So our water comes in at 8.1 or we're on a well so we don't have to worry about any kind of chlorine or dechlorination. But it comes in at 8.1. And if I go over and check my pond, it'd probably be 7.9. And you know, the city water is probably 8.4 around here by the time they run it through the. Because we have a huge wastewater treatment plant, we Write cycle over 90% of our or wastewater but it will naturally get more acidic. But the thing about it is it's not the same as just water out of the tap when you're watering your garden because once you run your, your water through the koi pond, it breaks all of those minerals down in a way that the plants can assimilate them better. And that's one thing that makes it really nice is because you're, you're. The koi pond is, is like here we would have to add chelated iron, all kinds of things because you know they're not getting the minerals or our soil has too many, too much alkalinity and it needs to have needs to help be broken down. And the koi pond water does that. It really does that a lot and it's, it's great for any kind of garden. Mother nature knows what to do with its own waste. Yeah, she really does.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, she's been, she's been talking about a plan a long time.

[Kent Wallace]

Ye.

[Eric Triplett]

Are you a contractor looking for growth, training and to level up your contracting business? If so, join the TWT Contractor Circle. It's our free Facebook group where like minded professionals go to share insights of success, strategies for growth and a place to find some accountability. In fact, we have a powerful accountability call every Friday with a live Q and A session at the end. And whether you're seeking advice, collaboration or just a supportive community, this is a place for you request to join today and start building a valuable connection with me as well as our amazing network of contractors. Tango Whiskey Tango. That's TWT Contractor Circle on Facebook. I'll see you on the inside. Now back to the show. If someone wanted some, you know, like if they wanted to fix the fixx for the answer, like an old boneyard stuff like how far off is it?

[Kent Wallace]

I'm hoping, I'm hoping maybe two weeks. I'm close. I'm hoping before the end of the

[Eric Triplett]

month so by, by summer 2026. Like you're, you're sending out kits.

[Kent Wallace]

I hope so. Yes. That's my.

[Eric Triplett]

Do we need to shoot a couple videos on like we should? Yeah, yeah. You know it's, it's actually I, I don't, I, I have some other things I want to talk to you about but I don't want to leave it too fast because the floating micro screen, if you've never seen it, even if you have seen it. Okay. I Saw it on your pond, you know, 12 years ago, and I was like, wow, this is the coolest.

[Kent Wallace]

Probably longer than that, actually.

[Eric Triplett]

Well, 2000. Yeah. I mean, no, 2006. Yeah. Almost 20 years ago. Yeah, like 18 years ago. I probably saw it there. You. You know, and I just. The way it spins, just naturally floating in, in. In the swirl, in rotation, in that vortex. It's fascinating and it's calming and like, you could just watch it and it's one of those things. It's like, you know, on. You probably don't watch much social media, but when they. When they run stripes on a lawn from a lawnmower or they have a. A pressure washer and they're pressure washing the. The mud off of a driveway, you just can't help but like, just look at it. And if there's a little bit of music in the background, you could just. 10 minutes goes by and you're just watching this guy pressure wash or run stripes on a lawn. It's just like calming and soothing. Right? So, like, the spinning of that is really cool. And when I saw your video, actually, I saw the video before I talked to you.

[Kent Wallace]

Oh, okay.

[Eric Triplett]

I actually saw the video that you put it up and I'm like, whoa, he's got it back. This is so cool. And so just. Just seeing it spinning in there, it's like putting in work, you know? I mean, it's putting in work.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

There's a lot of times you see filters and you don't understand that they're

[Kent Wallace]

actually working, but you can see what it's doing right there. And you can look down and you can see the stuff being blown off the screen as it goes past the spare bar. You know, the little crud that's trying to collect on there. Yeah, yeah. In fact, one thing that's really funny about the floating micro screen is several years ago I came out here and Carl, my older golden retriever, he was out here next to me. We're looking over in the tank and there's a toad. You know, we had the desert toads out here. There's a toad on the. Going around the microscream. So I took a couple of pictures and I got a video. And then a couple of times that happened, like for two or three years in a row where a toad would get in the tank and he couldn't get out of the tank, but he could get up on top of that.

[Eric Triplett]

Oh, he just sitting on the top. Merry go round.

[Kent Wallace]

Toad go round. Yeah. Carl would run out and look in the Tank to see if there's a toad in there, dude.

[Eric Triplett]

Well, like, literally. Wait, we're onto something. Can you just. In that floating element that you're putting on the top, can you make a toad and a koi and a, you know, like a mermaid and, like, you can make, you can literally make it like a merry go round.

[Kent Wallace]

You want me to chachki it up?

[Eric Triplett]

Put lights on it now.

[Kent Wallace]

You now. That's electricity in there now.

[Eric Triplett]

Oh, yeah. Well, it is very cool. So I think that's, it's exciting to see you bring it back because it's something that, you know, think about the egos. You know, like, I, I, I can be considered egotistical. Like, I have my ego, I have my lines in the sand. I can be humble, but I can also be like you. This is the way we do it. This is my way. And I can, I can have that. And while I think I think Jasper's brilliant, and I think I think William Limbs more than an than brilliant, but he's probably, he's got some brilliance and

[Kent Wallace]

he's, he was a pioneer in the industry for a lot of things.

[Eric Triplett]

It's just hard for me to admit it, but, like, you know, you have these two brilliant minds that, like, are just headbutting and they're like, nope, absolutely not. No way. You, you know, there's no way. And it's just a shame to think about, you know, what might be today. You know, like, how many of these might be out there is still working.

[Kent Wallace]

Like, they're working together.

[Eric Triplett]

How many times have you worked on yours over here?

[Kent Wallace]

I have taken it out of that tank in 18 years, I've taken it out of the tank three times. And that's only because at some point, you know, biofilm will grow on the screen. And then as it starts to get more and more restricted, as soon as the restriction becomes more than the water that can flow through it, it'll boat out. It wants to be a boat because the water on the inside will start going down a little bit.

[Eric Triplett]

Got it.

[Kent Wallace]

So when it boats up then. And it's easy to take out, you just take it out, blast it off. I think I've thrown bleach on it a couple of times. Real quick, throw it back in and you're good to go. You just clean the screen and it takes, it's super easy to do. Yeah. In 18 years, I think I've taken it out maybe three times.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. That's amazing. Imagine every five years, you got to take it apart for a little bit. Of maintenance back in, so.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. I think it's a really cool, completely underrated, hidden thing.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah. You know, I think that when I'm done with this kit, I'm gonna make you a kit for the Helix body.

[Eric Triplett]

I. I was just. I was already thinking that actually we're gonna make.

[Kent Wallace]

It'll be the almost identical kit, except for maybe the way it mounts.

[Eric Triplett]

It's only 24 inches inside diameter. Is that enough?

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, because that the smaller. The narrower screen was made for the wave. 24.

[Eric Triplett]

Let's do it.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

You know, this takes me to something. This talks about the egos. Right? The egos. And so Greg Wittstock and Gary Wittstock.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

And I don't know the semantics of it, and I don't know, maybe the story's off a little bit, but as far as I know, you know, when they got there, they had an argument, and then they split up, and Gary had Pond Sweep and Greg had Aquascape. And then there was grandkids involved, you know, and father, son are bickering, and, you know, dad, you know, wants to see the grandkids, and it's like, sell me the business. You know, and I'm ad Living here. I don't know how much of this is what. But, like, from my understanding, it's like dad says, okay, I'll sell you Pond Sweep. And, you know, I don't know if you remember Mike White, but.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, yeah, I know Mike.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, I miss Mike.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

He. You know, the only thing that I'm mad about Mike is that he still says that Pond Sweeps the best skimmer that was ever made. And I told him I think Helix was.

[Kent Wallace]

I like, yes, honestly, the best skimming skimmer out there is the floating weir.

[Eric Triplett]

So that was my argument with Mike, But Mike said the design of Pond Sweep was amazing. And he says there was not much friction. It was very effective, very optimal. And that was my. My beef with me and Mike. But. But what I'm getting at is back to the egotistical part of it and the two head budding. Right. So it's my understanding that Wittstock buys Pond Sweep from the. The Grandpa Woodstock and then shelves the product.

[Kent Wallace]

Right.

[Eric Triplett]

And then lets Aquascape move on, and then you can't find Pond Sweep anymore.

[Kent Wallace]

And they were originally fiberglass. Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

And then that's another reason why Mike loved it. Like, Mike's pond, he. He had them. They were, like, over 20 years old in. In 2006. I went and saw them. They were already super old. They were already like 12 years old, you know, so Mike. Mike loved that particular skimmer. But the two heads, the two egos want, you know, one buys out the other and throws it on a shelf. And so, like Jasper and William are fighting over this. This problem, the fix to the answer that could have been, you know, a good relationship and maybe could have changed the way people take care of their koi ponds today. We could still be having it. Right. But at one point, I was looking at sailing, selling Helix, right. And selling the patents on the skimmer and all this stuff. And the. One of the reasons why this is where my ego got in the way. I had a pretty good offer, maybe not good enough, otherwise I probably would have done it. But I don't think the offer was quite good enough. But also I was nervous that that product would get shelved and. And that was not good enough for me. Like if I could. If I could sell it for a, you know, something that would make me happy and then I could watch it go on and be bigger. Because I'm not really a manufacturer. I don't really care to manufacture.

[Kent Wallace]

It's not my.

[Eric Triplett]

My love, my fascination. It's not what I'm. My purpose.

[Kent Wallace]

Right.

[Eric Triplett]

But I don't want to just see it go up.

[Kent Wallace]

It wasn't going to be guaranteed that it would continue to live.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

Well, do you remember right after we created that body that. Who was it? We speculated about who it was, but they came out and they advertised. They had a drawing all made up that looked exactly like it. You remember that? And we were going on trying to figure out who this was.

[Eric Triplett]

They never came out?

[Kent Wallace]

No. And I finally called Matt Sklar, the guy that makes Kenzan koi food, and I said, nobody's going to know who you are, so I need you to dig into this and see. And he. He found out who. Who it was for us. It was marketing and all. It was some goofy. We always thought it was like Greg Wittstock or somebody, but we don't know. I didn't think it was. You didn't think.

[Eric Triplett]

No, I didn't think it was Greg,

[Kent Wallace]

but it was weird. It was like somebody was attacking. They saw what you were doing.

[Eric Triplett]

Wasn't the skimmer. That was the moving bed.

[Kent Wallace]

Yes. Oh, that's right. It was the. Yeah, the waterfall. The. Yeah, the waterfall.

[Eric Triplett]

I think they were just trying to gauge if people liked it enough to like.

[Kent Wallace]

And then it just faded away, whatever that was. Those ads were out for a short time and then it disappeared because, I

[Eric Triplett]

mean, it's a Lot of work to manufacture a product. And if you don't have like deep market penetration, like, is it worth it? The only thing that really made this whole thing worth it for me and, and also worth it for me to go, like, yeah, that's not enough money for me to make me want to do it is because I still build ponds every year. You know, If I'm building 50, 60 ponds a year, then that, that it's a no brainer for me to build, you know, to have my own product line. I don't have to sell it nationally and globally. This doesn't matter.

[Kent Wallace]

Right? Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

So that's one interesting thing.

[Kent Wallace]

Part of this Nexus thing for me too is I grew up as a diagnostic technician, right. It was like, find the root cause of a problem, don't put a band aid on. Right. So all those years in, in that industry as a mechanic, a job to find out the actual cause of a problem. And so when I see. When we were first together, was it Russell up in, in Washington. Yeah. He would make a big deal out of showing this mountain of Aquascape filters that he had torn out of people's ponds when he went to rebuild.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

Well, his waterfall box was no different. Not really. It was just his. You know, I mean, what was really better about his.

[Eric Triplett]

He just had the cone on the bottom.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, he had a cone on the bottom. Big deal. You know, that just helps you clean it. It doesn't make it a better filter for filtering.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, the media, his media was bullshit.

[Kent Wallace]

You know, it was. And, but what used to really irritate me was you are. It's not right. It's a container. Just fix it. Why charge them $2,000 for a new filter when you can charge them 500 bucks to fix theirs and then do some other stuff for them? And I get it, but you remember when I first got into this and I was on Koi Fin and all and half of the people loved me and the other half hated me because I would always go, oh, yeah, you got a problem with this? Here, here's how you fix it. You know, here, take and drill a hole down here. Put this fitting in, you know, now you, you fix this thing. So all the manufacturers didn't really like me because I was showing how to fix something that they overlooked. Right?

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

But everybody else would love me. So I figure, why, why don't you just fix what's there? Because I, I used to have kids for aquascape builder boxes. You know, when I was building ponds years ago, I would go in and I'd turn them into all kinds of things, you know, get rid of the rock out of them and, and, and put different media in them, put air, air cleaning, put a drain, whatever. But I didn't tear the box out and throw it away, you know, because what a disservice to the customer.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. So this is an interesting story. So, you know, you know, you know,

[Kent Wallace]

Rick, we're not going to run out of one. And don't worry.

[Eric Triplett]

I'm not worried. I'm not worried. I just wanted to see which one I'm trying next. You know Rick Blazo, right?

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

So Rick's, Rick's interesting. He and I have, we probably have a love hate relationship with him, with each other. He, you know, he and I see politically like 180 degree opposite. And sometimes he'll make a post, political post and I'll, I'll like take a little, a little jab, like not, not too terrible, but just like a, a friendly little poke the bear kind of thing. And he'll, he'll come back at me and then he's very much like, you know, bottom drain only if you don't do a bottom drain, you're a piece of but one speck of rock in your pond. You should die. Like, he's, he's like, I'm exaggerating a little bit, but yeah, and, and you know, like I love a bottom drain pond. I love this pond we're sitting next to right now. But I love gravel ponds and ecosystem ponds and suction GR stuff.

[Kent Wallace]

You made me appreciate other kinds of ponds.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah, I know. You're welcome. You're welcome. But, but what I want to take you to is I saw, I, I watched Rick because sometimes, you know, I think the algorithm puts Rick in front of me just to piss me off a little bit and just make me want to like, fight him a little bit, you know, and so I'll poke him a little bit and he pokes back. But I've seen some really cool stuff from Rick. He posted an Aquascape filter that he turned into. It's almost like a wet dry filter, like an aquarium where the water enters one part and then it goes up and then over a weir and then down and then up and then back over a weir. I mean, I know you build bonds like that all the time, but he turned in the simple biofalls into this wet, dry kind of, you know, system. And I looked at it and I was just like, holy crap, this is the coolest shit ever. I remember I sent Him a message. I texted him. And the interesting thing from me being sued for Helix in the way we did our, our biomechanical filter, our backwash

[Kent Wallace]

never could really understand.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. And I can't talk much about it. I know because there's non disclosure on that. But from me being sued at, on, on that particular filter, the way he modified this filter, he could be sued if he went to market with it. If he like advertise it and market it like. Yeah, he just fixed his. Well, probably one of his, you know, 80 year old clients pawn. He's like, hey, I'm gonna fix this filter. It's a piece of. And it's not working right and I don't like it and I'm just gonna fix it real quick. So. But I watched it and I looked at it and I'm like, this is brilliant. It's so simple, so cool, so easy to care for. And Rick did it in there and I modified a couple of my clients filters that same way. You know, again, 80, I, I didn't go to market with it. I didn't advertise it. I did it for free. I didn't, I'm not gonna get sued for it. I just tried it out because just out of curiosity and so forth and it worked really cool. And it's funny because I just saw him at the All American Koi show. I just, I ran into him over there like, Rick, what's up? We like, we dabbed up and hugged and whatever. How you doing? And, and you know, we had a good talk.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

But it's that simple. It's the box, it's the mentality. It's a black box. Like it's a box. You could take a fucking trash can and probably do a couple of things in it and drill a hole the side and run the water a certain way.

[Kent Wallace]

And remember the, when we're laying out the stuff for the Helix, Right. We knew it was just a box, but the object was to put. Remember we were talking about putting flat spots in certain places and doing a couple of things with the basic mold so that you could make more than one thing out of it. Yeah. You know, because other than that, it's, it's a container, but it is a container. Now that lent you to be able to make how many kinds of three kinds of biofilters?

[Eric Triplett]

Seven.

[Kent Wallace]

Seven kinds of biofilters. Because we took the time and thought about, well, what if this and what if that. Because the mold's going to be the same whether it's Got five flat spots or none, you know? Yes. So, and then that's, that's the nice thing about it is, is because it lets you use your imagination, which you've done. Use your imagination and created some things and, and you know, where the other ones, they're just a box but doesn't matter. You can make stuff out of it. Just don't throw it away. I mean, you're spending a lot of money on somebody's filter that you may not like it, but just figure out how to fix it, figure out how to change it, figure out how to do something with it.

[Eric Triplett]

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Hey, if you're digging the show, I do have a big ask. Please drop a five star review. It really means the world to us and it helps us drag more people right into the deep end. Oh, when I go to a, when I go to a pond, an older pond, especially hillside, like in, you know, it's here in Nevada, it's pretty flat, right. But in Southern California, we have a lot of backyards that have some slopes in them and we're putting in these black boxes, whether it's Aquascape or Russell or, you know, Easy Pro, whatever. And then, you know, 15, 20 years goes by and the client's like, hey, what's the new technology? What can we do? Let's, and like the people have the money, they're like, let's rip this one out and put in Helix. Let's put in whatever you, the new stuff. And sometimes it's so cost prohibitive to dig a big filter into a hillside. And I'm just like, let me just modify this thing. Yeah, you know, do you want to pay 8,000 for me to change this one filter? And I, and I don't even Know if I want to do it for 8,000. It's so much work. Geez, I might not even make enough money to make it worth my while. Let me just redo the seal. Let me fix this. Let me take this square box around box or tall box or short box or fat box or, you know, and let me make the most out of it and just put a new seal in it, and then let's make the pond work.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah. That was the nice thing about the whole helix thing, is you already knew what elements you wanted in it because you've modified a bunch of stuff and you've dealt with all those things, you know, so you had stuff in your brain that you needed to get accomplished. So that's why.

[Eric Triplett]

That's why I had to get in your brain. That's scary. Scary dark.

[Kent Wallace]

We went back and forth. Yeah, I know. Because you would say, well, I need. I need this, and I need to. We need to make it, so whatever. And we figured it out. It was good. It was good. It was fun. And, you know, the other thing is, when I first got into this and I. I had just learned how to build koi ponds, like the neighbor, the house right behind me, that's the first pond I ever built. And I had left automotive. I was working on race cars here at the house and doing some custom iron work because I had all my fabrication equipment. And. And, you know, the neighbor comes over, says, well, you're. You're just at home all the time. You're not doing anything. Why don't you build me a koi pond like your dad?

[Eric Triplett]

You're just at home.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, because back then, if you were at home, people thought you just weren't working.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

You know, like, now a lot of people work from home, but back then, you know, so all I knew about my dad's koi pond, which was also right next door, is. It was horrible. And that's how I. I got into this, because she asked me to build a koi pond. And I just knew my dad's pond is a pain in the ass, but all he had were koi Us. Yeah, Koi USA magazines, the club magazine. He had stacks of them. So I went through those magazines like crazy and talking to each manufacturer I could because I didn't know crap about koi ponds, and nobody really want to talk to me about how to build a koi pond. And I ran across William Lim. He goes, you listen to me. I show you how to make a koi pond filter with two tanks. Two tanks. That was my introduction to him on the phone, you know, and so I, you know, got to be really. He mentored me through several things and. But then I got on Koifin, you know, he was saying, well, get on Koifin, you know, you should start posting them stuff. So that's where I got on and started, you know, got my name out there a little bit because I was always had go into somebody's pond and fix it. And I would modify existing filtration and stuff and show people how I modified some filter to fix a problem and keep it. And. And so I kind of built up a little reputation there and. And. But I was the new guy. I was in my 40s, you know, and I was thought of in the koi world as a youngster because, you know, a lot of the people that I was mentored with are gone now, you know, but I can remember like Bert Ballou. Bert Ballou's gone.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

I really like Burke, who was the guy up north. But there was a gentleman, James Riley Jr. On the east coast, and I think he's still alive. He was mostly. He came from the aquarium world, I think, and got into koi ponds and knew a lot. He was the man, knew a lot. I learned a lot from him. But I can remember him when I was posting something on Koi Fon one time and he made some remark about all the new guys, the youngsters. So I was a youngster in my late 40s. I was a youngster because it was kind of directed at me because I was showing how to do something. He says, yeah, all these youngsters want to come up and reinvent all the koi pond filtration. And there's really no need.

[Eric Triplett]

The more things change, the more things. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

[Kent Wallace]

But what was interesting is he and some other guys were taking these bay filters that were like three and four bays long, and they were doing a couple of things. They would split off and make them pre filtration, bio back to the pond and then pre filtration into another part of the bio. They wouldn't run them in series. They would run two separate sections in parallel, same number of bays. So they were splitting them up with pipes, okay? Because normally they would flow one to the other. And what I learned from them is because when you have. And everybody out there should learn this because I still see this all the time, they'll run pre filter to a moving bed and then to another biofilter or the pre filter to a. Some kind of a static Biofilter and then to a moving bed and back to the pond. Well, you just wasted the space of one of those filters. And the reason is because whatever filter, whether it's fines filter or static trapping or a moving bed, that first filter does most of the work. It's going to convert most of your ammonia so that the next filter in line has a lot less to do. It's not going to its full potential. So if you took those two filters and broke them off and, and split them and ran them parallel to each other so each of them got the same raw water, you've increased your biofiltration with no extra parts at all. So I learned that from them. They were doing that. And then the other thing is, you know, I created what I call the air driven dilution reactor because I always thought moving beds were a serious pain in the ass. Media floating, trying to control it near the outlets. You know, I mean, I build a pretty mean moving bed right now. And, and, and you know, your moving bed works really great. But you, you know, they, I honestly didn't like them. So I thought, well, why if I am trying? Because the object of a moving bed is to get the ammonia to come in contact with the bacteria more than one time for each single pass through of the filter. So by tumbling the media, yeah, you're aerating it. But that's not really the mechanics. That's not really the reason a moving bed exists. By tumbling the media with air, it's tumbling faster than the water is going through the filter. Okay. Because the air is traveling faster than the water is going through the filter. So you're allowing the ammonia or the bacteria on the media to come in contact with ammonia rich water more than one time for each one time pass through of the filter. So say your filter is flowing 3,000 gallons an hour on a moving bed. It's the same as two static filters side by side or three static, depending on how, how active the moving bed is because you're tumbling the media and it's whipping around in there. And so my idea was, well, moving beds are such a pain in the butt because of the media. Why don't I just make the water go through a filter multiple times for each one time pass through and leave the media static. And at the time I was working with Rick Barker, it was making the back to twist, which today I still believe that's one of the best medias there ever was. And you know, he's since sold it, he sold it to Kip Northrop, you know, who uses it yeah, he's still producing it. He's still producing it. I saw him at a pool and spot show here in Vegas last year. He still makes it. He doesn't make all the different kinds Rick did. He only makes a couple of different ones. And. But what I did was I used air because the back, the twist is very open. It can be very open if you put it in there. Right. So I was using air to make the water accelerate up and back down through the filter and go past the media multiple times for each one time pass through. Now I've got the same thing as a moving bed with no moving media. And you could do that same thing with Metalla, the big open Metalla you could do it with.

[Eric Triplett]

Isn't it better because the moving beds self cleaning per se, because it's tumbling

[Kent Wallace]

really anything with air flowing through it's going to self clean. You don't have to clean aerated filters very much at all. So that's what I call the air driven, the addr, the air driven dilution reactor. And the. Where I got that idea to do it vertically like that was because Junior and the other old, old timers right now were taking part of the water at the end of a multi base system and they were using a separate pump, pulling some of that water off and running it back through at the beginning of the filtration. And they were calling it a dilution reaction so that each now it used more electricity because you added a pump to it. That was the only, the only drawback. But for every one time pass through of the filter, of the bays, it was going through there a couple of times because you're pulling a percentage of that water off and forcing it back through again. So it was not only diluting the incoming water, but it was also making it go past the filter assembly or the filter pads or and matting or whatever you had in there multiple times before it went back to the pond. And I thought, and then I thought, well, what if I just do that vertically instead of. That's how I did the addrs. I decided what if I took that system and did it vertically? Because if it's a vertical tank and not a bunch of horizontal bays, then I could use air because air wants to go up

[Eric Triplett]

the height of this vertical bay. Are you talking about, is it three foot?

[Kent Wallace]

It doesn't have to be very high.

[Eric Triplett]

Okay.

[Kent Wallace]

I was using the wave 24s and the wave 36s at that. Or I would go down and buy a well tank, a three or four foot well tank. And cut it up and do it. But you don't need. That's the other nice thing about a dilution. Air driven dilution reactor is in a moving bed, it can only be so tall because that media wants to float. And it's not going to go down four or five feet, right. It's going to maybe go down two feet and then it wants to try to get back to the surface. So moving beds are much shorter. With an air driven dilution reactor, I could have a four foot deep tank, you know, in the space, you know, in a three foot diameter with a lot more media in it. Because I'm just trying to make the water go down. I'm not. And the air is coming up in one section, water's going down on the other section. And they work great. I like them a lot. But you know, and then there's shower filters. I like shower filters. They're interesting things. Problem with the shower filters are ugly. And they're hard to hide. Really hard to hide.

[Eric Triplett]

Unless you get those stainless steel. Well, they're just gorgeous.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, I know. They're beautiful. Much as I love them, I wouldn't want one in my backyard.

[Eric Triplett]

And they're loud.

[Kent Wallace]

They're loud. Yeah, they are. But I've built a bunch of them. I like them, you know, they work good.

[Eric Triplett]

Let's make a pivot. I want to, I want to talk about. You are probably the most prolific writer that Pawn Trade magazine has ever seen.

[Kent Wallace]

I. Yes, I think.

[Eric Triplett]

Is that proven that?

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, that's because Laura, when she took the magazine over, she wanted me to be her only regular writer. So she forced me to write an article every two months. Oh yeah. She was on me brutal for like a decade, right? Oh, yeah. And what I figured out was that because. Because there are a lot of people that write articles, but they write articles randomly. They'll write two or three articles a year. You know, they don't have. Well, she was like every two months I had to crank out an article. So I was like running out of things to write about. And you know, I quit building ponds quite a while ago. You know, I manage pond construction for companies and I do designs and manufacture my parts, but I don't actually do any kind of construction. And so it was harder and harder because I, I like using my own photos, I don't like to use anybody else's photographs. And I was running out of all of that stuff, you know, and, and honestly, how many things can you write about? But now that I've gone back and looked at Some of my articles from 10 and 15 years ago, I'm thinking I need to rewrite that article because stuff's changed.

[Eric Triplett]

Right.

[Kent Wallace]

So. Yeah, so, yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

Why can't you get some article and some photographs from some of your contractors you sell to?

[Kent Wallace]

I can.

[Eric Triplett]

You sell a lot of products to your contractors, your custom made stuff, right?

[Kent Wallace]

I do, but usually it would be. It would be. I'd like have an idea in my mind and I know I'd have photographs for it and do it, but I've written about every piece of a pond I can possibly. And I never really wrote about the esthetic part very much. I did a couple of articles on how to hide filtration, but for the most part, there are a lot of writers out there that like writing about the aesthetics and boulder placement and all that stuff. And I don't, I don't care about that. Yeah, I want. I care about all the stuff you can't see.

[Eric Triplett]

I just want to care about the fish poop.

[Kent Wallace]

That's all. I have a fish poop banner specialist. Fpms. Yeah. You're an fpms. See, look, if a lawyer can call themselves Esquire, or you can have all these other professionals that have, you know, an acronym after their name that stands for something.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

Why can't we have FPMs? Okay, fish poop manager.

[Eric Triplett]

Can I just put MF, CEO or what's. What is it?

[Kent Wallace]

B A M F. You can do that too.

[Eric Triplett]

Well, you know, so have you. So Laura Lee sold the magazine?

[Kent Wallace]

Yes.

[Eric Triplett]

And have you been talking to Laura?

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, she is. She, bless her heart, she is grinding me to death. In fact, what is today?

[Eric Triplett]

Oh, are you on a deadline? I think Today is the 13th. It's my father's birthday.

[Kent Wallace]

Well, I was supposed to have an article ready for her on the 15th.

[Eric Triplett]

And you know, those ladies lie to you if they, if they ask you for on the 15th. They don't get to the 20th. I know. A couple more days.

[Kent Wallace]

I know. And she's already sent me a text

[Eric Triplett]

saying we should text her right now. We're podcasting right now and not writing. Kent is not writing the article right now. We're actually podcasting.

[Kent Wallace]

But part of it is I've written for about so many things, you know, to sit down because to write an article takes a day, day and a half. You're not going to sit down and do it in two hours. It's just not going to happen. So. And you have to think about it. And I got to write and rewrite and edit And I don't. You know, my wife's saying, just use AI And I said, really? No, it's about what's in my brain.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah,

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There is a way to use AI.

[Kent Wallace]

I know you and you and my wife are both going to be kicking my guts out about this. I know.

[Eric Triplett]

Well, I mean, here's the thing. Like, let's talk about this for a second because I think it's important for people because I agree, you know, like today's day and age, so the information age is kind of over because, like people can just look something up. Right?

[Kent Wallace]

Right.

[Eric Triplett]

But I feel like if I'm doing a coaching call for TWT or if I'm trying to like document a vision for my company and what, what it means to us, like, I can, I can use AI almost like a therapist, you know what I mean? Like, in the regards of like, this is how I'm feeling. This is my vision, this is where it came from. And when I was a boy, this is how it started. And like, and you and I just, I brain dump all that stuff. And you and I, like if, if you and I were assigned by, by Lauren, she says I want each of you to write an article on XYZ and that she had 10 of us if 10 of us knew how to use AI and we brain dumped into whatever your Claude or chat GPT or whatever you're using, if you just brain dumped, like what's on in your mind and the experiences you've had and maybe a customer relation that you had and then the experience that they had with them and, and the outcome and the problem solving the way you think and the solution and. And you're, you know, however you feel about it. Right. If you dump that into AI and AI organizes your thoughts and put them. Puts them in order of. Of make it make sense. And then you take that and then you edit it. You know, we would have 10 different articles.

[Kent Wallace]

Right.

[Eric Triplett]

Completely different thought process.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah. But right now I've got you. We started out with this a little bit, but asked about how many articles and I think because like I say, a lot of our writers have written. They write a couple articles a year. Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

You've done like 60.

[Kent Wallace]

I've run. I think I am the single most prolific technical writer in the pond industry. In the world. Only because I was forced at gunpoint for a blog. This sounds to keep writing an article for her, you know. And. And I didn't realize that it's just one and I live in a place with no water. Oh, Las Vegas.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

And it just seems weird to me because I didn't try to do it. It's just that. Because I was doing it on a regular basis and everybody else was just doing it randomly.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. I mean I was good for. I was good for one or two a year and then I'd take a couple years off and then I'd be good for three and then.

[Kent Wallace]

And that's the norm. Really. Yeah, that's the norm. So. Yeah. And I would like to. I'd still want to write a book. I've started to several times and I think that's might be where I will use AI because I could dump all of my stuff into it.

[Eric Triplett]

They just organize it and put it in chapters. Like what chapter makes the most sense.

[Kent Wallace]

Exactly.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

Because I have tons of information. Tons of stuff. In fact, you and I, years ago. It was 10 years ago almost.

[Eric Triplett]

It was more than that.

[Kent Wallace]

We're gonna do try to do a certification thing and I think that would have been a great idea. And we just both got really freaking busy.

[Eric Triplett]

Sidetracked.

[Kent Wallace]

But I went and was looking at. When I went in to do this PowerPoint presentation for the Koi show, on the bottom grain of stuff I was looking through to see what I had and I pulled all that up and we had done a. Done a bunch of substantial amount of work. A bunch of work on that already. It's just been sitting in there on my computer in a file for a decade. Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

Well, I do want to see you write that book.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

Love to be part of that process.

[Kent Wallace]

You will be. Absolutely.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

Because inside that I've actually learned some things from you.

[Eric Triplett]

What not to Do?

[Kent Wallace]

No, I've learned some things. I really have.

[Eric Triplett]

Give me two or three things you've learned from me.

[Kent Wallace]

Well, one thing that I always thought was weirdly interesting and, and that is that when we were on that project in Palm Springs, remember I came down and visited you down there and you were doing that. That. I don't remember who it was. A couple of guys that owned that house. And anyway, you guys were doing the pond edge. And you know me, I'm a. I'm a polyurea fan. So I don't, you know, and I've done a lot of liner ponds in my. My youth of 40. Late 40ish-50s.

[Eric Triplett]

When you're in your 50s.

[Kent Wallace]

I used 50. Yeah. And you know, I would do. Always do a concrete edge and, and lock the edge of the liner down so it could never move in its lifetime and all of that. But then you showed me that cool little thing where you brought the liner up because it used to always irritate me, where people would bring the liner up and lay it flat across the ground and then just pile stuff over it. Because the most pond leaks I've ever detected when I would go to people's houses were people would walk around the edge of their pond and it would push the edge of the liner under the rock down, and that's where their leak would be because they were walking on the edge of the pond all the time. So you showed me a way where you brought the liner straight up and then you curled it back down on itself behind and tucked it in so it wasn't laying across the back. But there was always this extra 6 inches or so of liner that could be used as the pond edge moved, if it ever moved, that you could come in and fix them like. But it was all very hideable because it wasn't laying out flat, it was tucked right in along the edge. And I always thought that was a very cool technique and that would be in my book.

[Eric Triplett]

Okay.

[Kent Wallace]

I don't know if you created that or you learned it from somebody else.

[Eric Triplett]

I probably learned it from a contractor.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah, you might have, but I'll give you credit for it so that you can be at war with somebody else later.

[Eric Triplett]

I might. War with someone always. Yeah. Is that the only cool thing you learned from.

[Kent Wallace]

No, no, no, no, no. I actually created a bottom drain for rock bottom ponds after that, after you and I got together. Because everybody, you know, or not everybody, but a lot of people, they like their rock bottom ponds. And me, I don't. But I have a. In My mind away if I had to do it. And I ended up having to do a couple. And you know where I. But I created a bottom drain with a. A top on it that would keep the rocks out. So you could have a bottom drain in a rock bottom pond and nobody would even know it was there.

[Eric Triplett]

Let's go. You know, Sean Rosen's doing that recently now, believe it or not. You, like, you give me a dirty look. No, look at. Sean Rosen's very, very judgmental about things. He's like, oh, I gotta have, you know, bottom drains. The last time I went and saw him a couple years ago, he's got these beautiful, beautiful ecosystem ponds, rocks and everywhere gravel on the bottom and bottom drains. And I'm like, what the just happened? Did the. Did pigs just fly? I don't know.

[Kent Wallace]

I have a whole bunch I could say. And I don't think I. I can

[Eric Triplett]

just sip some wine. K. Just sip some wine.

[Kent Wallace]

It is good.

[Eric Triplett]

Let's cheers to this. Let's.

[Kent Wallace]

The decoys are actually really good.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah. Let's click this glass of wine. Let's. Let's put this up.

[Kent Wallace]

Let's.

[Eric Triplett]

This has been way too long since we had our last podcast together. And we. Our timing is always overlapped and been kind of rough the past year. But any final words if someone wants to get the fix?

[Kent Wallace]

I'm gonna. You know, I'm terrible at marketing.

[Eric Triplett]

It's just all me.

[Kent Wallace]

It's all you. You're the. So anyway, I've got to figure out. I'll probably maybe make up its own. Its own thing so I can advertise it. And. And because, you know, I closed down my store during COVID because plastic prices, you know, all my stuff's raw plastic. Between the PVC parts I buy for inserts and my. My urethane prices were all over the place and going. I would have been out on my computer every day changing prices and not getting anything done. So I closed my store down and just kept my website up. So I think I need to probably go back on and do a. Get my store back. Because I had a Shopify store.

[Eric Triplett]

Yeah.

[Kent Wallace]

And it was fine. I need to go back and just redo that, I guess.

[Eric Triplett]

But in the meantime. In the meantime, you know how to get a hold of me. I'm close to Kent. And then we're going to put one inside of a helix settlement.

[Kent Wallace]

They are going to do that.

[Eric Triplett]

And then I'm going to have. I have a couple of Nexuses in my boneyard. We're going to play around with. And that'd be really a lot of fun. And I think. I think there's a lot of big chance for some virality in some video because it's really, like I said, it's really fun. Fun to watch. I think it's cool.

[Kent Wallace]

Yeah. And people have. I've got good responses about it. I had people that came up to me at the show that were so excited because they knew where a whole bunch of dead Nexus were. They were going to go buy them.

[Eric Triplett]

They're expensive and they're hard to install.

[Kent Wallace]

32 or $3,500. Lots of.

[Eric Triplett]

Lots of work.

[Kent Wallace]

So begin with yeah.

[Eric Triplett]

All right. Any final words before I close this out?

[Kent Wallace]

I'm really glad you came by and stayed. Yeah. Yeah. Nice.

[Eric Triplett]

I'm at. I'm at the Airbnb, Wallace. Or is it Airbnb? Yeah. Because we're having breakfast. We're definitely having breakfast.

[Kent Wallace]

We're going to have breakfast.

[Eric Triplett]

All right, let's wrap this up. Listen, I hope you found some. Some value in the conversation tonight. I can't tell you how special it is to be in these situations with dear friends that you've known for such a long time. And it's moments like this that I really think back and reflect on my career and the relationships that I made doing what I love to do day in and day out, year after year. Sometimes I just have to pinch myself and just be thankful to it. So hope you found something with it today that you can take back to your pond with all the vertical pond stuff and the aeration and all that stuff. If you have some old Nexus filters that you want to kind of do some remodeling on, hit us up and we'll get you all whatever parts you need to do that. But until next time, I hope you're also enjoying the fact I want to take a pause here real quick. I should have started this whole podcast off with this. On January 1st, we did a rebrand of the podcast. So for seven years we've been doing the Pont Air podcast and you've seen me lean into contractor communications and sales support and helping contractors just become better versions of themselves. And since January 1st, the podcast may have seemed very contractor centric. Like lots of communications about contract. We've done like 30 episodes in a row primarily focused on contractors, and it was just a moment of transition to the deep end, which is where we're at right now in the Deep End podcast. But make no mistake about it, there will be long, long conversations, deep conversations, lots of conversations about aquatics aquariums, ponds, and the inner workings behind our industry and what makes it work so well. So I want you to know that we're back into the pond world, the aquatic world, and you can expect more of that coming up in the Deep End. I hope this episode hit you at the end like it hit me, and if it did, then good. Because the truth is, ego doesn't feel like a problem when you're in often feels like certainty. It feels like being right. It feels like I don't need them. But as you heard, that mindset can cost partnerships and progress opportunities that might never come back around or take 20 years to show up and reveal themselves. So the question I want you to sit with today is where in your life or your business is your ego slowing you down, holding you back? Where are you refusing to listen, collaborate, or even have a conversation that could change everything? That's the work. Now, if you got value from this, don't keep it to yourself. Share the episode with someone who needs to hear it, because chances are you already know who it is. And if you want to go deeper with this kind of thinking, if you're a contractor, you have the the kind of growth mindset. You want to surround yourself with people who are actually doing the work, getting after it. I want you to join me on Fridays inside the Train with Triplet Contractor Circle. We go live on an accountability call. We riff on a topic. We do Q and A. We talk to each other, make sure we're headed in the right direction. We don't just talk about it. We practice it. We do it. That's what we do. Until next time. Depth. Discipline. Diligence. This is the deep end, Sam.