TLDR: Despite false death rumors online, Wayde King is alive and running two businesses in Las Vegas as of 2026. He operates Wayde King Water Filtration with products sold at major retailers and continues running Acrylic Tank Manufacturing for custom commercial projects.
We don’t know about you, but we definitely didn’t see the news about Tanked getting canceled coming. Talk about a real surprise! We avid fans miss the show and the awesome cast, including Brett Raymer, Irvin Raymer, Wayde, and Heather King.
Wayde was no doubt the life of the show. But, things seem to have ended badly for him after it was reported that he was involved in a domestic violence incident with his wife, Heather. Animal Planet canceled his super popular show soon after this incident.
It has been over seven years since the final episode of Tanked, and a lot has happened since the last time we saw Wayde delivering ultra-expensive fish tanks for celebrities. The good news is that we have the insider deets on what Wayde King is doing now, and contrary to false internet rumors claiming he died in 2024 or 2025, he’s very much alive and thriving in business.
The True Story About Wayde King
From his upbringing, there was no doubt that Wade King would end up in the fish business. Born on September 19, 1966, in Long Island, New York, King was raised in a family of fish dealers.
Later in his teen years, he would spend summers at his stepfather’s shop cleaning and restoring aquariums. Although he studied to be a machinist, he remained passionate about fish and the endless possibilities aquarium-making provided.
King eventually moved to Las Vegas, where he launched a career making fish tanks, first for ordinary folk and eventually for big-time celebrities through the Acrylic Tank Manufacturers (ACM) company.
How ACM came to be a family business was through sheer coincidence. Wayde made a fish tank for Irvin Raymer, one of his early customers. Raymer loved the aquarium and admired Wayde’s work so much that he proposed they go into business together. And off they went!
Heather, Irvin’s daughter, joined him and Wayde as an accountant for ACM and held that role until the company dissolved. Of course, Wayde and Heather married and stayed together for more than 20 years. Brett Raymer later joined the trio, becoming the Chief Operating Officer (COO).
Tanked’s success can be attributed to how well these four worked together. The dynamic team won the hearts and minds of their TV fans and real-life clients alike, in the process making great fortunes from their aquarium-making business.
Why Was Tanked Cancelled?
Animal Planet announced that it had canceled Tanked after the season 15 finale that aired in December 2018.
The network announced the news a few days after it was confirmed that Wayde and Heather King were involved in a domestic violence incident.
Animal Planet, however, insisted that canceling the show had nothing to do with the drama between the married couple. In a press release, VC of communication and media relations, Paul Schur, claimed that the show came to a natural ending late last year.
According to Schur, the network canceled the show months before the drama between Heather and Wayde ensued.
Tanked debuted in 2011, running for 15 seasons and airing over 150 episodes.
Wayde and Heather King Got Divorced
Wayde is no longer married to Heather C. King, his wife of 21 years, with whom they share two children.
Days before Animal Planet announced the cancellation of the series, the married couple got into a violent altercation that ended up with Heather filing for divorce. Heather was arrested for slapping her husband and kicking him in the stomach after they argued.
According to Wayne, his wife continued driving her car with him hanging out the window, a claim she denied. However, Heather admitted to slapping Wayde and told the police she did it because Wayde was blocking her from getting out of a room.
The TV star was booked on a misdemeanor domestic violence charge but was later released from custody. Heather immediately signed for divorce, ending her marriage spanning over two decades and producing two children, Morgan and Taylor King.
The 2019 divorce forced a painful corporate restructuring at ATM. Heather wasn’t just King’s wife but also the company’s accountant and HR manager, while her father Irwin “The General” Raymer served as office manager. The dissolution of the marriage necessitated removing or restructuring these family roles, leaving Wayde to manage the company without the infrastructure that had supported him for two decades.
It has been over six years since that incident. Wayde is no longer with Heather and hasn’t posted anything on his social media indicating he is dating someone new.
Acrylic Tank Manufacturing Status in 2026
Contrary to earlier reports that Acrylic Tank Manufacturing (ACM) shut down completely, the company remains operational in Las Vegas as of 2026, though in a dramatically different form than during the Tanked era.
The facility continues to operate but has shifted focus from celebrity builds to commercial projects for casinos, zoos, and private luxury residences.
What is Wayde King Doing Now?
After Animal Planet canceled Tanked, the move was probably a big blow to Wayde and the rest of the cast. This was a hit show, and there is no doubt that it brought customers to the business and paid the cast handsomely.
Wayde was determined to keep moving forward. Media reports revealed that Brett Raymer and his co-host Wayde King launched a YouTube channel titled “The Lifestyles of the Fish and Famous” in April 2019.
The YouTube series featured celebrities and their aquariums for a few seasons, but things slowed toward the end of 2021. Today, the channel no longer exists, the owners haven’t posted any new content there for quite some time. It might be safe to say that King’s and Wayde’s channel is defunct.
However, King didn’t let the YouTube failure stop him. His primary business focus in 2026 is Wayde King Water Filtration, a venture that capitalizes on his decades of expertise in water chemistry from his aquarium days.
Operating through Pure Water Technologies, LLC, the company sells high-end residential water treatment systems designed specifically to address Las Vegas’s notoriously hard municipal water loaded with calcium and magnesium.
The strategic pivot has proven remarkably successful. King secured distribution partnerships with major national retailers including Lowe’s and The Home Depot, placing his products in the aisles of America’s largest home improvement stores. These relationships required meeting stringent supply chain standards including consistent inventory levels, standardized packaging, and comprehensive liability insurance, demonstrating serious business maturity beyond his reality TV fame.
His product line centers on salt-free conditioning systems, an environmentally sustainable choice at a time when traditional salt-based water softeners face increasing regulation due to brine discharge concerns.
The flagship Platinum Series systems range from $995 for entry-level units to $3,788 for large-capacity six-stage filtration systems.
These units use KDF copper-zinc granules and catalytic carbon to remove heavy metals, chloramines, and scale without stripping beneficial minerals from water.
The systems include automatic backwashing valves that extend media life up to 20 years, marketed as maintenance-free compared to competitors requiring monthly salt bags or annual cartridge replacements. Customer reviews are polarized, with positive feedback praising spring-quality water taste and set-and-forget convenience, while criticism focuses on digital programming complexity and occasional shipping damage.
In late 2025, Wayde King Water Filtration made a high-profile donation to Ronald McDonald House Charities of Greater Las Vegas, installing a complete water filtration system for the facility. The move generated positive local press while serving as a functional showroom for his product’s reliability in high-use commercial settings.
The charity’s public acknowledgment of this gift serves as one of the strongest proofs of King’s continued professional vitality.
Debunking the Death Rumors
Beginning in late 2024 and peaking in mid-2025, false reports of Wayde King’s death circulated online. Low-quality news aggregation sites published articles with headlines like “A Life Cut Short By Cancer” and “Tanked Star Dies of Cancer,” utilizing vague, repetitive language that lacked specific details about death location, funeral arrangements, or official family statements.
These articles bore the hallmarks of algorithmic content farms designed to capture search engine traffic for “Wayde King” and “Tanked” keywords rather than report actual news. The text frequently included misattributed bylines and photographs credited to unrelated photographers.
Multiple verified data points from 2025 and 2026 definitively disprove these death rumors. King’s water filtration company is listed as a current corporate donor to Ronald McDonald House Charities. Promotional materials for the Reptile Super Show schedule him for appearances in January, July, and October 2026.
Active customer service channels, updated product manuals, and live e-commerce listings at Lowe’s and Home Depot all confirm ongoing business operations. The rumors are categorically false, representing an unregulated digital content ecosystem that monetizes confusion around legacy celebrities.
The Brett Raymer Partnership Continues
Despite the divorce from Heather ending their brother-in-law relationship, Wayde King and Brett Raymer have maintained a surprisingly resilient professional partnership driven by the mutual necessity of their shared brand.
Brett has pursued independent ventures post-Tanked, including listing his 9,760-square-foot Las Vegas mansion for $3.2 million in 2019, launching the “Lifestyles of the Fish and Famous” YouTube channel, offering VIP mansion tour experiences, and dabbling in the food industry with a Donut Mania franchise. Yet he continues appearing alongside King at events throughout 2026.
The Reptile Super Show circuit represents their primary joint appearance venue, with scheduled stops in Pomona, Anaheim, and Corpus Christi for 2026. They maintain their classic dynamic in post-show interviews, Wayde as the suffering technical expert and Brett as the loudmouth salesman. This suggests a pragmatic compartmentalization where personal grievances are set aside to maintain the revenue stream their shared celebrity generates.
They remain “brothers in brand” even if no longer brothers-in-law, recognizing they command higher appearance fees as a duo than as individuals.
Wayde King’s Net Worth
Wayde King’s estimated net worth is about $5 million. He earned most of his wealth from his acrylic tank business but starring on a hit reality TV show was a plus that likely boosted his net worth.
Looking at Wayde’s social media and current business operations, he continues building custom fish tanks for select clients through ATM while his primary revenue focus has shifted to the water filtration business. The retail partnerships with Lowe’s and Home Depot, combined with the premium pricing of his filtration systems, suggest a diversified income stream that doesn’t rely solely on the volatile luxury aquarium market.
As of 2026, King has successfully transitioned from reality TV personality to stabilized entrepreneur, balancing ATM’s legacy prestige with the scalable, recurring revenue model of residential water filtration. He’s traded the flash of television cameras for the steady operation of a business that doesn’t depend on network renewal decisions or family harmony, building financial stability one water filtration system at a time.
Where Are the Cast of Tanked Now?
Here is what we know about the other cast members of “Tanked”:
Brett Raymer
After the end of “Tanked” and the closure of his donut shop chain “Donut Mania,” Raymer started a New York-style Italian restaurant in Las Vegas named “Stallone’s Italian Eatery.” The restaurant serves a variety of pizzas, pasta, and submarine sandwiches.
Irvin “The General” Raymer
Contrary to some rumors, Raymer is alive and well. Although it’s not clear what he’s doing in terms of a career since the show ended, it’s likely that he’s continuing his trade in machinery, a field in which he has extensive experience.
Agnes Wilczynski
After the show ended, Agnes did not return to TV. Instead, she went back to her roots in sales and real estate. She currently works in real estate for the Boeckle Group and has also founded her own company, Beach Boats Bungalows, which provides cruising and vacation experiences.
Robert “Robbie Redneck” Christlieb
Robert was the ATM manager and the company’s chief plumber and marine technician. After the show ended, he found a job with another aquarium company, Ocean Gallery USA. He is still based in Las Vegas and works on more than just fish tanks; he also makes excellent cabinetry, as he posts about his creations on Facebook.
