Yeah. My beautiful people, are you home by yourself, self, corn and teeny? Are you looking for some love? Well, slide on over to Joe shrimp shack. Oh, yeah, he's got some hard goods out there.
15% off, promo code, Aquarium Guys at check. Yeah, he's got the dual sponge filters.
Double headed sponge filter, six inch chola wood, chola wood by the inch, and.
Even almond leaves to cover up yourself.
Jimmy. Yeah.
Joe shrimp shack.com. All your hard goods.
Yeah, if you're home by yourself watching the HBO or gina Max, just stop.
Joe Shrimpshack.com. That's all you need. Also, don't forget about our sexy boys at the Ohio Fish Rescue.
Big, rich and Josh.
Find them on YouTube for all that delicious video footage. Yeah, and don't forget, they may need your donations.
Send them some love. All the love from the love doctor here live in Studio B, joe Shrimp shack.
Let's kick that sexy podcast. Welcome to the Aquarium, guys. Podcast with your hosts, Jim colby and Rob golson. Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. This week has been so treacherous and doomsday for me. I feel bad for all the corona jokes that I made in the past, because suddenly this got real. At first, you feel like it's some sort of SARS deal where it's not really going to affect us. It's scary. And now schools are on lockdown, everything else. So listen to podcasts. That's all we're saying. Take some time, stay in, and we'll try to entertain you the best. But be safe. This is a big deal.
Wash your hands.
Well, I'm your host, Robbie olsen.
Hey, I'm Jim colby.
And I'm Adam on the sharp.
Welcome to the expose that is this amazing podcast. Now, today, our guest is a famous fish tuber.
World famous.
For those that don't know what fish tubers are. They are youtubers that focus on fish and the tropical hobby. You look confused. That's why I was saying this to me.
What? Why? The old man jokes already starting. I look confused?
I've had a rough week, and I need to pick on have you ever.
Thought maybe I just look drunk? I don't know. Maybe I could be drunk. You don't know?
Am I still drunk from the concert?
I tell you, after all this news this week about the coronavirus and stuff, I feel like I should be drunk. I tell you, I feel bad for everybody.
You mean the boomer remover?
Oh, no, don't start that. No, Adam. Now you're on another watch list.
I just apologize. You're going to have to apologize next episode. anyways, our wonderful guest today is from the YouTube channel Simply Beta. Welcome tailored to the podcast. How are you doing today?
Thanks, guys. I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on.
We tried a couple of weeks ago, and you got a sudden flu, and now everything's better. I even got over a sickness in that amount of time as well.
Yeah. Then we were going to try this last night and then rob's unfortunately had a death in the family and stuff, so he was out of town. This is fantastic. We finally all got together on the same page here.
I put on so many miles, it was incredible. I drove through Minnesota, all the way through North Dakota, all the way to the montana border. So I'm very happy to be home.
Is there even people that way?
There really isn't. For those that have never been to North Dakota, imagine a piece of paper there's a couple hills for overpasses. That's about it.
And truthfully, this is God's gospel. Here you get on the other side of bismarck, North Dakota, and you know how you see advertising signs along the highway? It says, no service at this exit. Meaning they don't have a restroom, they don't have gasoline, they don't have anything. I mean, it's just a turn off to go off into the country in bismarck, North Dakota, you have to stop and fuel up and basically it's a 100 miles drive before you see another gas station.
Yeah, it's X miles. They even put the sign up and it was a very boring car trip. But glad we're back. But no, happy to have you, Taylor on the podcast. And of course today's episode is going to be all about betas.
Betas.
Since like episode five we've been like, oh, we need a beta podcast. And we've been trying to do our homework, find the perfect person, and really, who better than the entire YouTube channel being dedicated to the beta hobby?
I might be a little bit obsessed. Just a little bit? Tiny bit. Thanks for having me.
We all are obsessed.
So are those words or are those your husband's words that you're obsessed?
Well, I guess they're my husband's word first, but I've come to disagree with him and acknowledge my strange obsessions with weird things. I'm okay with it.
And that's why she's on this podcast.
More than just betas. It's more than just that that interests me. spades are just one of my outlets.
Before we dive into the podcast, we're going to go over some of our notes for clean up. We got a couple of emails since we last talked and I want to give a shout out. I got a message from Rob. I'm not going to use his last name. I was about to stop myself. Jimmy so Rob one of our dear fans and he's actually got a kickstarter campaign that's been going for a little while now. I have to check up the status. He messaged me a bit ago, but he actually picked up on our Reef Pie episode, sweet talked about aquarium automation, and he made his own controller as well to add on to the Reef Pie software. So we'll have it in the show notes to certainly check out. But robotank diy aquarium controller, what's that all about?
Sounds amazing.
Yeah, I like the name of it.
I hope it well, there's just continual strides using that reef pie software to automate everything in your tank. Your heater, your light spectrum, everything. The flow in the tank micronutrients, and it's just one more step in the right direction. Seeing cool new software and hardware come out for that.
Now, Taylor, you're younger than me. Of course, everybody's younger than me. Do you know what the reef pie is? I didn't know what that was. And these guys wrote me like I had handrails on my butt.
Reef Pie, isn't that using raspberry pi? And it's like an open source source software for monitoring your own tanks.
In your face aquarium.
So many different things you can use it for.
You rock, Taylor. I finally got it.
Yeah, you finally got your I've been.
Wanting my song Cherry Pie from Warrant. Do it.
Congratulations.
Yeah.
Anyways, I just want to give that shout out. The link will be in the show notes. Certainly keep up. And you can find the reef pie community on Facebook. They have a group and they try to keep up on everybody else's projects and share. This whole idea is not locked down, it's shared between everyone. Certainly. Check it out. But the other email that we got was hey, guys, this is from Rex. Hey, guys, just wanted to say I started listening to your podcast after looking for help with biscuits'didn't. Get what I was looking for, but got hooked to the show. Anyway, I'm on episode number six at the moment. Keep them coming. cheers from Australia.
From Australia. From Australia, from down under.
All right, so that is done for emails. Now a quick update. Minnesota Aquarium Expo is postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, aiming for end of July, if possible. But again, everything is tentative as most of our day to day commutes are tentative.
Yeah.
So we will wait for a new date to be tentative. Release. Sorry we missed out on you. We will certainly aim to go when the new date has been dropped.
We were really disappointed this happened, but we totally get it. We all have to get on this COVID-19 and try to all stay clean and healthy. And I hear a lot of people complaining about it. What's eight weeks out of your life if you're going to keep somebody healthy, keep your children healthy, keep your family healthy? So buck up, my little buckaroos. We're going to get through this. And at the end, we're going to have one hell of a party.
It's all right. Hopefully next week you can tell people how to make their own fish food so they don't have to go to the store. Bake something up.
Yes, I like to feed my fish chocolate chip cookies.
Is that why they all died?
No, that's why I'm so fat.
You just eat them before they get.
Chocolate chip cookies or the fish after?
No, I eat the chocolate chip cookies and I brush off the crumbs off my shirt. There you go. In there. And that's what they enjoy.
That any good person should never try that. All right, so the next thing on our list is we want to give a shout out to oha, Fish Rescue. We just do it at the beginning of every one of our episodes, but just go check it out. We were actually on one of their initial live streams. They're upgrading their entire livestream and broadcast studio, and worth helping them through all those steps. I've been spending many a night with Big Rich, helping him set up different software scenes and making it look better and better. So certainly check it out. Fish Rescue on YouTube will probably be on more Friday Night Live streams with them until we get all this done. And he wants to have a continual loop of guests every Friday.
I tell you, that was a lot of fun. If you haven't watched riches and josh's livestream. Here's what I learned. They do a drinking game during the podcast.
It's an underground hidden drinking game, sir.
All underground. So we can't talk about it.
Oh, you can talk about it.
So anyway, I came over here with a six pack of beer, and I thought I was going to have to walk home, because every time they said what was the word this last week?
Super Chat.
Super Chat, which they said every 45 seconds, and you're supposed to take a drink. And I thought I was going to have to have Rob drive me home, but I'm only a block away, so I walked home, but left the car here. It was a tough night for me because I drank a six pack of beer in about 40 minutes.
That's right. I just got to clean up your chair today. And there was bottle caps everywhere.
I know, I'm sorry.
That's okay. So it's a tip for the but.
That was a blast. That was fun. That was a lot of fun. And so I want to encourage anybody to join in on them. What is it? Friday nights? At what time?
They got Friday nights? I believe it's six central.
Yeah, it was six Central and gave a lot of great information. Had a lot of fun, had a lot of laughs and stuff. He gave some updates on tracy. I know. I just look on his Facebook here not too long ago, and he is pissed off at the world. And I don't blame him one bit that he cannot go in and see tracy right now during this COVID-19.
Everything's on lockdown.
Yeah. So our hearts go out to you, Big Rich. If you're listening, we're there for you, buddy.
So the last thing on my list is again, with the aquarium Expo closed down, we're trying to think of some sort of plan B that we can do until then. And we can't gather anywhere. I mean, that's not safe. So what we're thinking of doing is doing either a discord party some night where we get to hang out, pick and gym, or we finally get to use our equipment and try to set up a live stream of our own.
Oh, that'd be fun.
And have it interactive so we get to have people on Discord talk with us while we're on the live stream and just have a big old fun hangout session. That'd be good. Friday night party after Big Rich is done, maybe.
Oh, there we go. We'll get a bunch of drunks tuning in.
If you guys got ideas or suggestions on what that would look like or what that would be, find us on our Discord aquariumgyspodcast.com. On the bottom of the website, you'll find the Discord link, and Discord is just as easy to use chat client, where you use it for interviews, and we use it to message with our fans direct back and forth. So certainly give it a go, see how it works for you. And if you like the show, like what you're hearing. Number one, support our sponsors. They support us. And if you want to help us out directly, you can go to our website. Again, Aquariumgrasspodcast.com. On the bottom of the website, you'll find the donate tip jar that we have set up. It's our alternative to patreon, so you can do once or monthly, whatever is more comfortable for you, and keep this podcast rolling.
Sweet. Let's get onto the meat of all this.
Taylor we have so many really protective people of Betas and so many things changing in the beta world, like the Globe betas, that this podcast has been dire overdue. So we're again happy to have you, but let's start off with more about you. What got you into the hobby?
Oh, gosh. What got me into the hobby? I've always been interested in fish. I blame it on working as a cashier in a pet store and just staring at the fish all day long and daydreaming about them and then also just loving planted tanks and plants, and it all just worked together.
Is that when you got started? Is when you were working at a pet store?
No, I was pretty sorry if I'm stuttering. I've never talked about this kind of stuff before.
No worries.
More questions about you instead of presenting.
Okay. All right, so I've always been interested in fish and fish tanks, but I've never been able to act on that interest because I've kind of lived somewhat nomadically in a car down by the river. The van.
Wow. She's on board already. She's already hammered on me. No, that's okay. I love you, too.
But I've always been moving around and traveling and changing jobs and moving states. So I've never really been able to have fish until finally I felt like I was at a point where I was much more secure and stable and staying in one place and I knew that I'd be able to work on the projects that I wanted to. And this was just a few years ago.
So how many years have you been.
Doing this with YouTube? I think I've done it for two years, maybe just over two years. But then as for fish, it's maybe a couple years, more like three years. So really not that long. I've been taking it seriously instead of just like an interest where I read about it and watch things about it.
So what gave you the idea that, hey, I really need to share this passion of mine, this hobby on YouTube? What made you jump in and take the plunge?
The creative outlet. I really like technology and video editing, and I used to be in the video game industry, and I'd work with visuals a lot, and it's just something that was right up my alley, is learning about how to make a YouTube channel. And once I saw that other people were doing this and they were actually making channels and videos about the hobbies that they love, I knew that I had to do it to. And I actually blame inglorious vettas, which is a channel that I dearly love, even though she's not really posting anymore for getting me the motivation and the idea to make my own channel.
When you first started, you immediately dove into betas, or was there something else that you started with? It was just beta.
I just knew I loved them.
So if you go online now and you see that you used to sell again, you've had a child more recently. So I don't know about stocking, but you have many different videos of breeding care, new displays of new beta is coming in all the time. And it seems that you sell stock. Is that stock on your website your own?
The stock on my website is my own. It's changed what's on my website right now. Unfortunately, I don't have any fish available because I've been so busy just with my new baby and my family. It's hard to get enough fish to be able to sell online. I also sell to my pet store. I also sell just kind of offline to acquaintances and people I know just through email. It's a lot easier to do that than to try to do nice photography of all the stock and then post it online and go through the whole hassle. I do import fish. They're my project fish. And then I'll either keep those fish, I'll breed them, I'll add them to my projects. When I'm done, they'll go to other people, or they'll be my pets, or they'll go to the pet store, and it's just a constant flux. As for what I have right now.
I've got about 100 dumbo. Let me see if I get this right.
Dumbo ear is what they call them.
Dumble ear. Half betas. I just purchased last week and they came about 100.
You bought 100?
Yes. I usually have 300 on hand or so back when I was wholesaling and stuff. I'd get 100 in a week, 1500 in a week, and it's just amazing. I find these betas and I go, this one I don't really like. I don't think it's going to sell.
And that always sells.
And it always sells. So you don't know everybody.
I do that too. I'm so picky about my fish and what I put on my website. It's like I only want to show the best of the best because I see all the flaws in all the other ones, not realizing that normal people, they don't see those flaws.
Right. Just because you don't like the silver fish or the dark, dark red or whatever color you don't like, some people just think it's fantastic.
Right. 100 dumbos. That's a lot dumbos.
Jimmy wholesales to different pet stores in Minnesota, so he certainly pushes a lot of betas out.
Yeah. I actually have a small store over in a neighboring town and stuff, and I made a bed of rack. I went to Target and I bought these four inch by four inch, and I think they hold about 20oz of water, and I made a rack to hold them, which is backlit, and I went from selling probably about 15 to 20 beds a week. Right now I'm selling about 40 beds a week.
Wow, that's great.
Yeah.
About making a better rack.
Yeah, I made a better rack and then I backlit it with two four foot Led lights.
Nice.
What I didn't realize is that not only do airplanes circle the building because they think it's an airport, because it's so damn bright, it also breeds a lot of algae in the cups and stuff. So I'm now going to talk to Rob here and we're going to try to get some other lights that aren't quite as nasty for making algae.
Light controllers go a long way.
Yeah, like a dimmer switch. Could you attach a dimmer on there?
Absolutely.
Let's do it.
But yeah, the new setup that he made, it keeps a little bit more space than they have because all pet stores want to do traditional cups and we're trying to sway away from that so it gives them more space. It actually puts heat on the beta, which is crucial for of beta looking good and keeping healthy. So it did a lot.
Perfect. I love that. That's great.
So what I want to do is go through a couple of stages here because we have a lot of questions to go over with you. Number one, we're going to have a lot of a mixed audience and we have a lot of beginner keepers on here. So for misconceptions, what do you recommend as a beta professional and a beta breeder? For long term care and ownership of a beta?
For care of these fish, the first thing I recommend is just warm, clean water. Like, that's the most important thing you could possibly offer these fish. A lot of people don't realize that they need a heater, that they need tropical temperatures to really thrive and be healthy. A lot of people who are just getting into fish and just looking into betas, they don't realize like, water chemistry and water parameters and that kind of thing. And that's where a lot of the issues come from. So that's the first thing I recommend is just warm, clean water. That's where you start. I have a lot of people asking me about like, oh, well, what do you think about tank size? And I like to say to those people that the bigger you can go, the better. Just because your water parameters are going to be more stable. I don't recommend keeping them in tiny little cups. I also don't necessarily agree with people who say you have to keep them in like a ten gallon tank minimum. I don't believe that.
I always say that the optimal setup if you can go bigger. I have betas with a community tank, as long as they're not picking fins.
And there's a lot of beautiful new one gallon tank that people can keep on their desk at work. And the light bulbs on those things will actually keep the water pretty warm on their desk and so they can enjoy that fish while they're at work.
Actually, they have heat plates, they have built in filters. So it's, it's sometimes even more than one gallon with the back and built in filter.
Yeah, well, if somebody came up to me with like a gallon or a two gallon tank that was perfect, the fish had nice warm water, it was clean. Maybe they have a filter in there. They're taking good care of it the way that they need to take good care of a small amount of water. I'm not going to be angry or judge that person. Right. And so many people online are so quick to do that. It's like, oh, that's not a ten gallon tank, you're a terrible person. But there's a lot more to taking care of the fish and just that.
So the other thing is people don't want to have filters, they don't have aerators. And yes, betas can breathe directly out of their pocket above, but it's still nice to have water flow in a tank if you possibly can. Having a bubbler just to cycle the water through with a sponge filter, fantastic. Just to keep your water quality up.
I love sponge filters. I always recommend sponge filters.
Hey. Teen Taylor. That's who I'm on tonight.
Plants are always a good recommendation as well.
Oh, I love plants. Some people just can't do plants, though. And I understand that.
Again, I'm trying to get all these misconceptions from a lot of it because betas are really touchy to the community. You mentioned before how people says they need to be ten gallon minimum betas above any other fish community that you see are super protective because the abuses they've been put through for years. There used to be one of the most popular fish sold, if not still in 2009, 2008 era, give or take. There used to be thousands of betas sold everywhere. They were in flower shops. And one of the biggest misconceptions that we see is people say these plant setups, they have a vase, they put a plant on top and there's a beta in there. Like no, the beta eats the roots.
I hated those.
Right. That was actually my very first beta when I was a very little kid. I think somebody gifted it to us. It was a little fish in a vase with the plant on top. What is it? Like a Peace lily. I don't even remember.
Yeah, it's a Peace lily. Is that what they recommended?
And the instructions were that the fish, they were going to eat the roots and pick up the roots, you didn't need to change the water. Right. Wasn't that part of the instructions?
Yeah, it was stupid.
I really remember.
Yeah, no changing the water. You just top it off. It's a whole ecosystem. You just put it close to a window, which of course grows algae at night, it froze in the daytime, it got too hot, it went green immediately and killed the fish in exponential rate.
Yeah.
And I don't want to say that beta is our beginner fish, but that's what a lot of people start with. They go get their children a beta in a court jar or whatever, and they'll say, and this used to happen to Adam a lot. And I'd be in the store and people would come in and say, yeah, my bed is not moving around. Well, we're in northern Minnesota. It's cold in the house. Because it's 70 degrees in your house means that water is probably 67, 68.
Right.
And I would recommend, so would Adam. All you have is a bowl and you don't have a heater. Put it on top of your refrigerator. Because at least the refrigerator, if you ever put your hand on top of the refrigerator, it's pretty warm.
That makes sense.
And that would certainly help the fish and keep them more active. Don't put them on top of your TV like I had somebody do, because the kid knocked off the thing on the TV and blew up a $300 TV.
Oh, yeah.
So don't do that.
But I actually recommend I think betas are a really great beginner fish. I just think that there's not enough maybe education out there on how to actually take care of a fish. And people just don't realize how to do it. They impulse by this cute, little colorful, pretty little personable creature and they aren't ready to do everything else that you have to do to take care of them.
Kind of like raising children you go, oh, they're cute, let's get one.
Yeah.
And you go, what the heck? It's like kids rethinking, whatever. How about that, Adam? Adam just fell off his chair.
So another misconception that people say is you can't put two betas together. Well, people don't know that. Females really don't fight and you can have sororities. But you see a lot of videos on YouTube, there's a lot of advanced aquarists out there that even of bringing themselves. And people have random videos you'll find on the Internet. Oh, here's a bunch of male betas together in the same tank. So is there ever a time where you have replicated such activity, Taylor, or a secret trick that you have?
I wouldn't call it secret. The only time I've been able to keep males together is when they are I'm actually growing out a spawn. I like to remove my males from their spawn as they're growing. When they start to show aggression, they're starting to chase the other fish, maybe nip a little bit. That's my sign that I'm going to remove the male. But what do you do if you have a male that isn't showing those signs? Sometimes I just decide to leave them in the tank with all the females and all the other kind of more docile males, and I don't have problems with it. But these keep in mind, these fish have never been removed from that environment. They don't have that territorial instinct that can come out more after you remove the male from his spawn. And that's the only real situation where I've been able to keep males together. And it's never permanent, too. I end up taking those males out eventually.
So some things I've seen randomly from even my grandmother that got me into the zombie. She used to breed badas herself, and she on very rare occasions, could raise a pair together in a same aquarium, and they would leave each other alone as long as they were both from the same batch and grew up together, never being taken apart. Do you ever experience that as well?
I've never done that. I've never just kept a pair together in a tank. I always separate the males from the female. It's just I don't like the risk. I don't like the risk to it that I'm going to walk in and have a dead female in a tank and it's going to be all my fault.
I'll tell you a quick story. One of my friends, who is in his late 70s right now, but he was a wholesaler out in eastern montana. He raised betas by the thousands. And here's what he's did, and this will probably blow your mind, and John said he had 100% success ratio with this, and I've never tried it, and I don't want to try it, but he was out on a big farm and he raised all his own goldfish and he would import fish to sell, and he raised. His own betas. He had a 300 gallon stockpiled inside a building with a heater in it. And as his fish hatched and he got them off baby brine shrimp then he would throw them all in a 300 gallon pond. And he said he would have four or 5000 fish in the 300 gallon pond. But what he did is he kept the water so dark they could hardly see each other with peat moss.
Oh, my gosh, I've never heard of that.
Anyway, I called bs on it and I said, John, I don't know if I believe you, by God, if he didn't come a couple of weeks later I used to buy a lot of guinea pigs from him because he commercially raised guinea pigs.
And he came still alive.
I remember him. He's still alive. And he came with these pictures and stuff. And there was pictures of him going in with a net and he came out with 200 beddas males and females, just most beautiful color. And he said he would throw in a handful of flake food twice a day, three times a day. And he said these fish never had any nip fins. They never bothered anybody, he said, because in the wild, he says this is what they're doing. But the whole trick is to keep the water so dark that they can't really see each other.
How you learn something new every day? I've never heard of that. But, yeah, probably the dark water. And then also, there's just so many fish. One fish can't single out another fish to just constantly chase it.
Yeah. And a 300 gallon horse trough is probably what do you say, rob's? Is it probably 7ft across? I mean, it's a big goddamn tank.
It depends on the trough. But yeah, a lot of those, especially like the was it stainless steel ones that they use, I forget, galvanized steel or 6ft.
And he was lucky enough, too, where he had a natural spring in his property. And he said, I'd go out there in the natural spring and I'd get 1520 gallons of water. He goes, ice cold. He goes, you know, 55 degrees, he said, But I would pour in that 300 gallon tank. He said the temperature would fluctuate a degree. And as he poured in the 15, 2025 gallons of water that he do a water change with it would just go over through a small spout off to the side and kind of drain on his own. He said that's how he did a water change. And he said, I had great success. He says he did this for like 15 or 20 years. So it must have worked.
It must have worked. And that's another reason why Betas makes such a great beginner fish. They're very hardy and beautiful and I think they are a great beginner fish. Look at all the look at all the different ways they can be raised and taken care of.
They can take a ton of abuse, that's for sure, for someone that's learning.
Yes, they can.
On your website, for the YouTube channel, one of the more popular videos that we want to talk to you about is of course, the infamous beta rack. What was your thought process behind that? And again, it will have the link to your YouTube channel and the specific video for the beta rack in our show Notes. But again, what was the thought process behind that? How did you develop that particular rack?
To be honest, I had an empty wall and it was driving me crazy. I didn't know what to put on it. I wanted to use it and I just couldn't figure out, like, okay, well, should I put a tank here? Should I put some shelves? And I could put jars here. And then at the time, I was also driving myself a little bit crazy with just all the water changes because in the way that I raise my fish, I don't use filters. I do it kind of the traditional way where you manually change the water from the containers that you have your growing males in and it's a huge time sync, it's a lot of effort. It's not something that I recommend to people, is keeping their fish in smaller containers with manual water changes. It's a huge pain. But that kind of made me come to the conclusion that I really needed to make some kind of recirculating system and make it work on this really narrow space because I didn't have a whole lot of room and I had to walk by it. It's basically in a doorway in a bathroom. So that's what I came up with. It's just this little design. I knew, like, I could probably work with about seven inches and I found some containers to work with my dimensions I needed and it just all snowballed from there. And then one day I just made it.
So have you ever had, like, set that up as a recirculating system? Because it looks like you can do it for water changes.
Yeah, at the time when I made the video, it was just a flow through system. I just pumped freshwater in and the dirty water would come out straight into the sink. But since then, I actually made like, a stump down below. It's made out of a trash can with a bunch of media in it and the pump is in there and now it's a recirculating system.
And your life is a heck of a lot simpler, isn't it?
It is really nice. The whole thing holds, I think, around 40 fish, and right now it's not totally full and it just it makes life easier and it saves my wrists because I gave myself tendinitis last year, just changing so many waters and not taking care of myself. So this way I can take care of my hands a little bit better and it's a lot easier now. I still have fish that aren't in the recirculating system, especially fish that I import or fish that aren't mine. They're not of my spawns. I don't put them in the recirculating rack because who knows what kind of super rare, brand new, scary disease they could give all of my fish.
You never know what's going to be coming in from an import.
You never know.
You never know. I mean, last week I ordered some discus. I'd like to bring discus in from a certain supplier. And I know the supplier as number 307 from my wholesaler. And she goes, Are you sure you want discus this week, Jim? I go, yeah, I sure do. She goes, they're from China. I said, I'll pass. And you don't know what's going to come in on a bag. And I have had some weird poisonings that I've gotten. You know, like if you have a small cut on your finger and you handle a bag. And I've actually got got blood poisoning up through my arm on two different occasions in 30 years where I've handled a bag, because you don't know where this bag has been. It's overseas in a third world country. You don't know if everybody there has their shots and whatnot. And I've gotten blood poisoning twice from handling bags? From handling fish bags. Yeah. If you've ever had blood poisoning, it hits you pretty quick. I mean, you handle something and then within about 1214 hours, I've had symptoms. And I didn't think it was from the bags. My doctor said absolutely, he said it's from your fish bags because it's all right.
Wait a second.
What?
I have something coming from China. Not right now, obviously. I had this thing set up before this whole coronavirus thing hit. Then, of course, it got canceled. I'm just waiting now for everything to calm down until I get this fish that I've been looking for for years. But that's kind of a scary story.
If you put on some rubber gloves, which I never do, and that's my fault, but you're a young mother of a couple of kids. You definitely, probably should put on some rubber gloves when you're handling anything that's imported. I'll tell you a quick story. When I used to import, I have two boys, and they're 28 and 26. And when those two little jerks would do something, here's how I used to.
Laugh, because I can relate.
Yeah. When they would do something, how they got punished in our houses, they weren't grounded. We didn't take away the cartoons on the TV, that sort of thing. I made them cut Betas. And I mean, I'm not kidding. I'd have those two kids standing at the kitchen sink, and they would have to do 300 bedas in one night. And you know how they come packaged? In a little 1oz packaging. And my kids are very good with knives because at the age of six and eight, they would cut open the bag and put the bedas in the cup and put the snap on the lid and go downstairs and put it on the rack. Because at that time, I was working out of my home, but what my kids would do is I bring in these big boxes are imported, and they would have newspaper as insulation, and those little jerks would steal the newspaper because there's always some naked Korean girl or something on page seven. And for the first six months, I couldn't figure out why they're so dang happy that I got another fish order and they're going to help me unload. And I'll take the boxes outside, dad, into the garage, and I'll do that for you. I appreciate it.
They don't have crossword puzzles, right?
And then one day their mother came, and my ex wife, she comes, she goes, hey, look what I found in the closet of the kids and stuff. And I go, It has, like, about 20 pages. And they all had these cute little Korean girls half naked or fully naked, because over there, they actually have nudity in their newspapers.
I feel like there's a lot of public service announcements in this whole little conversation here. One, wear gloves. Don't let the fish liquid from China get on your open source.
There we go.
Two, always punish your kids when boxing fish. So either one, love it or two, hate it. And either way, you'll figure it out.
I can't wait until my children are old enough to where I can punish them with my fish chores.
There you go. You are.
Can't wait.
You're all right on task.
It's going to be great.
And I'm here to tell you that neither one of my kids have fish tanks, and they'll never will.
And three, make sure to burn the paperclip, and otherwise your kids will find them.
Yeah, it was funny because one time Kyle, who's my oldest, he's 28 years old now, he says, hey, I want to take some of these newspapers into show. And they were in the Chinese language, not sure what language, to be honest with you. And he would take it into for show and tell, which I thought was pretty cool because they had all these full newspapers and stuff, but we had to kind of edit them to make sure that there was nothing on site when they took it in.
That's smart.
Yeah.
Good on you.
Let's talk about other breeding methods that you have. So this goes into more intermediate advanced category. For those listeners. You have a few videos of better steps and how you breed. But for our listeners, if they want to breed a pair of Betas, what's some of the first steps?
I do have videos, but I actually don't have a specific step by step how to video on breeding. And that's something that I'm actually working on right now. The thing that's been holding me up is just getting good footage. I'm really picky about footage and I tend to breed in these rubber made containers where you don't get good footage. It's like the semi opaque container and I'm not getting good footage in there. It's dark. What am I going to do? So lately I've been trying really hard to get some good footage in actual glass containers. So hopefully that will be coming up soon. Except for my fish aren't cooperating lately. As for the first steps, I would say your fish itself, the breeder pair itself should be your first step. For example, do you know what's going to happen when you pair these two fish? Are you going to get a nice, strong body that's going to be able to support the weight of the fins? Do you know if you're going to get long fins or short fins? Do you have an idea of what's going to be the dominant traits of of your batch? Or what are you breeding for? Or are you just throwing two fish together and seeing what happens? Which I don't necessarily recommend. So I think that's your first step is choosing your pear to produce what you want.
So what do you recommend in a pair? For instance, do you recommend them being more of the same style, the same body size, or is completely crossing, say, like a half moon beta with a picat beta, something that you've seen? Easily done.
Yeah, it's definitely easily done. They're all the same species. Just remember that they're just different tail types or different colors. And the way that you combine them is going to give you different results. The pairs that you choose should complement each other. That's just basic animal husbandry, but a lot of people don't really think about that. Like, if you see a flaw on your male, try to choose. He's not worthless. You just want to choose a female who's going to maybe even out that flaw. Does he have a tiny little body but big fins? Well, choose a female who's going to even that out.
That's a good recommendation. I've never even thought about that.
Yeah, a lot of people will see like, oh, that fish is only so and so. But you're just looking at the phenotype. You don't actually know that fish might be from an amazing line. You have no idea. So you could just work with it.
Once you figure out what male or female you want, how do you condition those fish to get them ready for spawning?
Conditioning is pretty easy. You basically just treat them like little princes and princesses. That's what I do. I make sure that their water is nice and warm. I feed them multiple times a day. I wait until the female is starting to look nice and eggy. I like to let my find eggy, like, nice and plump, just to feel a little chunky, like she swallowed a marble, sort of.
Do you wait till the ovipositor protrudes a little bit from the female.
The ovipositor generally shows itself on all of my female fish. I've never had a female but where it wasn't visible, to be honest, it should be visible at all times, in my opinion, because I've never had a female where I can't see the Oval positor.
I raise a lot of angel fish and the Oval positors come out just before spawning and then goes back up. So that's interesting that the bed is pretty much always down on a female.
Yeah. Maybe if you have a really poorly conditioned female, it would disappear. Or if you have a female who is going to transition into a male, which can happen.
Whoa, we have to stop now.
I've heard of it.
Yeah, it happens. Females can turn into males sometimes it's unpredictable. Sometimes one week you might have a super obvious female, and then oh, wait a second. All of a sudden, I don't see an ovipositor. All of a sudden the fins are looking a little longer than they did. They can spontaneously turn into male, and then the mechanism isn't really known, but it can happen. That's one of the dangers of maybe having a sorority tank is you might have a female in there who's going to turn all nasty and aggressive because she's actually turning male.
I've never heard of that. This is, like, true. I'm in a whole new world now. I know that a lot of fish species across nature do change sexes, but I never knew Betas were a part of that. And that could explain some of the stuff I've had in the past. So what are some of the signs that you'd look for for your transgender beta?
Your freaky beta?
A younger fish, a younger female has more of a chance than an older female. I'd say once you get past, like, six months or probably even less, the chances of that happening goes way down. Also, if the fish has bread before, she's not going to turn male. It's like, locked in after that.
So you're talking about these, I don't know a word virgin fish that you have. I'm serious. Quit laughing at me.
I just love the description.
Do you want me to put, like, a virgin right here?
No, no. Your dream that 72 virgins dramatically changed.
No, that's not me. That's Adam.
But no, it's not God.
Well, my flight got canceled anyways.
Adam adam is half half Arab, half white, and he gets a lot of crap from us. This is fun.
We pick on both halves equally.
We do. We do actually pick on both halves equally. But I think what you're saying, too, Taylor, is that once these virgin fish, there's a lot of hormones in those water, and I think hormones from other fish can switch it up. I'll tell you a quick story. Our dog, who is 14 years old, who has never been in heat in the last five or six years now that we have a male puppy in the house. She just went in the heat after five years of not being going into cycle. So hormones will do crazy things to crazy people.
Yeah. And who knows? It's an unknown mechanism when it comes to betas.
Have you seen males transition to females?
No, not once? Not ever. So I've only seen females turn into males and I've never seen it happen after breeding.
It's like clownfish will do it.
Yes, I've heard that.
And then sword tails. I've had a female sword tail. What she did was I kept her by herself for so long, she actually dropped a litter of fry. She only dropped like three or four babies. She was a big female. Then she turned into a male and her babies were females and then she bred with the babies.
I am not drinking any of these people's water. That's all I'm saying.
So she grew a gun a podium.
She grew a gun a podium. But it wasn't like a straight ganapodium, it was still kind of a little floppy.
Again, females to males only. Males don't transition over after they've bred. They just don't. They're locked in. You got your stuff all set. It's all over after back on track, after they're no longer virgin fish.
That's what I say. That's my experience and the experience of a lot of other people I know. If I get somebody yelling at me that that's not true. I'm just saying that that's my experience and just like the collective experience of a bunch of other people.
Yeah, it's just amazing how many people come on that we just had the pond guy on and he says, I've been doing this for 29 years and people tell me, well, that can't be done, and go, I've been doing it for 29 years, don't tell me it can't be done. So, yeah, I mean, everybody has different experiences and every time we have somebody new in a podcast like yourself, we learn something every single night. And that's what I love about this podcast.
Again, not that I don't believe you, but I had to confirm, and there's definitely some research on sex reversal for female betas as a function of testosterone, manipulation and social influence. So definitely not crazy. It's a confirmed thing, I've just never known about it.
Did you say social influence?
Correct.
So if these fish are at the club club and the hormones are screaming and raging, oh, Lord, why does this turn dirty? I don't get this.
I'm going to put on glitter later to celebrate.
You should do this.
Well, shouldn't you just borrow some from the balloons that Jim gave you in the house?
I don't even know where to go from the I don't even know where to go with the next questions after this for follow up. So when you're raising these, isn't it become impossible to gender at a very young age when they're fry? Generally you can see like males, they have longer fins, they'll grow a little different.
I can tell from a pretty young age which fish are going to be male, but I can't tell all the time. I can't tell all the time. Sometimes it's really obvious. Other times you'll have a bunch of males in there who just who look like females, they're still developing. But once you start to get an eye for it, the first thing to look for is definitely those longer ventral fins on your little male babies. Sometimes you can just notice it really soon, and sometimes they'll even be chasing the other fish and being little jerks at a very young age.
So what's more common for fish? Because some fish males are more common in a batch than females, and females are rare and few and far between. How are beta? Is it 50 50?
No, I would say it's well, coming from my experience, I would say it's just kind of an even 50 50. I have heard of sometimes people getting freak all female spawns or either drastically skewed to one sex or the other in a spawn, but I haven't really seen that.
Adam, you and I had a conversation one time about temperature skewing different male female ratios. What is that all about?
Yeah. Is that proven on temperatures when it comes to a fish like betas?
I don't know about that, but I know that it is for reptile eggs. There's a lot of geckos. But I always thought that you could get more males. And then I also was reading something about the PH level in the water and depending the PH level, you can control the sex on that too. I don't know proof that it is to that.
I haven't heard of that one. I have heard of some breeders, like wholesale breeders, using hormones in the water to actually turn female fish into male or give them a higher propensity to do so.
And that makes total sense because they get more money for a male better than they do a female.
Yes, but I don't know what hormones or what dosing they're doing. I don't have any of that information and I wouldn't do it even if I knew it.
No, but overseas that's what they're doing is they're trying to produce more males because there's more of a demand at wholesale level. I used to buy female beds for a quarter all the time. And males were always about $0.55 wholesale. You got to realize everybody goes, oh, that's really cheap. Well, okay, put it on an airplane flight a halfway across the world and see how cheap it is. No longer.
Fifty five cents. And you have to buy 1000.
Right? You have to buy 1000. You have to pay box charges, shipping charges, heat pack charges, any charges.
Your kids have to cut them all.
The kids have to cut them all. And then you have to go underneath their bed and steal all the newspaper.
Nudes paper.
Nudes paper. There you go. That's a good one. Adam, when you breed these fish, after you have them conditioned, what do you put them into? Breed them?
I use rubber made containers, actually. I don't know if they're rubber made, since that's a brand, but I use these plastic, mostly transparent boxes I get from Home depot. They're probably about maybe two thirds the size of a ten gallon tank. Like when you're looking at the at the floor plan, I just find that they're pretty convenient. They're lightweight. Even if they're, like, full of water, I can still move them around on, they're strong enough for that. And I just like using plastic containers more because I can stack them, I can put them away when I'm done and have all of that space left, which is important to me because I don't really work with a whole lot of space. I'm literally working out of a bathroom and then a little tiny chunk of the library, which I've stolen for a fish rack. Storage space is crucial and much beloved by me. So I really prefer using plastic containers to breed in.
And they don't break.
I think the question you're getting at is because people breed in a suburb container, and then they move the males and eggs and break the nest. You don't do that. You leave them in the containers. Correct?
I do. I let them spawn and then I'll remove the female after everything's done. Generally, I'll leave the male in with the spawn for a couple of days, and then once the fry or free swimming, I take the male out and then I leave the little tiny, itty bitty baby eyelash fry in there for at least a couple of weeks, maybe more. And once they get to a certain size, it's not a science. I just kind of eyeball it. I put them in a ten gallon tank.
Just a quick question. How deep is the water that you use? The very first fish that I ever bred, when I was in high school, back in the 18 hundreds, everything that I had read at that point, this was in books. People and books are things you go to the library, you get them. This wasn't on the Internet. We didn't have them. And they said no more than six inches of water. How deep is your water?
About three inches. Three or four inches. I've seen people go as low as like, two inches. The lower the better. Supposedly the male, it helps preserve his energy. It's very cozy. He doesn't have to keep chasing his little falling eggs or twelve inches down. If he had a full tank, then twelve inches back up and it would just be exhausting. So generally the recommendation is about three or four inches. I just do it to cover my very gently bubbling sponge filter, which is about around four inches, I guess. Three or four inches, yeah.
The reason given in this book that I read when I was in high school is that they said that the water pressure also is harder on the fry if you're eight inches versus four inches or six inches, whatever people are doing.
Oh, that does make sense. I've seen other breeders recommend that. For example, if you're seeing fry that aren't really able to swim, they should be free swimming. But they're sinking. They're going down to the bottom. They're stuck on the bottom to lower the water levels down to like maybe half an inch or an inch and then slowly increase it over time. So I have heard that now, what.
Do you use for them to make their bubble nest? Do you just let them make the bubble nest in the corner or do you use something before that?
We should actually probably explain this to our listeners because we have a lot of beginner listeners that will message us after. So how does this work? And they maybe don't know the fundamentals. That's true when beta's breed again, the male beta tries to court the female beta and prep with a bubble nest. They make the bubble nest on the top of the surface. They literally just use their own mucus and build them with their own blown bubbles. So they look for debris in nature, like a leaf or something. So we can ask tips on how to simulate that. But they build a bubble nest on a floating object most of the time. Again, they court the female in. They wrap around, essentially trying to induce or squeeze the eggs out of her. And the male is the one that broods the eggs. He makes sure to stick the eggs to the bubble nest. And if eggs fall, he picks them up, make sure to read here in the rubble nest, and keeps repairing the bubble nest as the eggs develop.
That's all exhausting.
Very exhausting.
On that note, your question was again.
Jimmy, I just wanted to know, do you use anything in particular for them to make their bubble nest? Because the bubbleness is pretty fragile. What do you use? I'll tell you what I use.
I like to use a little piece of bubble wrap and then I put a piece of a leaf on top of the bubble wrap so it's very cozy and that's usually what I use.
That's fantastic. What I used to do when I was doing it, I'd read to take a styrofoam coffee cup and saw it, the coffee cup sitting on your desk like it normally is, about a quarter of it off. Just saw it right in half. And then you just float that styrofoam cup on top facing the part that you drink out of towards the tank so you can watch them build a bubble nest. And then I would keep my female in a big at that time. Skippy peanut butter jar. And I put the female in the tank, in the jar, and so he could see the female but couldn't get at her. And then he would build a bubble nest like a son of a gun.
I like the leaf method.
Yeah, the leaf method I'd never heard of. And that's why I always ask these questions, because everybody's got a different way of doing it.
I see. I have used the styrofoam cup method in the past. Both sawing it in half and then just sawing the bottom off and literally just letting it float on top of the water or taping it to the side so it stays in the corner. I've done both of those. Oh, and then one quick note. I heard you use the phrase to squeeze the eggs out. That's a misconception. Definitely squeezing the eggs out. A lot of people think that they don't have muscles. A male fish to squeeze the eggs out, but that's not the case. Squeeze and wrap.
It certainly looks like it, but there's no way that they can wrap your body in half like that to squeeze.
Oh, quick note. And then I also use the same method where I put the female in a transparent jar, and I like to put it in the breeding container to make sure that I'm seeing the right signs. The female is ready to breed. The male is ready to breed. He's going to make his nest. And that's all good signs. If I saw bad signs, I probably wouldn't breed them. Like maybe a male who wasn't interested or a female who was just trying to run away. Those are signs that I wouldn't breed.
So when the female is running away, they're literally the opposite side of the glass, trying to stay away from it as much as possible or what would you see them twitching. How does that work?
Well, I like to see the female looking at the male, interested, maybe flaring and being a little bit sassy. That's what I like to see. If I saw a female who just looked terrified that the male was flaring and dancing at her, that's not a good sign for me. I don't like that. But once you release settle down, Adam.
I know.
Into the tank. She is probably going to run away because the ritual begin. There's going to be a lot of chasing and flaring and biting and pecking. But that's normal to then see the female kind of start to dart away and try to find a little safe place to hide.
So she's not being receptive. She's like she's like no, a female.
Can be receptive, but sometimes the male will still go through the chasing and pecking and flaring.
And that's why we have the Me Too movement. That's exactly people don't know how to read it.
It's essentially to make sure we're weaning out all the Harvey Weinstein fish.
Oh, Lord. Somebody just drove off the end of the ditch again. Listen to this. On the car radio, you were saying, Adam?
Now, I had always heard to give the females like, a little piece of pvc pipe to hide in that only they could really fit in. Have you ever done that or no?
Yeah. Okay. I always give my female some hiding places because I've noticed sometimes it can take a few days for the breeding to actually start. It can take up to three days. I've seen, and I like to give a hiding place for the safety of the female. What if she literally can't get away and the male is just attacking her and then she's dead because there is no place for her to hide and go through the ritual where usually, like, maybe wild fish, the female would be able to run away and then come back, and then run away and then come back. But a female trapped in a little box with a highly aggressive other fish, it's not always a good recipe, especially for beginners.
Recipe for disaster?
Yeah, especially for beginners who can't always read and see if their fish are ready to breed.
Now, how beat up do your Betas become after breeding? I'm assuming it's not the most smooth process for all your Betas. Clearly it takes three days sometimes, I'm assuming fins get nipped and there's some damage.
Sometimes it's incredibly smooth. It just takes a couple of days for them to actually get into the wrapping and the spawning process. But there's no injuries, there's no nipped fins. It's just a lot of chasing, a lot of light bites from the male chasing and flaring and going through that whole ritual. But then sometimes I will see beat up fins from actual bites. Sometimes the male will get a little bit beat up because the female is also nipping him back, which isn't always a good sign. If you have an aggressive female towards the male, that's also a bad sign, in my opinion. So fish, they're not always beat up after spawning, especially if they're both ready to go. But sometimes it will take a few days for the spawning to actually start. And that's why I like to give hiding places.
Have you ever noticed, is there a certain time of day where they're more apt to breed?
No. I wish there was some kind of pattern. I wish because I go through just times where none of my fish are breeding, they're not interested. I don't see any kind of pattern, nothing obvious. I wish I knew that there was some kind of obvious, easy way to do it.
When I commercially bred angel fish, I would keep track on an index card on the aquarium when these fish would breed. And what I noticed a lot is that I always fed about the same time at night, right at dusk, I would feed them frozen bloodworms and they would almost on cue, they would spawn at 07:00 at night, 08:00 at night at dusk. But I had windows in my warehouse and so they could actually get the natural light in. Are you breeding specifically, like, in a room without any windows? I'm assuming if you're saying it's a bathroom, you probably don't have windows in the bathroom.
I do. My fish room is a bathroom. It's literally a bathroom. There's no windows in it. It's just this weird little leftover bathroom from a remodel in the place I'm living. Like, literally, it's just an extra bathroom that nobody uses or would use. It's kind of strange. Of course I decided to make it into a fish room because why not?
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I have some friends that raise rainbow fish up in wells fargo, and they just told me the same thing on Saturday when I was up there is that they've noticed that about at dusk when they start getting more action and the fish breed more often. So I was just kind of curious if that ever happens with bettas.
Oh, interesting. I haven't seen a particular pattern because I do have my lights on very consistently and then off consistently, but sometimes oh, I'll usually release the females right before I go to bed at night, but sometimes they spawn right away. Sometimes it takes three days and they're spawning in the middle of the day when I'm doing my water changes. Sometimes it's at night when I don't see them, it's definitely all over the place.
Yeah, the other thing I really noticed, too, I mean, you just said a key word there. He said water changes. I would see spawns after water changes, but I also would see huge spawns, absolutely huge spawns happen during a heavy, heavy down pressure. And I got to the point on my index card, I would write thunderstorm or blizzard or whatever big event came through, and I was raising I had 100 pair of angel fish at one time in one room. And so we have a heavy thunderstorm that would come through, and I would average on average day, I'd have five or six spawns. But then I'd come in there one night during a thunderstorm and I had like 35 spawns, and I was up all freaking night because I wasn't ready for 35 spawns, pulling eggs off the slates and whatnot. And when I kept track of it, and I did this for probably about eight, nine years, I saw without a doubt that heavy down pressures would queue these things to spawn. So I encourage you to try to keep track of the weather in your area. thunderstorms, blizzards, hurricanes, whatever you got going on. Maybe see if you see any sort of pattern and write that down and put it in your little industry.
Absolutely. I have actually experimented with barometric pressure and trying to see when, like, maybe some rain was coming or some kind of storm, which doesn't happen all the time where I live, in a pretty arid place and getting those storms is pretty rare. But I have timed it before and I have noticed maybe a slight uptick in the chance that a pair was going to spawn, but it's not like 100% certainty that that would happen.
Yeah, it's just nice to have some direction. I mean, I'm sure we'll have listeners that will contact us and give us other stories that we can share next time.
Absolutely. If anybody wants to share their experiences and how to get a pair to successfully 100% spawn all the time, that'd be great. Even I, the person who has done so many spawns, would love to know your secrets.
Yeah. Every day we learn on this podcast, and we've said a thousand times before in this podcast, we started this podcast to encourage people to get into the hobby, to do it right. And we want the younger generation to step up and take over because all of us are getting older, except for Robbie and Adam never getting older at all.
Yeah, I just can't wait to get the emails on the transgender betas. That's going to be great.
Oh, yeah, we're going to have a.
Lot of fun with that one. So, again, if you want to have a question for any one of our guests, HR again, message us. Aquariumgistpodcast.com and bottom of the website we have. You can leave us a voicemail message and call us, send us a text or email us directly and we will read your questions live on the show.
And make funny, most likely.
No, probably not.
We'll have Taylor make funny, which is even more fun for us.
So when's the point that you first feed your fry? And what do you feed your fry?
As soon as my little baby fry or free swimming, I'll remove the mail and then that day I'll add some vinegar eels to the water. I really like vinegar eels as the first food, they're easy to raise. You don't have to put a whole lot of maintenance or care into keeping a culture of vinegar yields. You literally just start the culture. You put it in a cupboard, you forget about it for six months and it still works. It's still perfect.
And it smells delicious, doesn't it?
And it smells so wonderful. It's actually not bad. It smells like vinegar. As long as you don't drink cider vinegar.
Yeah. And as long as you don't put it in the sun and the sun hits it at 110 degrees and you've happened.
Yeah, I didn't think about that. Definitely nothing like micro worms or banana worms. Nothing like it. It's just vinegary. But that's the first food that I use, especially because it actually stays swimming in the water column, especially up towards the top. The vinegar oils don't just sink down to the bottom like micro worms do. Oh. Plus they're a lot smaller than microworms, which I also like. So that's my first food and I'll use that for the first couple of days.
And you said you just put them in a jar, put them in the shelf. What do you do to maintain a culture?
Literally, I put some established culture in a new jug of apple cider vinegar. I'll let it sit.
Just pure apple cider vinegar?
Just pure apple cider vinegar. Sometimes I'll stick a little chunk of apple in there, not because I've noticed that it's incredibly necessary, but it's just because people online have said to feed them occasionally with a little tiny chunk of apple. So I have, and it's literally the easiest thing in the world. I never take care of them. I never maintain them. I just pull from the cultures when I want to feed, either dumping a bunch of the apple cider through, like, a coffee filter paper and then rinsing it out and dumping whatever tiny little microscopic worms that I've caught into my tanks, or using a method where you actually use like a wine bottle or a beer bottle. It's kind of hard to explain that one, but it's a way where you fill the neck of the container with clean, fresh, normal water, and then you have a little plug like a cotton ball down at the bottom of the neck. And then from there down, you have regular apple cider vinegar with all of the eels in it. And the eels will slowly swim their way up through the cotton into the freshwater. You can just siphon it out and put it straight into your tanks.
Does a brine shrimp network as well?
No, they are way too small for a brine shrimp net. These guys are definitely too tiny. You're going to need a paper filter if you want to do it that way.
And where do you find I mean, where do you get a culture to get started on something? Is that something you just start naturally?
No, you're going to have to buy a culture online. That's how I started. And I actually sell cultures on my website@simplybetter.com, and I kind of distribute those to anybody who's looking to start.
And so how much is a culture cost if somebody was interested in purchasing one from you?
I sell my cultures for $5, all that stuff. That's what all my service you get this little deli container of an established culture, either vinegarios I do micro worms, too, and then sometimes I'm able to sell my grindle worm cultures or white worm cultures, but they go so fast, it's hard. Those are hard to find. Oh, they are. I do have those, but usually people email me about them and then I'll be like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'll send it to you. And I never get to restocking the online store. I do have them, though.
Are they easy to ship? Can you put them in the mail for two to three days? Do you have to have normal, nice weather or can they ship in cooler weather.
Vinegar eels?
Yes.
Oh, they can ship in any temperature. I've never had a lot of vinegar eels shipping in the summer or in the winter. I've had ones where I've been worrying because they ship out in like 90 plus degree temperatures, but everybody's been very happy with what they get.
So they're pretty hardy.
Yeah, they're very hardy. Same with my micro worms. I've never had a loss from them either in cold or in hot temperatures. Grindelworms. I would assume that either in super cold temperatures they won't do very well, and then with white worms, I would assume in very hot temperatures they wouldn't do well. But I've never had a loss with those either. I'm just careful in the way I pack them.
How long does it take for a culture to grow? Like you can abuse one jar to feed your couple batches.
Yeah, so at the moment I have four or five one gallon jugs of apple cider vinegar up on top of my bed rack. I'll pull and I'll pull and I'll pull, and if I ever see my pole starting to look a little weak, I'll just move on to the next jar and then not touch that one that I exhausted for a couple of weeks and it will be just fine.
So this is kind of a never ending supply of food for your bettas.
Yes. At least in the early stages when your fish are still tiny and they can still eat those little microscopic foods. After probably about three days, I'll start feeding larger foods like micro worms mixed in with my vinegar eels, because then you have the little tiny vinegar eels at the top, you have your larger micro worms sinking to the bottom. It's giving a nice range of food. And then a couple of days after that I'll move on to baby brine shrimp. And then from there it's usually micro worms and baby brine. And then once the fish get just big enough to accept small grindle worms, I'll move on to those.
That is a huge process of food that you have. But if you're not worried about running out of stuff, I can see where that would work just splendidly.
It works really great on a small scale. Just keep some nice healthy cultures and you'll never really be out of food.
And I know the one question that I always ask how many fried you get from a spawn?
It varies so much. I have had anywhere from one hundred s to like 20. It's hard to say the way I do it. And maybe it's my water, maybe it's my methods, I'm not 100% sure. I've never seen those really huge 600 plus baby bonds. Usually it's maybe around 100, maybe less. And I'm not very sad about that because just the way I do things on such a small scale, I get easily overwhelmed by too many fish. So I'm happy to have smaller spawns where I can put more care into raising them and raising them quickly and taking care of them well, then having like, huge spawns, because I don't really make a whole lot of money. Maybe I'm not relying on as an income, so I can treat it more as a hobby. And I like that. I like having smaller spots.
I like just the idea of the hobby paying for itself. I mean, it's nice to be able to sell a couple of $100 worth of stuff so you can go to Home depot, spend a couple of $100, it doesn't come out of your personal pocket. And I think that's what we should all strive for and then anything extra. There's so many people that go, I'm going to make my living doing this, and you go into it all wrong. And what you're doing is this the correct way you go into it? Because it's a loving way that you're doing it and the fish are treated right. And that's the way it should be.
Hobby first, business later.
Absolutely. Because if you're not happy with what you're doing, if you're overworking yourself, it's not going to be fun anymore.
Right. If you're trying to raise I mean, there's people that I know we're trying to raise thousands of benefit. Unless you've got seven kids that have been bad that week, who's going to do all the water changes.
Exactly. Yeah. And I've been in those points where I'm just working myself to the bone because I have too many fish and I don't like it. It stresses me out. I have a family to take care of on top of all of this. I do a lot, so I can't have too much because I start to go crazy.
And that makes your husband probably not happy.
Yeah. Stressed out wife and in miserable life. Right?
Right. So we ask this question to every single person we have on there. So do you have a good support system or are you kind of all alone in this? I mean, most people, we find out that, like, we just had the pond guy on and he says, I've got two kids who've got no interest in this whatsoever. And my wife jen is very supportive. She comes and helps me all the time and that is wonderful. My first wife could care less, and so that puts even more pressure on a person when you're cupping betas or you're doing water changes and stuff.
Right.
Is your husband supportive of this or he just doesn't really care to think you're crazy?
He is supportive as my own hobby, but I do everything on my own. Like, when it comes to workload, everything that I do, I do on my own, and it's not because I have to. I probably could ask for help, but I don't want to. I hate asking for help, especially because our tiny, little, tiny, precious, lovely smudge of free time that we get every day with no kids. I want him to be doing the things that make him happy and not having to worry about the things that make me happy. You know that feeling? I do everything on my own, mostly just because I don't like to ask for help.
It's your time of zen.
It is. It's my zen time. And then he can go have his zen time, do whatever it is he do.
Yeah. I was watching your video when you made your bed a rack. And my question is, do you have a better set of tools than he does?
Yeah, I do. I'm the one with the tools in the family. I do the garage work. I'm the handyman woman, handy lady of the house. And that's fine. I like that kind of stuff.
Yeah. My daughter in law, who's in her late twenty s and stuff, asked her what did she want? I said, what do you want for your birthday, allie? And she goes, I really want to drill. I go, what? And I tell you what. It was two days later and my wife had ordered her this most beautiful pink drill cordless drill and toolkit and whatnot, and we got a picture of her. She has a holster for it.
It's kind of cool. Jimmy, I want to drill.
You're not getting nothing.
Can you explain jumbo betas to our audience and then your impressions of them and how they're different from normal betas?
Jumbos as in giants?
Correct.
Oh, I love giants. Giants are the coolest. According to the official show standards, a giant fish is like it's a fish that's over 2.5 inches, or was it 6? Probably have that all wrong because I'm not looking at the standard. So according to show sizes, we're talking about a very large, selectively bred fish. And they're so cool. They're stunning. They're stunningly big. You've never seen a beta in a pet store that's as big as like the biggest. Am I rambling? Do I make sense?
No, total sense. On this podcast, when we see them.
They'Re about the size of a full grown rainbow shark. Or a full grown rainbow fish. Excuse me? A rose line shark.
Excuse me? I was going to say rainbow fish.
I'm looking at my fish and I'm saying this like a ball of shark. Yeah, like a nice sized ball of shark, which gets ticked.
Then the giant fish that you might find, like, in the pet store or in petco, I think they have them advertised as super no kings. They're big, but they're definitely not as giant as what's actually considered a giant in, like, the show standards.
Is it a different type? I mean, is it actually another something different?
It is better. splendid. It's just selectively bred lines of larger and larger fish. Kind of like Rob, but they're better. splendids. They're domestic fish. They can cross you can cross them to regular sized fish. You can get half giants and then selectively breed your own giant strains, if you were into that.
And what's the retail price of the giants? I'm assuming they got to be a lot more.
No, it depends. You generally never see them for sale at the sizes that I look for them in the Us. If I were to import one, I would happily pay maybe fifty dollars to one hundred dollars for a nice breeder male. Probably a little bit less than that for a nice breeder female. Of course, it depends on what size are you looking at? What quality are you looking at?
Last time I saw one in stock, Adam what's? Your friend paul's Fish Store in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Oh, that's right.
He had a pair of tame waters.
Yes, we were at Tame Waters visiting with you, actually, and he had a massive pair that he was selling for, I think 175 for the pair.
For the pair. And they were gorgeous. That was the first time in my 30 something years that's the first time I've ever seen an actual pair other than in pictures. I'm sitting there feeling for my credit.
Card going, and I think that's a really fair price, especially considering that you can't find them anywhere in the States. They're hard to find. They're hard to import. It's a pain in the butt if you wanted to directly get one from a breeder overseas. And it's risky because you might lose the fish. And there's so many variables that I think that would be a really fair price for a nice pair.
Absolutely. So have you ever bred them? Have you done it yet? Bred the giants?
I have. I've tried many times to breed giants. They're definitely more finicky than regulars. I don't know why. Maybe I have bad luck. I had an entire video on my curse with bad luck when it comes to trying to breed giants, but it's a well known thing that they're more difficult. They're more prone to egg eating. I've only had success one time, and I'm actually raising a couple of fish that came out of that spawn right now. So there you go, though, because I had a problem with fungus in that particular batch.
Yeah, it's never ending. The amount of problems that you can come up with when raising fish, especially.
When you have a pair that you love right. And that you really want to work with and you're so enthusiastic for. Of course it's not going to work out. Of course you're going to find every single problem that you could possibly find.
No, that's just the fish gods.
Yeah.
Our buddy ty will say this over and over. He goes, I never say that's my favorite fish anymore, because the next day it's dead. And he says to this day, he's got three boys. He goes, I don't have a favorite son.
I don't either. I don't have a favorite kid either.
Because it is the curse of the gods. If you get something in and that's your favorite fish, tomorrow, for some reason, a car drove through your house and hit your tank. I mean, it never ends when it's your favorite fish.
That's what you got to do is you got to prank your friends when they're showing you your fish tank and something, you got to just stop. And they'll go, that's my favorite fish. And they're just like, whoa, that's too much.
We stop that all the time. Yeah, do that to Sean too.
So I have a small import coming in tonight, actually. I'm waiting for the Ups man to bring me my little box of fish. Two of my favorite fish in the whole wide world what are you getting? Are on that shipment. And knowing my luck, they're probably both going to come in deceased. So what I'm looking forward to in this particular batch is a pair, a sibling pair of what's called a toncho koi, which it's really neat. It's a clean bodied fish. So no coloration on it except for a single red dot right above the head, just like in a tancho coy.
Really hard to get.
Beta.
Yeah, it's a beta. It's a Beta with kind of that coloring that colorless body with a red dot on the head. They're really hard to find. They're hard to come by. They don't necessarily breed true, but it's just this little dream project I have to work on a line that's just working towards having this one red dot on the head.
So are these import, or did you get some?
These are these are imports. I logged onto Facebook just one day on random, and a contact of mine had just posted a picture of this pair that they had in one of their spawns, and I claimed it. So wish me luck, guy.
Good luck. Thank you.
They're the worst pair. I hate them.
And a girl.
Not my favorite.
There, she's got it.
She's got it.
They're going to be great.
No love for these fish.
Yeah, bounce the box off the floor when you get them and ignore them for two weeks, and they'll grow healthy and be great.
Well, I think you just spoiled it for us, but what is a hint of some upcoming content or project that you're working on besides these tango koi.
Besides just trying to breed some really cool things and get some nice footage for a how to breed series? I'm actually working on some planted tanks right now. In the past, I've done fantasy planted tanks. Like, I did one called the hobbit Tank, where it was a planted tank where I handmade all my own decorations and my own scape. And I had billboard's, house bag end, and it looked really cool. I sculpted this. I painted it, I sealed it, I made it. It was awesome. I'd recommend to go check that out because I was really proud of it. But I have. Another one coming up. It's a skyrim themed tank for any oblivion fans out there. I'm sculpting it right now. It's still in the works. Also, I'll have that coming up shortly.
I have a guy's podcast request. This is coming from some of our listeners that have messaged me about this. So since we're podcast, we don't do a lot of visuals, right? We're going to be doing some YouTube live streams, but that's just to interact with their audience. We're podcast exclusive, so live through me. Can you do a Breaking Bad theme tank where you get like, blue gravel, you have Jesse and a little pans of meth. That would be super.
Absolutely. Are you kidding me?
So, fun fact, they actually have the action figures that you can put in your tank. You just got to make sure they're not going to be toxic for your fish.
Oh, my God. Where do you come up with this crap?
You can have clear see through glass. She's already doing themes and that concept that out.
And have the coolest Breaking Bad tank full of meth just for you.
That hobbit tank, by the way, or fake math. No crystal.
We can't afford gravel.
You can go on amazon.com and purchase blue crystal gravel for your aquarium for a relatively cheap price.
I think they call that clone puke, don't they?
No, that's mixed colors.
Oh, that's mixed colors. I'm sorry.
Well, I appreciate the sneak preview. And for the listeners, again, go to YouTube, type in Simply beta. You'll find a fantastic YouTube channel like subscribe, as you should. There's a lot of great content and go back in the history. There's a ton of them. You even have some that not necessarily about betas. I love your hardwater stains tricks. Go check them out and simplybeta.com to get in line for some of your handcrafted bread, betas and products like vinegar eels.
Thank you. I really hope to have some fish available soon. I'm growing out some spawns and I hope they're beautiful and I hope that I'll have some to sell on my website soon. Before we wrap it up, I wanted to bring up I heard this at the very beginning. I wanted to bring up glow betas, please. What are your opinions on those garbage?
Our opinions, besides Adam being extremely vocal, he's racist. It's about to happen. The glow trend that was invented in the laboratory, crossing a lot of jellyfish or other creatures to create certain colors, it's not directly harmful to the fish. It's not like the tattooing or dipping that we see from a lot of other fish.
Torture even worse.
I mean, we see mollies that you can order that are tattooed with a laser or injected. That's another one where yeah, I don't like those either. There's a lot of harm that they put to fish to add color.
Painted glass fish. The regular glass fish that are painted with two colors with iridescent paint.
Not necessary. So we're happy to see something that's not hurting the fish. And again, this was made in the lab, so it's not natural, but neither are flower horns. Flower horns are a fun, very interactive fish that I think has really benefited the aquarium hobby. But it's not our favorite. I'm not going to probably go out and buy a bunch of these.
I don't buy any of them at 20, some 30, some dollars.
Yeah. Just at our local big box store, I saw the prices. I believe the females were $10. They didn't have any, but they had the prices up on the shelf already. 1999 for a male globetta and a premium globetta was $30. And I took pictures.
One, I don't know, something they got more fins. I'm thinking it's supposed to be a.
Little bit brighter, more color, more fins.
And they'll have randomly, supposedly crown tails and whatever else coming.
I'm not sure. I've been dealing with a company that Cigarettes Farms was on the front of it with five D and starting these glow fish. And I know for a fact that they are getting a lot of negative feedback about the globe bedded.
Probably the most negative feedback I've seen about betas since really the paper towel issue.
They are getting a lot of negative feedback because people are going, betas are so beautiful already. Why are we doing this? And she said, my salesperson said, we got a lot of negative feedback about glo tetras. Glow Daniels. Now they're doing Glow barbs five times.
That verbatim.
Yes. And she goes, Anyway, I know for a fact I did talk to Secrets Farms here just recently, and they said they don't even have them right now. And the petco was it petco, I think it was, that had an exclusive on it for eight to ten weeks. And Secrets Farms said they're not even sure if they're going to be bringing them in.
Really? I did not know that.
Yeah, I wouldn't carry them in my store if I still had my shop.
Yeah. Here's what you see when you've got somebody down the street selling them, it almost forces you into bringing them. Also, one of my favorite friends down in Wells fargo, they hated any of the globe tetras when they first came out, and they wouldn't carry them. And after two or three years of people asking, they finally brought them in and they sell a bunch of them. But they're getting their whole philosophy is just like, rob's, it's not hurting the.
Fish too many times. We see that fruity tetras are just dipped in acid. They're literally burnt to have a coloring. There's just a white skirt tetra.
White skirt tetras. But, yeah, they're actually put in dyed water. Dyed water. And it absorbs into the body tissue. Dipped.
Wow.
We'll see frogs doing that. They sell fruity clawed frogs.
They're dipped the albinyl clawed frogs. And I tell you what, I sell a ton of them. I sell a ton of albino clawed frogs, and I don't like them. But I tell you what, I quit carrying them for a little while, and I got so much feedback and so much hassle, I just start carrying them again.
I think the worst thing that I've ever seen is probably stingrays being cut to have patterns on their fins.
I have never heard of the bat winged ones.
Yes, there's bat winged there's designer patterns is what they call them.
They're maiming the animals to try to make them look cool.
Well, I had no idea about the huge backlash against the globe betas. My personal opinion on them is that I think they're kind of cute in their own strange little way. It's like this little alien fish. And I feel like the negative that I see is that they're going to bring in a lot of just new people, young kids into maybe being interested in fish, young kids and new people who aren't really going to know how to take care of them well. Right, and that's what I see. But so many people hate them just because they look different. They're tinkered with, which I think they're kind of silly and cute, even though as a breeder, I knew I could never play with the genetics or work with it because I'd get sued, right.
And there's so many people out there. I mean, glow fish are trademarked fish. They're the only trademark fish in the world. Every time we get them in, we get a little sticker not a little sticker, a big six by eight inch sticker on the bag saying these are trademarked. And for those people who've had glow daniels, the red glow daniels pretty much breed true for the most part. And the calls you'll get will be basically yellow zebra.
After, after a line, though, like, if you breed any of these glow fish beta or not, after the third or fourth batch, they're going to lose their color. They're not going to keep a true line over and over again. It doesn't even pay to try to breed them. Besides the entire issue, was that done on purpose? No, that's just how it's done.
But the basement breeders that went out there, zebra daniels, is very easy to breed. So within six months, there's a lot of basement breeders, and they were on the different forms selling and stuff, and they were served with an assist from this company that spent millions, millions of dollars getting these fish going in florida. And so I've been on the farm where they raise them and stuff, and I saw glow fish probably three years before they came out into the market.
So, yeah, if you want to see something, you can google other glowfish, and you'll see angel fish, glow angels. You'll see all the other shark lines that have not been introduced to the market. You'll see a lot of different other fish cichlids, african cichlids. Now you'll see is glow fish.
Oh, really?
So you won't see them for sale because they have not brought them for usda and they haven't brought them overseas. But you'll see pictures of them online of how they've done this. They just haven't brought them in yet. And it's capably done. The next part that you're going to see is you're going to see modified fish and saltwater. It's only a matter of time.
Yeah, it's very expensive and it's been explained to me several times. But every color of every species has to have its own separate paperwork and payment and approval by the Us. Government. So when they raise Zebra Daniels, the glowfish, there's green, there's purple, there's red, there's pink. Each one is considered its own entire I don't want to say species, but its own identity.
It has its own upc.
Yes, exactly.
Not tattooed on.
No. And that's why they're expensive, because there's a lot of red tape, a lot of research, a lot of stuff done on that. So it's just incredibly it's here to stay, I'm afraid to say, like it or love it. You know what? When we do, we've had so many people bring it up, we should do a thing about on all these fish. Amazonus magazine just did article two or three episodes back about all these modified fish and we should have Taylor on with us and we'll get five or six people. I'm going to talk about this because people just get worked up.
Yeah. And I would probably be on the side where I'm kind of indifferent about it because at the end of the day, it's a fish. Right. And I think that it could make a cute little pet. As for incorporating it into lines of natural fish, I would probably not do that. But my opinion is that they're kind of cute. I would probably get one and probably make a video on how to take care of your glow beta just to get that info out there to new people.
Don't put it with the rest of the glow fish because they'll destroy its fins.
Yeah, exactly. Just really basic stuff. I feel like that education needs to be out there.
And I totally agree with you, Taylor, too, about bringing young people into the hobby. And as much as everybody was pretty excited that the walmarts of the world quit carrying fish, on the other hand, I'm going, this is where a lot of these kids are being introduced to fish, and now it's not there. I mean, when my kids were young, they always wanted to go back and look at the fish until I started carrying fish myself. But that's where a lot of people get introduced. And a lot of people aren't going to these pet stores just to look at fish. I mean, normally they're dog food people and whatnot. So I feel kind of bad that these kids aren't being introduced to these big box stores that carry fish, but we know that the care there was fairly poor.
Right, well, sorry for letting out that last question for you, Taylor.
That's okay. I wanted to bring it up because I knew you guys would have a lot to say about it and I.
Thought it was interesting Jimmy kept that in for so long.
I did. I've had so many conversations with cigarettes farms about this and stuff and they go, this is just ginormous, the amount of feedback that we're getting, and we don't even carry them at this point. And I asked her just recently, like within the last couple of days, I said, have you got a lot of people asking about them? She said no, not really. So we'll see what happens.
Everything in time.
See what happens.
Yes.
Well, again, Simply Beta.com, go to YouTube, find Simply Beta channel and like and subscribe and Taylor, thanks so much for being on the show with us.
Of course. I'm absolutely happy to share. My kind of bizarre little passion of mine is these adorable little fish. I really think that they're amazing pets and that they're so common, people kind of scoff at them. But I think that they have so much personality in these tiny little bodies. And I think they're the coolest, especially when it comes down to the genetics aspect, which is one thing I'm really interested in that I didn't really go into and nerd out with in this episode. But I think they're so fascinating and that everybody should give them a chance.
And make sure that you get one over six months so they're not going to change sex on you.
Yeah, unless you want a surprise.
Plus you want a surprise, that's one of the surprise. Well, thanks so much. And Adam, you got any more questions?
Well, I have questions about toky geckos.
But that doesn't I love toque geckos. All the animals I love are mean and aggressive, like chihuahuas, betas, toque geckos, I don't know what it is.
Have you ever seen the new ones geckos, once they get captive bred for a little bit, they actually tame down really nice.
Yeah, they can tame down really nice. I have mine jumping on my hands when I feed them.
Are they stevie or wildcat?
Mine are captive bread. Okay, but you still got to watch out for the captive bread ones, especially my big footlong male. But he's jumping on my hand. I have never tried to grab him or anything, but there's just this little satisfaction in having this nasty little animal get a beta or toque or a chihuahua and have it just be this little buddy.
So when he jumps on your hand, is it because your thumb is in his mouth? Okay, I'm just checking.
Yeah, no, I still have all my fingers as of yet.
They are mean little things.
They have good job pressure, too.
Very good.
That's it.
We're just going to have to have a reptile episode for Adam just so we can get out of the system. Well, thanks, Taylor. And let's kick that podcast out from.
Thanks for having me. bye.
Thanks, Taylor.
Thanks, guys, for listening to this podcast. Please visit us at aquarium guyspodcast.com and listen to us on spotify, iHeartRadio itunes and anywhere you can listen to podcasts.
We're practically everywhere. We're on Google. I mean, just go to your favorite place, Pocket casts subscribe to make sure it gets push notifications directly to your phone. Otherwise Eyes Jim will be crying into sleep.
Can I listen to it in my treehouse?
In your tree house, in your fish room. Even alone at work.
What about my man cave?
Especially your man cave. Yeah, only if adam's there no with feeder guppy.
No, they're nurse you.
Imagine loving Frank sucking Mother frank.
Well, I guess we'll see you next time. Later.