Robbz: Alright, guys, welcome to the podcast. To start things off, I want to tell you about our brand new sponsor. This week we finally actually, it was like a week and a half ago. We got our product in from Blue Crown aquatics. And I gotta say I was extremely impressed with the shrimp. I've seen a lot of shrimp, jim, you farm shrimp. But these shrimp were particularly awesome. We got see through white crystal shrimp. I've never seen them. I've seen red crystal shrimp. I've seen black crystal shrimp. I've even seen some weird blue crystal shrimp, but where it's completely glass, see through and then white bands. It was mind blowing. And they have these King Kong shrimp that they sent us that are in your tank that are doing pretty darn.
Jimmy: Well, doing very well. I did a little water change last night, did a little feeding, and they've got such personality. They come right up to the glass and go, hey, how are you doing? Feed me.
Robbz: So before Jim and I really wanted to sponsor anybody, we wanted to do our homework and vetting, and we're proud to say that these guys have certainly shined on their quality of shrimp. So give them a try. Bluecarone Aquatics.com. And we're here for a promo code. Use promo code, aquarium guys. That's guys with an S for free shipping on any purchase, no matter what it is.
Jimmy: Free shipping.
Robbz: Free shipping. Now it's not just shipping like an amazon.com, this is fish. So they have to do heat packs, whatever they need to do to get it shipped. And there's a major expense in shipping your product. So for free shipping, aquarium Guys is the promo code.
Jimmy: That is incredible because shipping is usually half the price of your order, easy.
Robbz: So use that promo code. And then on top of it, to celebrate our new sponsorship, they decided to give us some $25 gift certificates that we're going to raffle off in a month's time. So we're going to have on our website a form to sign up on aquariumguyspodcast.com on the bottom, sign in, you'll have your name, number, address, email, so we can contact you when you win. And that is $25. Gift Certificates to Blue Crown aquatics. Thank you so much, guys.
Jimmy: And we got four of them correct.
Robbz: We do have four to give away. So certainly put it in. The odds are in your favor.
Jimmy: Absolutely. And so we want to thank again, Blue Crown aquatics, for stepping up and taking us on as a partner.
Robbz: We're going to have their CEO on the podcast here soon. Robbie Chan just won a national shrimp competition, so we'll get him on the podcast. But until then, thank you and use the promo code, sign up and we're ready to give those promo codes out in one month's time.
Jimmy: And if you have any shrimp questions, send us an email, send us a text, send us up some smoke signals. We'll be happy to get them all set up so we can ask Robbie when we get them on our podcast. And so we have a bunch of questions ready for him that you want to know about.
Robbz: And don't forget about the Charity Ohio Fish rescues. We just had Ohio Fish Rescue on last podcast. If you didn't listen to it, go back, listen to that podcast. It was super fun. Those guys are crazy and they love fish.
Jimmy: They are more than crazy. Those guys are hilarious. It was one of my favorite podcasts we did. I thought it was going to pee my pants. We were laughing so hard at the very end. And what you hear on the podcast is only a fraction of what we talk to them about. These guys have got so much information, so many great stories. We're going to have them on again. So look back to Big Rich and Ohio Fish Rescue. If you haven't heard it yet, ohiofish.
Robbz: Rescue donate money, buy T shirt. But above all else, call them and tell them you love them.
Jimmy: Tell them you love oh, they love those phone calls.
Robbz: They love them.
Jimmy: Do it about midnight.
Robbz: All right, let's kick the episode. Welcome to the Aquarium, guys. Podcast with your hosts, Jim colby and Rob golson. All right, guys, welcome to the podcast. I'm super excited. I'm a bit of a fish nerd because I do a podcast. But above all else, I got to say there's like a couple of people that are on our list for the future that we never thought we could get. Like Gary lange lang, I think is how you pronounce his name. He's the king of rainbow fish. We just had a passing of the discus king, Jack watley, and there's some high prestigious people in the industry, but we are so grace and lucky to have the pseudocanticus king. Mr. Jim Kitchen, how are you doing today?
Jim Kitchen: Not too bad. Yourself?
Robbz: We're like, I don't know, kids going to it the first concert ever.
Jimmy: It's Christmas, man.
Robbz: It's Christmas. And you made it happen for us.
Jim Kitchen: I'm glad to be here, glad to help you out and give you sort of answers you're trying to find.
Robbz: Awesome. So this is a shout out to one of our viewers or listeners that called in and sent us an email saying they wanted a placo podcast. So I literally can't get anybody else we can't do better than this, than Mr. Jim Kitchen. So just a quick run. introductions. Jim colby is my co host.
Jimmy: How are you doing out there and welcome to the show.
Robbz: And Adam elnashar. How are you doing, buddy? Hi.
Jim Kitchen: Pretty good. How about you guys?
Robbz: We are dippity doing, buddy?
Jimmy: Dippity, dude.
Robbz: So again, we mentioned Blue Crown aquatics at the beginning of the podcast as advertisement, but for real, we have $25 gift certificates to give out. Please sign up on the website. But we're still getting a great number of questions. We got a few more this week. We have one of them from Mr. Smith. He reached out to us because he's trying to import fish on his own and realizes that he needs something called a transhipper. Now this is not the only person that's messing us recently about transhippers. So the idea just to answer a couple of questions for the audience listening in. If you're trying to import a fish, you can contact a wholesaler or distributor that works with companies like we had Cease Farms on the air. They will import in for you and take care of all the regulatory needs. Otherwise, you have to go and take your tropical fish into a registered trans shipper. That's the only legal way you can bring in international fish from certain countries in because you have to check the stock, make sure it does not come up with anything else, and make sure your product is in a great shape. So he's been looking for a trans shipper that accepts for Taiwan, so we gave him a recommendation. But if you're a trans shipper listening to this podcast, we're getting a lot more people calling in for a lot of these unique specialty countries and we'd like to help some of our listeners. So if you're a trans shipper, please email us, call us at the podcast. We'd love to be able to redistribute your information so people can import fish, because we did not know that this is really a hidden gem in our community. So thank you, Mr. Smith, for messaging us and hopefully our recommendation works out for you. Other things is, of course, our merch store. As much as it pains me, the more I talk about it, the more I regret because I have sew orders coming in. But if we get 20 unique customers going to our merch store and I will still buy the crop top.
Jim Kitchen: I.
Jimmy: Will buy a T shirt so you don't put on the crop top, honestly.
Robbz: But I give the audience what they want.
Jimmy: The audience is not seeing what I'm seeing here. Rob, I'm sitting in front of you. Nobody wants to see you in a crop top.
Robbz: Hey, you're the one that gave me eight loaves of bread, right?
Jimmy: 15.
Robbz: All right, well, I'm going to keep this short so we can get right in with Jim because I'm super excited. So Jim, thanks again for coming on the podcast. We have so many questions for you. But I really want this podcast to be a topic covering placos as a whole. But again, your specialty is, I believe it's genus Pseudocanthicus.
Jim Kitchen: Correct?
Robbz: Excellent. So let's just start with background on you first. So when did you start getting into the tropical fish hobby?
Jim Kitchen: I was born into it when I was young. We always had tanks in the in our basement and the old stainless steel rims with the slate bottoms and everything else. But yeah, from relation to that memory, we always had tanks in the basement. My dad was in the Coast Guard, so he was always interested in the water. And the only time I did not have recordings was always in college because it was gone too long. And I immediately got out of college and before I got married or anything else like that, I had another 125 gallon tank in my apartment and started off from there again. So it's always been part of my life.
Robbz: There's so many people that start off with small tanks and then just keep on going and going, and that's how you know it's a passion. We were talking with big, rich and even heck. My story, Jim story, everybody just keeps starting with the small tank. And it's not enough. It's just never enough.
Jimmy: Never enough.
Robbz: What made you I'm assuming the pseudocanthec is, of course, is your favorite fish.
Jim Kitchen: As far as, like, pluck goes, I like other fish. Some people get so focused on one, only one that they lose sight of. The beauty is of the other discus. I've bred them, I've done quarries, I've done cardinals, done betas bed. As the first thing I did back in the Think, it was just I focused on the suitors because it was basically a challenge. Someone said, hey, no one has swungies in the world yet. Why don't you go if you're so good, why don't you get your shot? Yes. We got that whole thing on pseudo. Can't think it's going on. The cactus buckles, the spiny ones.
Robbz: That was the first thing you started researching?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, because I was looking for something. I was looking for a new challenge. And Chris Bennett, a good friend of mine, was a smart guy and said, well, hey, you know, I know refusal. He says, but hey, if you're so good, why don't you spawn and no one else has? So that's what got it, you know, sort of looking at them. And back at the time, in the eight nine, there was a whole lot being imported at the time from Brazil. So just finding someone was kind of hard back then and just started from there.
Robbz: So literally started getting a reputation because you had skills for breeding. They said, well, why don't you give it a try? And clearly you had a knack for this. And it just went downhill from there, pretty much.
Jimmy: Or uphill, depending on how uphill. Exactly. So it was a challenge from a buddy that said, if you're so damn good, then you go ahead and try it. And then you showed up the world. He showed off the world. Exactly.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah. I was thinking about fourth or fifth. By the time they don't care to spawn, there was a couple over in England and Greece that did it first. And then there's some people over in Germany and a couple of in Sweden. I was in the top five, I would say, for doing the leopard part of the ones that look like the leopard spots.
Robbz: So before we go too far, I just wanted to do some basics for a lot of the beginner listeners. So the placo variety is defined by an L series of numbering scheme and the L numbers started off just a few and now they have a massive list that's published online. Even wikipedia only goes up to L 600, but that list has been modified. Am I not correct to include a lot more than just 600 varieties of placo?
Jim Kitchen: I've actually lost track of the number, to be honest. It's been exploding so much again in the last couple of years because every time they find a new river with the plucko, even though it may look like when they've already found, they're trying to put a unique placeholder for it in case it is different. But yeah, you are right. That's why it's likely with these zebra pluckles, the all those sub numbers, there's an argument over whether this one's a 172, this one's a 173. I'm just throwing out some numbers with because they all look just a little bit different. So it's gone from a carefully controlled memory system to sort of like an open range right now.
Robbz: Well, when you keep finding species, you got to categorize them somehow. But the L number system is a scientific classification for these type of quote unquote catfish. But this was started from what I can find is about 88, is that correct? 1988?
Jim Kitchen: Somewhere about there. Yeah, there's actually there's actually two that there was L and then there was the lda numbers. But the publisher of the L numbers had a larger population than the lds that sort of called on rather than the sitting in a smaller one.
Robbz: So it was originally published trying to categorize placos from a German magazine called D-A-T-Z. I'm not going to try to even pronounce what that was supposed to stand for, but again, that's really where it took off is the Aquarium and terrarium magazine. Since then, it's now definitely the common name because they have pet shop names. Like a lot of the tetras will be called something like a hockey stick placo or hockey stick tetra penguin Tetra or called Penguin Tetra. So there's a lot of pet store naming schemes that do not follow any type of structure. So this is really the integrity of keeping platos in aligned. And I think I was talking with you this last week and you sent me a placo and it was four digits long, L 10,000, L 24, 64.
Jim Kitchen: And that actually is a natural hybrid between we used to call a flame pleco, it's a 24. It's called the betting announce and the Hysterx. So you took two very similar citic antagonists and end up with this mega monster that is just gorgeous. What to do with hybrids? Someone just came with the scene. Let's take the two numbers and throw it together. Some numbers. That's not even in any book anywhere. That's more or less a trade placeholder right now. And in fact, those hybrids do exist.
Jimmy: So you say natural hybrid. Is that something that's found in nature then, or is that something that somebody.
Jim Kitchen: Put both of them are in the same river systems.
Jimmy: Okay, that totally makes sense.
Jim Kitchen: Now, usually what happens is these things are so expensive and so rare that they go directly over to China or Japan, and the only thing I sent you is about a $5,000 fish. That's crazy. Us. Is going to see that for a long time.
Jimmy: Not unless it's stuffed in a museum, unfortunately. Yeah, that's a lot of money. What is an average price I know we were watching on TV or on the YouTube, you do the cactus plecos. What is an average price of a cactus pleco for people that wanted to try this? I mean, I know it's a three to five year commitment just to get them up to adulthood, but can you tell me?
Jim Kitchen: It's all over the board. I mean, that was one of the big goals that I had, was breeding. These pluckles was to have stock available in the United States that people could get for a reasonable price. You can look like 24, 25 flame or sparrow it and you're talking $250 for a six inch fish on the open market.
Jimmy: Wow.
Jim Kitchen: And for me, I promised everyone I would sell all of my fry at two inches or all my juveniles under two and a half inches for under $100. So, like, when I went to cataclysm and that cataclysm, the other one in.
Robbz: The east coast, I guess I'm not familiar.
Jim Kitchen: This is the other problem. Your price is all over the place right now, depending on which ones you're trying to get.
Robbz: So again, more deep dive on the topic from a beginner standpoint, plato are traditionally sold in the hobby and were most commonly sold as, like, the Florida placo that was sold at Walmart for so many years. Now, Walmart is no longer selling fish, but the most popular placo that we see in common trade is the Bristol nose plato because they have a nice appetite for a range of diet, and they stay around four inches, so they fit in a lot of different aquarium environments. But I'm going to go with just a couple of beginner questions before we go into super deep dives. We had why should no one buy what we call Florida placo unless they have a large tank? So how large is some of the largest placoes you've ever seen?
Jim Kitchen: I had a 24 inch Florida pleco in one of the tanks. I got it. I got to get with the tank that I traded in. And there's nothing you can do. Just eat everything in sight. They don't look all that pretty in my eyes. And what you can do with them by the same token, that's one of the reasons why the pseudocanteus species is not geniuses is not widely important in a lot of them, is because they tend to be larger as well, like twelve inches to 14. And you need at least like 125 gallon tank to comfortably house them. And that's a pretty big commitment for most people.
Robbz: So some of these play cos that we've seen, even done in farms, they've been the length of our arms for the Florida placos. So we get as far as rescues and I think we talked a little bit about this with Big Rich. We get in quite a few of these massive placos because they put them in a ten or 20 gallon tank and now they've literally extended the length where they're curving inside the tank and can't turn around. Keeping the four inches is the place you want to be but let's talk about basics of care for pseudocanthe Kiss or any other playco. So when you're doing this what diet do you use to number one encourage breeding but also just for general youth care?
Jim Kitchen: Well for me, being practical and somewhat like an easy doing a person. I like to prepare foods. I use hakari a lot and I use thera a lot for the pellets. And then hakari has this beautiful thing called massive ore pellets. Each pellet is, I think it's 2.8 goldfish and protein. And when you get to some of these larger suitors, you're looking at maybe eight to ten pellets per adult per day. When you're getting them into breeding shape, So it's a lot of food that there's a live fish or fish flows would be a whole lot more waste in the tank and getting them in a commercially prepared food.
Robbz: So some of the people that I've talked to firmly believe that these are essentially vegetarians or herbivores, but instead they are I forget the term for it, but they are feed on omnivores diet of things that are decaying. So decaying a litter, wood algae, dead, dead corpses in the rivers or waters. But they do have protein, and you using massive ore. Pellets really does prove that it's not just algae wafers. You feed them exclusively. You give them a high protein diet.
Jim Kitchen: Actually a little bit larger. If you get off from an algae wafer or from meat, they will ignore the algae wafer. They're primarily carnivores who are made into omnivores when there's on the food available.
Jimmy: Rather than when they go to the buffet and prime ribs out then they'll have a salad if they have a.
Jim Kitchen: Little bit of room left over that's.
Jimmy: A good analogy so what do you.
Robbz: Feed the fry when their hatch?
Jim Kitchen: Well, I used to start off with the traditional way of baby brine and some of the cultures and things like that. I find these brothers were just way too hungry and a little bit larger to deal with that serving them. So I just went with a thorough, a granule, and just made it into a little bit of paste. And about four days they're already known on the granules themselves. Just let them go after it. So again, just meat, meat, meat, meat, meat. Forget that green stuff.
Jimmy: So what kind of growth do you get on a fish when it's already eaten? Pellets at four days, how fast do they grow? I mean, are you getting some substantial growth that first few months?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah. For me, I was usually targeting seven to eight months to go from a hatch to selling them to two and a quarter, two and a half inches. But that requires a lot of water changes. People think about the food as the input when there's also these trace minerals and trace elements and that come with the water. And so you need both in combination.
Jimmy: To get the optimal growth in your system. From what I was watching, you have a drip system in most of your tanks, correct?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah.
Jimmy: And how many gallons do you change out per day or per hour? How do you measure that?
Jim Kitchen: For a while, I was changing 200 gallons a day automatically.
Jimmy: And how many tanks are you running in your fish room?
Jim Kitchen: Well, I had five one ninety s. I had like, four one hundred and twenty five s. And I had, for the smaller fish, thirty s and fifty s. But all told, I was up to, I think, 2800 gallons with a tank water and 300 gallons of storage water.
Jimmy: And you have a designated fish room. Is it in your home then?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, two lower levels of my basement.
Jimmy: Okay.
Jim Kitchen: I have a quad with an extra step in it, so it makes it kind of interesting.
Jimmy: Interesting. And so you live in Michigan, correct?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah.
Jimmy: So you're dealing with the same type of weather we're dealing with over here in Minnesota. And so you're trying to keep those tanks warm. And I noticed that you had some really cool heating options and how you double down to make sure that you don't have any problems with heat. Can you tell us about that?
Jim Kitchen: Well, the traditional one heater per tank, and they would get stuck on or stuck off, and they would freeze or they would boil. So I then went to using two heaters, and then they kind of worked better. But I ended up finally going with a separate controller for the temperature. And looking at the market at the time, there was really nothing very effective or reliable in the hobby. So I actually went with a keying and cooling commercial grade thermostat control for $50. So I do there is I've got that with the controller, I would wire up with an extension cord. I'm just going to put the extension cord in the middle, plug in the power on one side, and then coming out, I'd have the power strip with a non off switch. If I need to turn off the heaters, I just throw the switch and everything was done. It was very visually oriented, so you could see if the heat was on, the light was on.
Jimmy: That makes a lot of sense.
Robbz: So I have one other loaded question from one of our viewers about plato's. They're so curious on. They know that there's a lot of different varieties, but they still don't understand why placos are so expensive. I've had a lot of people reach out to us for zebra placos, for instance, and the price of those have skyrocketed. And they're finally now beginning to stabilize because they're being bred at supply. In the United States, there's commercial breeders.
Jimmy: That have stepped forward at a high level.
Robbz: We know that the reason why certain placos cost so much is because there's only some that exist. But how many different rivers or subsidiaries have pseudocanthicus or other breeds of placo?
Jim Kitchen: You'd be astounded when I started doing the additional research of trying to figure out how to breed the other pseudos. Because, again, I start off with the leopardos, which is the 114. There's literally 2025 other known variants. Some of them don't have numbers yet, but you just can't give the same parameters and have the same effect. So I started looking through, and you'd find here's one from that roof, and it's just wide. They'll find new fish every day in Brazil, so it's kind of hard to say how many there are. But I know, for example, there are six different driving bunks. There's like there's six variations of the hundreds. Just go to a different river, go a different spot, tip your neck, and they're there. The suit against all the entire Amazon basin. They're all over the place.
Jimmy: So my wife's a nurse, and we're watching you on YouTube on ted's Fish Room. And if people haven't seen that, I highly encourage you to watch this. It was so interesting. But you do DNA testing on fish and doing mouth swabs on fish. And I'm going and my wife looks at me and she's a nurse, and she looks at me and just nods her head and goes, crazy, man. Crazy.
Jim Kitchen: Thankful for the crazy people around the world who sent me samples. It's not the easiest thing to grab these guys with these big old spines and not get your hand entailed on them, but people did it.
Jimmy: What have you found out? You found out that many of these fish in the river are related, but still different.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, basically. I gave a presentation at Cat Con four years ago now, and there was four distinct subgroups of the city of Anthony. There's the black ones with white spots and browns. You've got the plain, muddy looking ones, and then you've got the ones that look like they look like the pumas. And the cats. I usually call them the cats because some of the patterns look like leopard pets. Some look like panther spots. So it's just sort of juggling naming each one after some big juggling, after he had or whatever. And so they fall into those four groups. The interesting thing is one of them, which are one of the most popular, which is what they call them, the titanics and the typhoons and the pettinga and the scarlets. Those are the ones, the real big ones in the really bright orange color, it turns out they're an undescribed genus. They actually are not part of the pseudocantheus genus. You have to look very deep to actually see that. So that's a big surprise that people are just trying to understand.
Robbz: So what makes them part of the pseudocanthus genus and something different physically?
Jim Kitchen: The difference is all of the unique group have got long trailers on their fins. People love the trailers. Like the one video clip I sent you where I had a four inch titanic with trailers on the fence.
Robbz: Absolutely beautiful.
Jim Kitchen: So all of those with the long trailers are there. They're in the same type of water. They all tend to be the larger ones, like the historics, which grow to be 3ft long. So they're the larger ones, the heavier ones, the bulkier ones. I think if you actually look at their eating habits, they're slightly different on their eating habits. And then because I was lucky enough to have 17 different species in my basement at one time, I could look at all of them side by side by side, and you can sort of see obvious differences, where if you just look at the picture, you can't tell the differences. And the interesting thing is, which are the hardest to spawn are the titanic and the typhoons. And, you know, in aquariums, there's some guys in Singapore that's going to have some great success with it, but they're very, very hard to do compared to, you know, cactus pluck over polka dot. Yes, polka dot pseudo. So I think there's enough information to prove both genetically and taxonomy and then also habitat wise, that they are distinctly different groups.
Robbz: So let's talk about some of your accomplishments that you've done. So again, you got to end up play goes as more or less a dare, but you try to breed them, and clearly it just worked out for you. But let's go from there. Did you do a lot of scientific work for pseudo cancers? Tell us about what you have accomplished in all this time.
Jim Kitchen: Well, I wanted to learn as much about them as I could. And then the other thing is you don't work in a vacuum, they pointed out. And there's a lot of people in Holland and Sweden and Norway, christopher Frostor, he was interested in them before I was. And so we stopped quite a bit and we compared notes. And then there's oli paulson from German flank. He's going to kill me for this.
Jimmy: That's okay.
Robbz: Sorry. We're in Minnesota.
Jimmy: There's a lot of olives and a few lenas.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah. So for a while we were. In play competition to see if we could get up to ten first. And we're both at nine and he was down in Brazil and he spawned his 10th one. So he won that race, but again, just sort of collecting knowledge about him because each one was different. And that's why I was able to have such success with the different species as I would look and find out their location, their environment. Being an engineer by background and I always want to find as much details as I can, the detailed approach has paid off for me.
Robbz: So how many different species have you discovered?
Jim Kitchen: I would say I've discovered any new species but I've had a few identified.
Robbz: I'm sorry, identified or labeled?
Jim Kitchen: I should put none officially because I'm not a professional. So I have to find someone in the field who can do that for me. But again finding out that the one subgroup is entirely new genus as opposed to the pseudocanthus to my knowledge no one else knows about that other than who I've shared that with. And I'm being a little more open about it because I'm trying to at least get the DNA tree published somewhere so even the hobbyists can take a look at it and see what makes sense. But the big thing I've learned the difference on is people usually look at like an evolution or a change over time. With fisher up in this one area of the world and over hundreds of thousands of years the fish migrate to elsewhere and then they look entirely different throughout the entire Amazon basin and into peru and even up into guiana and sereno. The DNA is so similar that you can almost like mix and match and get one fish that looks like another one. And that's what's happening now is you've got some people who are looking at some one hundred and fourteen s and a river outside of manaus and it looks like it almost looks like a scarlet. It's got beautiful red lines, blue lines, purple lines and I've had some six hundreds which look like worm lines. They almost look like 333. Now just because you get 1000 eggs per hatch oh my God. Every time you get called an odd throw if you get 1000 fry the hatch usually there's one or two that are totally different.
Robbz: Well I mean 2000 fish you're looking at you're sitting there rolling the dice on something.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, like I think if you looked in the YouTube channel you see I actually hit a black and white suit. You can't think it's for about three months look like a 46.
Robbz: So just to clarify for the listeners, your YouTube channel is pseudosmart on YouTube? Yeah, and just to clarify spelling on the channel, it's P-S-E-U-D-A. Smart. So certainly check it out on YouTube. And you said it was on another aquarium channel as well.
Jim Kitchen: You had another Facebook page with the same name. Yes.
Jimmy: And then you've been interviewed by some other people too, that have had on their ted.
Jim Kitchen: Ted? judy.
Jimmy: Yeah. ted's fish room.
Robbz: Ted'S Fish room. There we go.
Jimmy: Judy and ted's been around forever and is a smart guy and he interviewed you and it looked like it was part of it was done in your home and the other part of it was probably done over in a hotel or something, right?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, exactly. Like at a show during one of the conventions over Korea.
Jimmy: You had spoken at that convention and apparently had a very good talk the way it sounded.
Robbz: So we're going to see you in the next Ted Talks. Is that where it's going to happen?
Jim Kitchen: I don't know. Maybe. I've got other stories to tell as well, obviously.
Jimmy: Well, we want to hear a man.
Robbz: So before we get too far, you mentioned about handing off the DNA. I think you mentioned another conversation that DNA sequencing was part of your forte as well.
Jim Kitchen: Well, no, it's my brother's degree in specialty is biochemistry and he was a manager of a genetics lab. So it was all those things that just prevents came into view or circumstance where again, someone said, hey, you prove to me that this one is different than the other and I'm trying to figure it out and tell with my brother. He says, yeah, I'm doing this DNA testing for these other people. And then so the light bulb came on. He thought it was crazy enough of an idea to try, and his boss thought it was a crazy enough idea to try.
Robbz: So you sequenced the DNA of pseudocantech?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, we did over 100 different samples, sample fish, and we got probably 75 usable DNA sequences out of them.
Jimmy: Yeah, we were just going when my wife and I were watching this, we're going, where do you go to get DNA sampling for a fish? Is it like fish dna.com or what?
Robbz: We're a very unique group of people, but we're not that connected. So you having a brother that just does that for you is literally the perfect thing.
Jim Kitchen: The other thing, which is very odd about it, talk about cheek swabs is the traditional way of doing DNA sampling. Even today with the traditional way is to use a thin clippings or skin clippings, take a dried sample. Well, with technology that's advancing itself, that's too old and too slow and takes too much time to get results. So just like humans, it's a 23 meat project. They give you a mouth swab where you serious fit to a tube. You just take the swab, rub it inside their mouth, and enough of their skin flakes off that you get together the DNA.
Robbz: Have you had your own DNA sequence?
Jim Kitchen: I can't officially say that yes or no. Okay. But some people would argue with the same. Well, you got to take full fish. How do you know that you're getting the right DNA while we've done that proven it where we've got five different pseudocanthegas with three different other species. We had sisters. We had a mega and sister in there, all mixed in the tank. And we swab the mouths of each one, and each one of each of them came out correctly.
Robbz: So let's go through that just to walk through for listeners. I'm going to start taking DNA samples of my fish.
Jimmy: Csi.
Robbz: I'm going to csi this shit. I'm going to pull out a two foot placo out of my tank, hold them with a towel, angry placo, and you're going to get a buddy to grab a giant cotton swab and just go around that suction cup and then put it into a DNA and meet your brother.
Jim Kitchen: Pretty much. That's what we used to do, yeah.
Jimmy: Were you drinking at the time?
Robbz: Oh, my God. Is that on YouTube?
Jim Kitchen: No. People wanted me to put it under, and I never got around to honestly what I was going to do. But then I figured it scared more people because it looks worse than it actually is. Once you get a cactus, once you get one of these Polycos upside down, there's like a shark. After about 1010 seconds, they do tend to slow down. They'll calm down if you put it in their mouth. Eleven will suck out like a lollipop.
Jimmy: Wow, there's a visual.
Robbz: I think we need two videos now. One of you swabbing and two of them sucking on a lollipop. We need to see them. Yeah, that would be the best T shirt of all time.
Jimmy: No one's not I got a quick question. How long does these fish live? I mean, you've had some of these fish for years and years and years.
Jim Kitchen: I know at the Shed Aquarium, they had a pair of scarlets in there, which are going on 20 plus years, and they're still looking strong. And they're like two and a half feet long, foot wide. They're larger than my calves in my leg.
Jimmy: So do they ever have any luck just randomly that they breed for them or not?
Jim Kitchen: No, they've set the right environment and conditions for it. It's way too cold for that particular species. Usually like the scarlets in the flames. 24, 25. Again, I'm using the old note names that they've been using for so long, it's hard to remember the newly assigned names that were came out like a year or two ago, but they like 90 degree water to spawn in 92 degree water. It's crazy when you look at where some of these streams are and some of these rivers are. I actually had one tank, I'll be honest, overheated the 97 degrees, and I had 3600 pupils in there looking hot, but they were fine. They were at a heck of a lot of food. Put my hand up against the tank and my hand jumped back. Wait a minute, something's wrong here.
Robbz: So these are not warm blooded creatures. If you have the tank that hot, you saying they're going to eat food is an understatement. They'll chew through it because metabolism has gone through the roof.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah.
Robbz: I continue to pick on Jimmy because he has this curse, right? He's had a lot of different Plcos over the years, but he has a curse that he just can't breed them. Then suddenly we'll take the same pleco, the same plato tunnel, and we'll talk about breeding. Ask more questions here in a minute. But then suddenly they just breed and that might be the solution. Jimmy, I keep my tank hotter.
Jimmy: Yeah, I was just thinking that myself. I've taken some fish that I've had that won't breed for me. I give him the robs and he calls me up two weeks later, goes.
Robbz: No, the same day.
Jimmy: The same day.
Robbz: The same day. That's because you tank and just drop a clutch.
Jimmy: Yeah. And that's because that's because I fed him so well, I'm getting myself credit.
Jim Kitchen: Yes.
Robbz: Pat yourself on the bag. You fed them before they went to rob's house.
Jimmy: Exactly.
Jim Kitchen: Rob and I've also discussed with friends, we tend to call it possibly a stress spawn or just the change in the environment made them do it wasn't necessarily that was the perfect environment, it was just such a change. If you get two spawns, then you've accomplished something.
Robbz: See, just like me and my wife a few years ago in the car. Nobody wants a different environment.
Jimmy: It's a different environment.
Robbz: It was at a public park, we were in the woods. What can you say?
Jimmy: I wish I had some really bad porn music to play as you're talking about this, but we don't want to hear about that.
Robbz: I apologize.
Jim Kitchen: Jim, check out the YouTube video that before.
Robbz: So I think this is a good segue to talk about breeding. So generally, my Lord, generally, play goes, don't worry, we played Boys To Men before on one of the other podcast clips. Got a lot of laughs. Let's talk about the beginning. So you find a pair and most placo species, how are they difficult to sex? I mean, with Bristol noses, you can find that males have the long spikes, females have the shorter bits. But how do you sex normal pseudocanthecs?
Jim Kitchen: First thing most people talk about is the hairs and the spines on the males are much heavier than the females. I think it's ordontal growth, which is on the pictorial fins.
Robbz: So you said hair.
Jim Kitchen: It's like bristle hair. It's very sharp, very pointy. But what I find is most reliable is the overall shape. The males tend to look like torpedoes from the top. Very blunt head, narrow body narrowing towards the tail, where the female fish, because they have eggs, they tend to have a wider, wider mid section. Sorry, but that's just the way it is. Not being sexist.
Robbz: They're built for it.
Jimmy: Can you pick out a male from I understand if you have them side by side or a group of them. But are you able to just to look at a single one and pick it out?
Jim Kitchen: Some species, yes. Others know the scarlets and the flames, 24 to 25s. Most of those rules go out the window because I've actually had females which were more heavily growth and thicker plates in the males. So some of those there's a little bit of confusion going on as to what's what. But usually, like, for me, after seeing hundreds and hundreds of Fry, I could sex them one and three quarter inches. I could pretty much sex them accurately just by looking at them.
Robbz: That's not a lot of size either.
Jimmy: No, that is very small. You talk about your fry. Do you sell your fry?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, I did. But it's one thing also to clarify, part of why I got involved with Ocean or Higher Rescue was because of my condition with Heavy perkins, I finally had to let go of the day to day side of, you know, keeping the fish. So after looking around for a long time because, you know, you just don't want to give your equipment to people who aren't deserving. I came across Rescue and Rich, and they seem to be very genuine in caring about it. So they basically came in and that's that's why I have two videos with them where they're taking all the equipment out of my house. It took them a day in a 26 foot trailer or 26 foot, uhaul, to remove all the tanks and everything that I had in my fishing that accumulated over the years.
Jimmy: Yeah, Rich and Josh, we had them on last week. We had a great conversation with them. They had nothing but great things to say about you, and they were the ones that hooked us up so we could have this conversation with you. And for the people that are listening and stuff, you had to kind of downsize back in the day or or what happened.
Jim Kitchen: Well, you know, it's imperfect blogs and I've had parkinson's for 16 years, and each year it got progressively worse and worse. So I was able to do less and less. That's why I had, like, the automatic system set up so that it would take the workload off of me just doing the daily stuff. But it got to the point where going down there every day got to be almost an impossible thing to do. And I'd seen so many people who passed away and they left their wives with two rooms of fish tanks, and that's why I wouldn't do that to her. So I spent a year finding the right place for all the fish that I had, because, again, there's people who want to just throw money at them, but that's not the right person to give some of these fishes, some of these fish that I had. I've never been in the Us. Before, and probably won't be for a long time. So I found homes for them. I thought they had a chance of raising them and in fact breeding them. And then once they got the fish gone, except for the one pair that they're going to grow up and then had all these tanks and 180 or 190. That's the magic tank everyone's looking for, right?
Jimmy: They used, yeah, they are hard to find used, that's for sure. You never see them very often.
Jim Kitchen: So I had five of them there with stands and everything else.
Robbz: Do you have any left on hand now at home?
Jim Kitchen: No, everything is gone. I've got some heaters and dust and some dirt piles. If anyone wants those. They'll love them to take them.
Robbz: So now you sent me some pictures and now you're getting back into local fishing.
Jim Kitchen: Those are from before as well. I hope to get back into local fishing because I can't give everything up. Got to have some vices.
Robbz: Awesome.
Jim Kitchen: But those are usually charters. They're going to take the burden off of me to have to go out and prepare things. So I just do a couple of charters a year with friends.
Robbz: That's one of the best ways to do it, especially if you don't know the area. I've traveled. We went to Florida with Jim and we had a fun charter and that's really the way to go about it. It's all set up for you. They know the hot spots. You don't have to waste a day just trying to find the fish. It's a great way. And they like to drink. While they were on the charter.
Jim Kitchen: St. clair with the third generator, they're actively working to introduce other species for funds to spurs first. And if you notice on the bottom, there was actually pink salmon that were down there. They decided a couple of years ago, hey, let's throw them in for a few years and see how they do. And you can catch pink salmon in Lake St. clair.
Robbz: So I know this is off topic, but are they breeding in Lake St. clair?
Jim Kitchen: No, the old runs they had many years ago in the 80s, they had limited spawns, but they never were sustainable. So it was all introduced.
Robbz: But they did spawn.
Jim Kitchen: Oh, yeah.
Robbz: That's amazing.
Jim Kitchen: I ended up with in the had like a 27 pound king salmon and you talk about having fun in the freshwater lake. Come on. Really?
Jimmy: That's incredible.
Robbz: So getting back to breeding, sure. sexing we've established, but the actual process so is there any nipping or where you're seeing their breeding and what do you use? Because generally placos like to burrow or have some sort of cave to breed in. So what do you use for these larger pseudocanthicus?
Jim Kitchen: Well, I had to get real creative for a while. I was using the clay pipe that you get from a chimney store or your local builder. Once they got over four and a half inches in diameter. Finding larger pipes gets to be difficulty. So I ended up finding out I would call up the art offices of a university, lake University of Michigan. I got a hold of the art department and found out who did large clay objects, and that's how I started getting my larger caves made.
Robbz: So why do you use clay versus other material like pvc?
Jim Kitchen: Like pvc. But it doesn't breathe because if you look at, again, trying to look at the natural environment, most of these caves are dug into the side of the river, right? And so water flows through, the nutrients flow through there. So if you have pvc, if you have plastic, they basically have a dead spot. And the only circulation you get from the male, from them wagging their fins to try and move fresh air in there. And in Europe, a lot of people would lose the female because the male would be jamming the female up until the very end of the case. You wouldn't breed, and she'd suffocate it's.
Robbz: The female breeding as well, not just the eggs.
Jim Kitchen: Right? Yeah. I mean, basically the female has to be in there too late, she'll leave, then he'll go in there and he'll fertilize the egg.
Robbz: So I've also heard that it's a texture thing as well, that they don't like to breed. Or even if they do, it doesn't bond the egg well unless it has a textured surface. Is that true?
Jim Kitchen: I find unglazed glazed. I'd say that's true. Unglazed a modern surface, they like too rough. It cuts these eggs too smooth that they can't get enough of a grip.
Robbz: And that's glazed on the pvc is what you're talking about, correct?
Jim Kitchen: No, I'm talking about the pots. The clay pots.
Robbz: Got you.
Jimmy: So they glaze the pots, which make it kind of like a hard varnish on it, which it's too smooth then.
Robbz: Yeah, I don't buy a lot of pot.
Jimmy: By listening to this podcast, people would probably argue that whole concept about that.
Robbz: He mean, that's not new.
Jim Kitchen: He again, seals the hole, and there's the anomaly movement that becomes an advantage there. And then also the humorous part is these fish have to learn how to spawn. And so what they do is, Casey is critical because the male has to be able to hold the female in place, and then they can throw what makes basically, she has to be put into the mood for the transition to start to start developing the eggs, hatching her spelling the eggs. Actually, they have to learn how the whole process works. It sounds crazy, but the first time, it'll take like five, six, seven days, and they'll get frustrated. And if the cave is wrong shape or wrong size, he can't use the spins to hold it in the right place. And I mean, the scouts took, I think, like seven caves before they finally got the right cave, that they figured it all out. And then you get to the second spawn, and it only takes four or five days. And then I've had some of my older fishing. I had my 600 pair. They were spawning for ten years. They would be done in like, 3 hours. They look at each other going to cave, 3 hours to have eggs.
Robbz: So what size cave do you recommend for the size playco? So if you have, say, let's make something up a ten inch placo, what size cave entrance and length are you looking for?
Jim Kitchen: You need to have the depth about an inch to two inches deeper than the length of the length of the fish. So you'd be like eleven or twelve inches. And then the height and the width, it depends upon if you look at the mail, if his dorsal fin is totally erect, totally up, you want it to only be like 75% up. Let's say if the tip of his fin is three inches tall, you want like two and a half inches for the height of the cave. He can use it to wedge against anything with the picture fins, you don't want the picture fence all open, but you want them like 70% open so.
Jimmy: He can get some grip in there, so you can kind of hold everything down. That makes total sense. And who thinks about these things but people like yourself.
Jim Kitchen: It takes hours of watching. You have to look at it. And people said I was insane and like, well, that's just the way I solve problems with my life as a career, the impossible ones. And then you got to look at all the little details.
Jimmy: So when you went to the art department and asked them to make you these caves, did they look at you going, what are you talking about?
Jim Kitchen: I showed them pretty pictures, they go, look at the pretty fish, and then it's a whole different story.
Jimmy: So then they stepped up and helped you out.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah.
Jimmy: And so, I mean, I know you go out and buy professional caves that are made by by cave people, but they're not cheap. I mean, I've bought some small ones that I've paid $15 for wholesale. And yours are the size of a man's arm for the most part.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, some of those things, like $40 for because again but again, if you don't get the root size cave, you don't get them to spawn.
Jimmy: Right. And it's just frugal to spend all that time if you can't get the good spawn from those guys.
Robbz: All right, so now the spawns happened, and generally the male is the one to take care of the eggs, no matter the breed, correct? Yeah.
Jim Kitchen: Actually, let me think about one thing on the spawns. If people say I never give information, here's one of my top secret pieces of cave making information that no one ever knew about.
Jimmy: Secret time.
Robbz: Secret time.
Jimmy: Secret time.
Jim Kitchen: No one ever asks, what is the material. What is the raw material using to make the cave?
Jimmy: What is that?
Jim Kitchen: There's different types of clay.
Robbz: I thought it was just potter's clay. And they just gave you what they gave you.
Jimmy: I'm just getting a scene in my head from ghosts when demi Moore and Patrick swayze are making the pottery with.
Jim Kitchen: A romantic and then come back after a while.
Robbz: Or anyway, that was a hot scene.
Jim Kitchen: That was a hot scene.
Robbz: All right, secret time.
Jimmy: Secret time.
Jim Kitchen: There's a special group of people who are insane with their plants, orchid growers or completers. The clay they use is highly permeable. You can actually take water and pour it into a pot, into an orchid pot. Within about 2 seconds, it'll start dripping out the bottom. It will go through the material that.
Robbz: Sounds like a bad pot.
Jimmy: So it's breathable.
Jim Kitchen: Breathable. Because, again, orchids are mainly airplanes. They're in the trees, and they're not breathing the heavy dirt. You need to have a breathable clay for these pots to give you height so you have more oxygen transfer. That's my big secret, actually, getting water flow inducement flow through the process of the caves.
Robbz: So it's a balance between making sure it's breathable while making sure it's still completely dark.
Jim Kitchen: Right. Well, trust me, breathable. Does that mean, like, you almost have holes that you can see through them? It's just a totally different density claim material.
Jimmy: That's incredible. We started this podcast a few months ago, and the things we wanted to do is this is highly when somebody is successful, they don't want to share secrets. And, you know, we have Steve rubiki on here from angels plus he shared secrets. Rich and those guys are sharing secrets. And what we want to do is we want to see people succeed in this hobby. We want to see people succeed. And it's just invaluable to know these things. It's just incredible. And I want to thank you for sharing that with us.
Robbz: I know the big two things I learned about breeding today are, number one, the type of pots, how the whole process works, but holding and then just the craze of keeping it hot when you're breeding.
Jimmy: Keeping it hot, keeping it hot.
Jim Kitchen: So, again, going along with things I find with these secrets, there's other secrets that you still don't tell. Whoever went with that is, well, that's.
Robbz: How we get you back on the podcast.
Jim Kitchen: Charlie Mueller, basically, six years ago, he really was interested in learning about pseudocanthus, and he basically was my understanding. Everything I learned about him, I expressed him. And he's the one who got, like, 75% of my fish, my breeders, because he's been able to successfully start breeding them. But the thing was, is I wouldn't tell him exactly how to do it, because I knew if I told him exactly how to do it, it wouldn't work. Over taking us six years to learn that. What I see is keys. You must do are not necessarily the same thing. And for example, I was always breeding my always breeding 85 to 86 degree water. He had apparently turbulence, orange, so he turned his tank down to 80. They spawned an 80 degree water, and we could get them to do that. So the big thing is to pay attention. You have to look and see what the fish are. If they're happy, you know, when they're happy. And you just can't follow a textbook with a pseudocampus thing. You can't follow a checklist for a textbook. This is how you do it. You can move the cave two inches and change the water flow in the aquarium, and they will spawn or they won't.
Robbz: It's a practice, not something that's completely guaranteed.
Jim Kitchen: Exactly.
Jimmy: Yeah. And just because it works for you doesn't mean it's going to work for me.
Robbz: Right. That's why it works at my house and not yours, Jim.
Jim Kitchen: Right.
Jimmy: Well, I mean, you look at people like Steve or vicki from Angels Plus and he says, these are bred in my tank. Doesn't mean they're going to breed in your tank. But I'm selling them to you as breeder fish. And if they get to my house, they don't like my water or my PH is too high, or they don't like my tank, or it's in a high traffic area, it just makes a world of difference compared to what other people have kept them at.
Robbz: Again, they've spawned the mail's taking care of them. And how long is the gestation period between fertilization and hatch?
Jim Kitchen: Typically for pseudos, it's seven to eight days to have them hatch out. So you've got basically eggs with tails, and then around 15, day 15, day 16 is when I would collect them because they're not quite recently, and they have a good size yolks to them, so you can catch them. But if you wait for them, I've actually left them in there to see how long it takes. About usually just about 40, 45 days before the mail lets them all out. And you're down to maybe like 20 out of 500 because they all sneak out and they die or whatever because he's got to go and get a meal somewhere.
Jimmy: And so is it important that you get them out with the egg yolk sack still attached and then that way are you able to watch when that's absorbed? So when you know when to start feeding them?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, probably. It's just easier to catch them. If you wait till they start scattering in the tank, you'll kill. Hepam trying to get them off the glass or trying to get them out of the caves or whatever. So it's just a very convenient time frame near the mill gets frustrated. So he's about ready to give up on them anyway, and they're all in one spot.
Jimmy: Do you just try to get him to scoot out of the cave and you grab the cave and bring. It up and dump the fish out.
Jim Kitchen: Well, actually, if you look on my Facebook page, I took a video of how they plucked him in 30 seconds or whatever.
Jimmy: Yeah, I saw that. That's why I was beating you.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, that's exactly it. Sometimes you get lucky. Sometimes they're tired of them. I'll grab a cave, and the mail will just jump out and go, okay, you're trying to take care of them now. Other ones seriously defend them. And that's why I came with the idea of having a screen over the tank, and then the mail slides off the screen into the tank, and then fry fall underneath into a tote.
Jimmy: And so who is your lovely assistant that was helping you? Is that your wife?
Jim Kitchen: Yes.
Jimmy: Does she have a great interest in this, or does she just help you out?
Jim Kitchen: I'm she has other interests, but she thought it was kind of neat just to see, you know, see them breed and see them spawn. And they have to give her credit. She had the first three suit of spawns because I was always filling with them too much. So I went to Brazil for three weeks. You know, she took care of him and came back, and they were they had spawned and fished their babies from me in the tank.
Jimmy: So you're saying that she's the expert and and you're not?
Jim Kitchen: Well, she just ignored them more than I did.
Jimmy: Oh, there we go. And that's how my kids officially became adults. I just ignored them until they were old enough to talk.
Robbz: Man, I'm poor Kyle.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah.
Robbz: Poor Kyle.
Jimmy: I have two adult children who are actually friends with Robbie also. And, yeah, we have a lot of parenting to do, so we have a plan.
Robbz: Jimmy, as punishment, when his kids grew up, he made them cup betas. So he's got to have all the betas he can possible when he babysits his grand grandchildren.
Jimmy: Yeah, when when my kids were younger, I used to do a lot of wholesaling, and during the bed of craze, we'd have 300, 600 bedas. And when the kids were bad, they were made to cup bedas from the little bags. And my son, now, who's 28, was over the other night, saw all the bedas, and he goes, I'm out of here. That's the first thing he said.
Robbz: So, Jim, a few more questions for beginners. What's the pseudocanticus maybe one or two breeds that you recommend for people that are trying to start and getting into this type of fish?
Jim Kitchen: Probably the number the 160s are called a polka dot. They're more of a basic looking one. They're like black with white spots. They're pretty straightforward, and they're not very difficult to spawn. And after that, maybe actually even 114s aren't that bad if you have good water quality. The big thing is the water quality and the currents for the tank. That's what the big things are.
Jimmy: And how many fry do you get out of those type of fish for the boat.
Jim Kitchen: If you have like a five inch fish, you may get 200 down tank 52 hundred.
Jimmy: That's incredible because Adam loves the zebra plea goes so much, the L 40 sixes, and those only have 1212 14 eight.
Robbz: I've even seen the six.
Jimmy: Yeah. Is that part of the reason that they're so darn expensive?
Jim Kitchen: Yeah, I mean, there's, there's people, there's literally thousands of people who have peers. But again, when you can't get more than twelve or 15 at a time yeah, definitely. The demand can be unsatisfied. That's true.
Jimmy: When I started in the business, I was able to get zebra plecos for about $30. And I remember at the time thinking, holy God, these things are so expensive. And now a wholesale price runs 120 to 150. I see them retail up to 200 and people just they want that fish. I had one guy ordered four of them and he ended up with one pair out of the four, ended up with one spawn. And he was excited. But man, he had a lot of money invested in those few fish.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah.
Robbz: So I won't be able to leave without my listeners harassing me and asking you, what are some of the most colorful varieties you've ever seen?
Jim Kitchen: Just in general?
Robbz: Yeah.
Jimmy: Because you breed the cactus ones. Those are gorgeous.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah. I mean, discus, obviously disclored me the first time I did those. Just even everyone is small. How gorgeous they are. Doing the, doing the blue diamonds back when they first came out.
Robbz: Oh, I meant of placos.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah. I'm trying to think of there's the genius there, but like the, with the bright oranges and the grays. There's so many that there's a lot that I like, I just can't think.
Robbz: Of one of my favorites is on your website. It's an L 237. Red titanic. Blakeo and you can look up red titanic plato on Google versus your video that you put up five years ago. And it's absolute night and day.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah.
Jimmy: Is that because of diet?
Jim Kitchen: Diet and location of where it was collected from.
Jimmy: If you grab a fish from one river to the next, it could be a huge difference in the quality and the color.
Jim Kitchen: Yes.
Jimmy: Interesting.
Robbz: So also the two rarest pseudocanthecase that you've ever had, what would be the.
Jim Kitchen: Titanic, which is the LDA One five?
Robbz: You said LDA one five.
Jim Kitchen: LDA 105. Yeah. That, that's when it is like the spots and in black. And then, you know, I got, I got it from a friend of mine and about three or four inches, and I wasn't very impressed when I got to like ten inches, man, the color just got fantastic and they started really looking very pretty. And then the other expensive one was the serratus back because, again, no one had pulled them out of sereno for so many years. And those go from like jet black to black. With white spots. So they're kind of a really unique one as well.
Robbz: And what L is that there is.
Jim Kitchen: No L for it because it's called catfish. It would be city camp, the guest serratus. And I don't think they ever assigned an L number for it because it was described before the elder system came into existence.
Robbz: There you go. Well, Jim, you also had mentioned that you have some stories. What stories were missing?
Jim Kitchen: Let's see. I think I'll leave stories for another time, but some of the stuff that I think people might be interested to know that they're still working on with Charlie Mueller is I found one substrate of the city campus. I called the seven. It's a 114 variant, but they only grow to five inches max length. And I don't know why this particular group that I had were all short, but I had six came in from the wild. They never grew over six inches. And then the first offspring I had only grew to five, six inches. So we're trying to establish that as a as a line, because I think that'd be fantastic for the hobby to have a student that stops it, max growth to five inches. So then you can have you can use a 50 gallon and they'll have no trouble staying in the 50 gallon.
Robbz: That would be beautiful. So I have one question that comes from some of the people we've been ordering Bristol Nose from. Apparently, some farmers in Florida are having issues currently, and they've been investing a lot of money working with veterinarians of certain strains of Bristol Nose plato's that when they breed, they're either extremely slow grow or won't grow past two inches, at least not in a decent enough time. If you're having issues with slow grow, what do you recommend to try to do to number one? It sounds like water changes, but what other things do you recommend?
Jim Kitchen: Check the temperature and then also the quality of the food, and then other things like crowding, how many fish are in the tank. It also affects how fast they grow.
Jimmy: I have heard in the past now that you say that I had somebody that was breeding guinea pigs, of all things, which aren't fish related at all. But when I used to sell the pet stores and all of a sudden their guinea pig production went way down and they started losing them and they started having some problems. And what they found out is that they changed the formula of the food and there was no vitamin C or not enough vitamin C in the food. And it was basically giving them kind of like scurvy sort of thing. And so when these companies change food chemistry or the way they've been doing it, just like making dog food, I would imagine that can greatly affect how fast it grows.
Jim Kitchen: Yeah. When I had approved of turquoise discus breeding, they would spawn every three weeks in a common aquarium. And they had these they were like the soft cheese. They were brine or cross soft shoes. I don't remember who made them because they pull off the market, but every three weeks they'd spawn, no problem. And they stopped making this food and they never spawned again after that.
Jimmy: So by taking away their favorite food, they said, I'm out of here. I'm not doing this anymore.
Robbz: Yeah, just like me. Take away my cheeseburgers and send them around the corner. Well, Jim, I appreciate your time. We've definitely exhausted over an hour here with you, and we want to have you on for another podcast, and maybe we can talk more about those secret stories you want to tell us next time.
Jim Kitchen: Okay.
Robbz: For the listeners, we're just going to let you know that if you have questions for Jim for next episode, or if you have something you want to send us to, it directly. Go to aquariumgistpodcast.com on the bottom of the website. We either have a telephone number and you can leave us a voicemail we can air on the podcast live or just send us a direct email on the bottom of the page and we'd be happy to get that directly to Jim. Otherwise, certainly check out pseudosmart on YouTube and Facebook.
Jimmy: And Jim, are you selling fish currently right now?
Jim Kitchen: No. Like I said, I actually have zero fish in my basement right now.
Jimmy: Okay.
Jim Kitchen: I wish I did, but unfortunately I don't.
Jimmy: Yes, well, that's one of the first questions we get from people is where can I get this stuff? And it's just good to know that you've had to downsize because of health complications and stuff. And that's totally understandable. But I just want to thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for all the information you've given us and the time. It's greatly appreciated.
Robbz: He's going to go home and turn up the temp on his tanks.
Jim Kitchen: If that's all you need, that'd be great. Again, there are people who have my breeders, and rather than speak for them, I'm hoping that they'll be sprouting up here in the next six months with, hey, I've got some of these fish for sale that's I'm really hoping. But I'm not going to go speaking for them and they don't know how to.
Jimmy: Well, when that happens, you let us know. We're going to put the word out. We're going to help out. We're here to help the entire aquarium industry. We want people to succeed.
Jim Kitchen: That sounds good.
Robbz: Reminders, please share this with your friends. We want more people listening in and then subscribe in your favorite platform, but please give us a call. We love your communication on our email or voicemails. We've been getting a lot in and just one more reminder. transhippers, please contact us. Apparently there's a lot of people looking for you and there's not a lot of ways for them to find you. So let us know. And thanks again, guys. We will see you on the next podcast. Let's kick that outro. Thanks guys for listening to this podcast. Please visit us@aquariumguyspodcast.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 Jim will be crying into sleep.
Jimmy: Can I listen to it in my treehouse?
Robbz: In your tree house? In your fish room. Even alone at work.
Jimmy: What about my man cave?
Robbz: Especially your man cave. Yeah, only if Adam is there.
Jimmy: No.
Robbz: With feeder gubby?
Jimmy: No, they're endless. You imagine loving Frank fucking motherfuck.
Robbz: Well, I guess we'll see you next time. Later.