Robbz: All right, guys, welcome to the podcast. We're going to start off with our charity of choice, ohio Fish Rescue. Ohio Fish Rescue is a fantastic organization. They are not for profit to try to save these particular monster fish that people deem worthy of buying. If Sally is in the aisle of what used to be Walmart and mommy, mommy, I want the cool shark. And decide that that five gallon tank they bought at Walmart isn't going to work. They normally flush them down the toilets, or worse, throw them into a laker pond to cause disease or kill the habitat or spread an invasive species. Ohio Fish Rescue is here to make sure that they either find them homes or give them homes right at their facility. Certainly go to Ohiofishrescue.com. They have plenty of places where either buy a T shirt, donate to them directly using their preferred methods of choice, paypal, go, fund me patreon and give them a call. I'm pretty sure they don't like me doing the phone number, but I'm always going to give it 216-773-0407. Call them and just tell them, man, you rock. I love you. Make it weird, make it personal, and then hang up the phone. Give them $5. It goes a long way. And let's kick that podcast. Welcome to the Aquarium Guys podcast with your host, Jim colby and Rob Golden. All right. All right. Welcome to the aquarium, guys. Podcast. It is a fantastic week. It is Thursday evening at 930 in Minnesota. And, you know, we're just sitting down. We had a great weekend last weekend. We went down to Minneapolis and went to a koi auction at normandale College. And I see a lot of good things, but we also saw in their Japanese garden and Jimmy, how was that?
Jimmy: Man, that was worth the drive in itself. People, if you get a chance to stop over there, it's located in bloomington, Minnesota. I would say it's probably about three or four acres. And they have done just a spectacular job. As you walk down towards the koi pond, they've got beautiful architecture, and it is just absolutely gorgeous that circles all the way around, all the way around the area, kind of in a circle with large, large koi everywhere.
Robbz: They really did a lot of great maintaining. They had every trim, tree trimmed, grass clipped. They had a lot of seating. And it looks like they're doing a big Japanese celebration education at the college at the same time. So we got to see a lot of sweet drumming vendors. It was a bit of a party. And above all else, I got to eat quiznos.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah, that was a big deal to Rob. We had about a three and a half hour drive down there, and I had to listen about Quiznose for about three and a half hours.
Robbz: They toast their sandwiches.
Jimmy: Yeah, like everybody else in the world does, Rob.
Robbz: So before we get too far again, I'm Rob solson. Jim colby.
Jimmy: Jim colby here.
Robbz: Right. But we have a guest today. We have our good friend, and to be honest, we should be able to see him more and more often on the podcast. You could say an honorary aquarium guy. Adam, introduce yourself, sir.
Adam: Hi, I'm Adam El nashar, and I've been doing fishing pets since, I don't know, twelve years to have a retail pet store. I breed fish, lizards, birds, pretty much anything. And I know a lot about a lot of different things.
Robbz: He's certainly been an enthusiast for years, and he actually listened to one of our podcasts before, and he's been giving me epic shit about calling Endler's libraries feeder, guppies. And they are.
Jimmy: They are.
Robbz: He came up to they are.
Jimmy: Listen. whiny, baby.
Robbz: So he decided that he needed a proof of point and changed my mind on this. And when we went to the Koi show, he brought me a wonderful pair of, you know, N grade endlers, and they're in my tank mocking me.
Adam: You should have two pairs.
Robbz: Yes, two pairs. So, four total fish. My apologies.
Jimmy: It's kind of hard to see him in there with the 150 rummy nose, but they're in there.
Robbz: It's a it's a school. At least they're towards the top. You know, just look for the fish that's trying to screw everything else in the tank.
Adam: They are good at that. They are very prolific.
Robbz: So, a couple items for clean up. Again, we want your questions in the podcast. So certainly go to our website. That is aquariumguyspodcast.com. And on the bottom, you'll see on the website, it says, I'm actually going to it right now. Call us with your questions. Give that a click. We have our telephone number there for you to call. You can send a text message to it as well. It is 218-241-9214, please. We want some hilarious content. Doesn't have to be fish related. If you don't want to, you can just ask how Jimmy feels about taco Tuesday.
Jimmy: Or maybe you want to ask yourself, what is rob's fascination with betty White?
Robbz: Absolutely. We will address that if you so choose, but, frankly, that's my business. She's a beautiful woman. She's a beautiful woman.
Jimmy: She sure is. And there's probably a reason that she's still single at the age of 95 or 110.
Robbz: How old is she? Because no one's good enough for her. Jimmy all right.
Jimmy: Wow.
Adam: I think 98.
Jimmy: 98?
Adam: Yeah. She's older than sliced bread.
Jimmy: Wow, that hurts. Oh, man.
Adam: She literally is older than sliced bread because she was born in, like, 24, I think, or 22. And sliced bread came out in 24. See, I remember reading that somewhere.
Robbz: That was a direct joke for Jimmy. See, Jimmy is a fish enthusiast, and he does still wholesale the pet stores, but what he does in the day is he's a super bread man. So that's real old saying.
Jimmy: I remember when I just hated one person on this podcast. Now, I hate two people on this podcast.
Robbz: I think we're nailing it, don't you think, Adam?
Adam: I think so.
Robbz: So today's podcast, actually, we're going to have a guest, but we're hopefully going to have him next week. Greg bacall from bacal Koi Farms in Toddsville, Iowa, has a fascinating farm, and we're going to have him as a guest, but he at the very last minute got into a car accident with what seemed to be a deer. So our prayers to you, buddy. Hopefully you sounded good, at least on the phone. Hopefully there was just car damage and nothing else was hurt. But we'll hopefully have you on the podcast the following week. But today we're going to go over common misconceptions of our hobby.
Jimmy: And what's really interesting about that is that rob's and I are more kind of on the wholesale end of it. But bringing Adam on to this podcast, he is a wealth of information. He has been a pet store owner for many, many years. He no longer has a store. His wife and him relocated to another town because she's a school teacher and she wanted to go doctor her hometown and help teach. So Adam had the pet store for many years, and he sold it down. Did you sell it or close it? You closed it, didn't you, Adam?
Adam: I closed it, yeah.
Jimmy: Yeah, he ended up closing it. And anyway, so now he is just a hobbyist, but he is the extreme hobbyist. The extreme hobbyist, yes.
Robbz: If you have endlers that you're proud of, you know, you love fish or.
Jimmy: You'Re on crack, one of those two. So Adam says nothing.
Robbz: We're so mean to him.
Jimmy: You can chime in anytime, Adam.
Adam: I love my endlers.
Robbz: Hey, we'll get to his Secret Service story soon.
Jimmy: This podcast is all about I've gotten some crap and a lot of questions about that Secret Service story.
Robbz: Calling with your questions if you want to know more. All right, so I have a list here, and we had a bit of a discussion going through some of these before the podcast, prepping our notes to make sure that we had and we definitely added it to the list. We all have valid opinions on these. So starting off, there's a common misconception of letting your tank run for a month before putting in fish. So to start this one off, the reasons why pet stores have that instruction, let your tank run for 30 days is because they deal with 100 different people, and they're not going to tell you how the bio cycle goes into your tank of cycling your aquarium. So that will do it, but sometimes it won't. So it more takes the process of explaining how the biological works.
Jimmy: The bioload cycle really can be started with just like, one or two fish. What people generally have a problem with is the first thing they do is they buy this tank. It's crystal clear. It's beautiful. And they want to fill it full of fish. And you can't go from zero to 60 on a new tank.
Robbz: So rather than doing, say, even, you can do certainly a couple of fish, or maybe just one fish. But the best play is ask your pet store or ask another hobbyist, as you know, that has a running, actively running fish tank. And just ask them for either an old sponge filter or maybe a throwaway cartridge from the back of your filter. Because the idea is you don't have good biological bacteria eating away ammonia in your tank, and you don't want things to crash and spike after a few days because the cycle hasn't processed. So if you even take just shit water from the back of a filter at a pet store and add it to your tank, it will expedite that process. And there's also chemicals you can get on the market. And when I say chemicals, it's not really chemicals, it's bacteria in a bottle.
Jimmy: Bacteria in a bottle.
Adam: Microblift is what I always sold.
Robbz: There's a bunch of different name brands, but they're all essentially do the same thing, and they're bacteria in the bottle. Now, the benefits of using a sponge filter or old cartridge versus the bacteria in the bottle, especially in northern territories like Minnesota, is if you've bought that biological bacteria in a bottle, it could easily freeze during shipping. If you bought it at Walmart, if you bought it during the winter, odds are it's already dead. And you're just adding nothing to your tank.
Jimmy: Absolutely. And with that bacteria in a bottle, it cannot be frozen. And how many times, Adam, did you ever get that stuff in? And it'd be frozen from the truck all the time.
Adam: But then I just made a point of ordering right before it froze. So in northern Minnesota, that was like July.
Robbz: So experienced best owners bought for the year and make sure they can have.
Jimmy: It installed July 4. Yeah, the 4 July the fifth is a hard freeze.
Robbz: Hard freeze, yes. Oh, man.
Adam: My grandma actually quit gardening. It because it snowed and gave a half inch of snow in like 28 degrees on the 4 July in the she quit gardening that day.
Jimmy: And her gardened again, is that because she was frozen to the tomato plant out back or what?
Adam: No, it killed her entire garden. She planted that weekend, the 4 July weekend, and then it frozen snowed, like a half inch of snow, and she says, fuck that, I'm done.
Robbz: See, that's when betty White was born.
Jimmy: Exactly. All right, so is betty White off the table? I can hammer on your grandma. I can hammer on betty White.
Robbz: I feel like we need a better word choice than hammer on my grandma. I really do.
Jimmy: And the thing is, I got to know adam's grandmother very, very well over the years.
Robbz: All right, so then it's just my grandma left up for grabs. We got to meet her, I guess.
Jimmy: I loved adam's grandma. She was very sweet. She'd buy us lunch.
Robbz: She would hashtag taco Tuesday. All right, back to the list. Back to the list, boys.
Jimmy: We went off course again, so real quick about bacteria and a bottle. Another brand name is Stress zyme, and you can't get that confused with stress coat. And that happened a lot in Pestoes. I know you've had that same problem, Adam. People come in and they grab the stress coat versus stress zyme. And Stress zyme is what you want, which is the bacteria in a bottle, and follow the directions carefully, and you really can't overdo it.
Adam: Yeah.
Robbz: If you put too much in, well, you just got more shit in your tank, more bacteria. Good for you.
Adam: Yes. See, I would always, whenever somebody would come in with a brand new tank, I would sell them depending on what they wanted. Like, I wouldn't sell them goldfish because that would be a bad news thing, because it would just be so much. Even with the bacteria in a bottle, I'd always sell them like most people were doing tropical fish, so I'd sell them like a pair of guppies or a trio of guppies or endlers. No, those antlers were mine.
Jimmy: That was back room stock. That was the good stuff. Yeah, we don't tell people about that.
Adam: Could see and nobody could touch.
Jimmy: Sounds like my ex wife. Oh, boy.
Robbz: This is why we don't allow drinking before the podcast, gentlemen.
Jimmy: Just during the podcast.
Robbz: All right, so the next point on our list goes right along with the aquarium cycle. People believe that excessive cleaning on their tank keeps a healthier aquarium, and that's not necessarily true. So after you've established aquarium and you have it running for a while, you'll see things like your filter gets clogged up. That's natural to clean. You want to make sure your filter is flowing at a natural rate to keep your water filtered and you're not burning out the filter itself, and above all else, to keep oxygen in the water. But excessive cleaning. When you see a piece of this and the gravel sucking it right up, no algae growing anywhere, and continually having your hands in the aquarium and pulling off that filter, cleaning out every piece, you're destroying all the good bacteria that was built to try to help maintain and keep that ecosystem running in your tank.
Jimmy: Because once your aquarium cycles through, all of a sudden you'll go through a cloudy period, and all of a sudden it will just become crystal clear. And then you know that you've got a good bioload in your tank and that it's eating away at the waste matter of the fish cleaning.
Robbz: If you're just going to clean the glass, make sure that you take the algae off, fine. Don't do a whole every spot deep cleaning. And if you have a sponge filter, only make sure it functions. Don't clean out all the bacteria. And if you're using a hang on the back filter, there's been a filter going around called a bio wheel. Marine land sells it. It's very cheap. You can get these on Amazon. And there's two parts. There's the cartridge and then there's the actual rotating wheel. Never clean the wheel. Just make sure that it continually moves that's there to actually collect the biological bacteria so you can clean the other parts of your tank the cartridge is there to replace. So only clean if you absolutely have to for either the fish's sake or the filter's sake.
Adam: And make sure the wheel is always turning because you wouldn't believe how many times the wheel gets plugged and then it doesn't turn. And then they wonder why their tank gets all messed up from that.
Robbz: Right?
Adam: I've had a lot of people have problems with that.
Robbz: It's never a deep cleaning on the wheel. It's always just pop it off, spray it off lightly not to knock off all the biological bacteria.
Jimmy: And then when you're doing that, make sure you do not use water with chlorine in it. And most of the tap water in cities have chlorine in it that will kill your bacteria. So we're lucky up here in northern Minnesota, we don't have any chlorine in the water. You actually can just take the little spray thing from your sink and kind of spray it off and clean it up a little bit and put it right back in.
Robbz: We're in a small town of like 3500 people. And in this town we've done water tests on our water many times from different locations where we lived in town. And we're lucky enough to have almost no chlorine in the water enough where it's considered safe, but it's super gross. It's perfect for fish and plants, so we don't have a problem. But in major cities I've seen where people have axolotls or something more sensitive to chemical treatments and they'll vary the use of chlorine and other substances. So make sure you use that stress coat. Let your water sit if you have to. Do your homework and test it beforehand. Bigger filters equal less water changes. I'm going to let you take this one, Adam.
Adam: That is not true. And the reason why is the chemicals. A lot of fish, especially when they're growing, release chemicals that prohibit the other fish from growing. tadpoles do this also. And by not doing a water change, you're not removing that chemical that everybody else grows. Plus there's pheromones for breeding fish and it can mess up with other fish. What you want is gallons per hour. That is the best way to do it. A bigger tank is not a bigger filter on your tank. So like, if you put like a 300 on a ten gallon tank, which is I mean, the fish wouldn't be even alive because they'd be pushed against the glass. But what I would do is just basically put like, I don't know, 150, because you want to change that water. So if it's doing 150 gallons, then it changes that water 15 times in an hour. And that's a good flow rate depending on what kind of fish you're doing that rotates it. But you still have to do your monthly water changes and remove the cartridges because the cartridges will get so full that eventually they don't work. And your bio wheels or whatever you're using doesn't work. And then your tank crashes.
Robbz: So think of it like this. You have your filter to collect the things that cause ammonia. So if a fish takes a dump, it catches the shit. So it collects it and purifies the water. But it does not take care of the other things such as ammonia and the other things that cause chemical reaction in the water. So water changes help ammonia spikes. It helps calcium built for small fish. You need to do consistent water changes. But having that nice gallon per hour rating on your tank, make sure that that crap or something that happened in the aquarium debris get caught from the water to lower the ammonia rate.
Jimmy: And it's also a good idea to keep an eye on your population. And when I say that, I mean when you go in there and you go, I've got six of this particular fish. It's always good to do an inventory, because all of a sudden you get one fish that dies and you kind of don't see it because it's up in the corner behind a plastic plant or behind a real plant. And that will skunk out your tank pretty quickly. So you need to keep the dead fish out. You need to keep anything that doesn't belong your uneaten food on the bottom. If you could suck that out a little bit. Even with a turkey baster. I just watched a video the other day where they're just using turkey baster, sucking out stuff in different tanks because of different ideas that they'll grow faster if they get less ammonia and all that, which is all true.
Robbz: And they also have, this is decently new in the market because of a lot of the nano tank grays. They have special narrow, elongated bastards that you can get. The name baster varies because they're not going to use turkey baster when you're looking at a fish product. But these things are on Amazon. They're even on cheap stores like wish.com where you can find these for just a couple of bucks.
Jimmy: Absolutely. wish.com has kind of got a lot of strange, oddball aquarium type things. And if you have got a little time to wait and you can order off there, they're not fast, they're not Amazon, but they will get the stuff to you and you'll save a lot of money.
Robbz: So the normal order on a Wish is you have two different issues. Number one, quality, you need to make sure save it's an electric thing. Like we bought uv sterilizers off of there burned. We did not realize they're only a couple of bucks apiece. And uv sterilizers are decently, expensive on the market. But we got them for a couple of bucks. They shipped it to us. And they had Chinese wall sockets.
Jimmy: Yeah, the European plug or whatever you want to call it, but it was very interesting.
Robbz: So we had to either buy really expensive dampers, take them to work, or just throw them. But they're only a couple of bucks, so we didn't care. So read the homework on the item, and then they take 30 to 45 days to get to your home. So if you need something now, it's not going to be that Amazon.
Jimmy: Absolutely not.
Robbz: So Jimmy, I got one for you here, and I know this one is always a pet peeve. Anytime you go to these stores and you're unloading fish at a pet store, some person walks up to you because they know you're the expert. And I want a cleaning fish so I don't have to clean up my aquarium.
Jimmy: A cleaning fish that eats what?
Robbz: Shit poop.
Jimmy: Yeah, I need a poop eater. I had that happen today. I was at one of my stores delivering, and somebody walked in and said, I need something to eat the poop off the bottom of the tank. And I looked at him, I said, well, there's really no fish that eats poop. And they said, well, somebody said if I got a pleco that they would eat the poop. And they may rummage around in the poop, but the poop still stays here. They're more of an algae eater, more of a zucchini eater.
Robbz: So there's only really one thing that benefits in the tank that can eat shit, and that is crustaceans. Either crabs, either shrimp, crawfish, any of those will eat it, but they're just creating their own shit. There's going to be shit in the tank. There's nothing you're going to do about it. You're going to have to do due diligence as a hobbyist and do water changes, making sure you're getting those pieces or having great filtration to pick it.
Jimmy: Up, poop in, poop out.
Robbz: The other things are playcos again, are great for different algae, but they're not going to get every algae. If you want to be a progressive tank owner and want a community tank that focuses on cleaning, I try my best to do a lot of research because I love a self sustaining aquarium. Not because I don't like doing water changes, those are always necessary, but because it promotes a nice ecosystem. So I have 125 gallon community tank, and the whole focus is to have it in ecosystem. So I have multitudes of shrimp. I have different snails and assassin snails to keep populations down for algae. I do have Bristol Nose platos that do a fantastic job, but they're not going to hit hair algae or beard algae? The black beard algae. So I have SAE, which is assigned algae eaters. We're really friendly, great. In a tank. And they will mow down any hair string algae. So you have to do your homework. Know what cleaner fish is going to help you. In what way?
Jimmy: That was a pleasant surprise when we ordered those fish in for robs. He had a hair algae problem. And if you've ever had that in your tank, it is impossible to get rid of that.
Robbz: You have to do hydrogen peroxide treatments on each individualized localized area or I forget the chemical I have in the other room. It's supposed to be some sort of plant enhancer that you can use in a needle just like you would a hydrogen peroxide treatment. But it is such a pain in the ass when you have a massive full planted tank. You're playing whacka mole with Beard algae. So using fish like a molly, any type of molly, because molly's will mow them. An American flag fish or SAE siamese algae eaters will literally mow all black beard and hair algae in your tank.
Jimmy: Now explain, Rob, the difference between a siamese algae eater and a Chinese algae eater.
Robbz: So I'll even go further. There's the false siamese algae eater. That's even more confusing. So you'll have the algae eater and they'll relatively look the same. At young ages, there'll be just a black bar that almost minnow looking fish. There are good, pretty looking fish. And as they get older, they'll both grow to about six inches. But one will be aggressive towards other fish and they get a mix up in the hobby because they're very hard to identify between the fake and not fake. And again, they're two different species. But the real way to tell, on the back fin, you'll see the black bar go into their back tail all the way through their back tail. That's how you know you have an authentic siamese algae eater. And again, Chinese algae eaters really don't do cleaning.
Jimmy: No, they don't do anything. They suck the body slime off of angel fish.
Robbz: They're just a suction cup that's aggressive. And they're very well adapted in different cichlid and aggressive tanks because they hold their own and they are a fun fish, but they are not a cleaning fish. They're not there to help you at all. And if you're looking for them for a job, that's not the fish to buy.
Jimmy: So if you do have an algae problem, the hair algae problem make sure that you go to your reputable dealer and tell them exactly what you need. Tell them that you need the siamese variety and they can order them, they can get them in and that will take care of 98% of your problem. I know, adam, you were a big auto synchronous fan.
Adam: Yeah, I like my autos because they were little and they got in everything. I never really had them eat the hair algae, but they would go after everything else.
Robbz: Autos, actually, in my experience and from other people I've talked to, do brown algae really well. But if you have brown algae, you're probably not getting an adequate light source or there's a different issues in your tanks. So do your homework. Some people are always going to never have brown algae, but they're really good. Those autos, because they stay nice and small, are fantastic in nano tanks. If you're looking for a small cleaner, excellent choice.
Jimmy: They can really get into those nano tanks, and they don't grow real big. And I think there's several varieties of the auto synchronous. The zebra autocynclist thing, adam like quite a bit, too.
Adam: Yeah, I never got them.
Robbz: And comparative directly to a plato. They have a much lower bioload plecos. If you've ever watched them, fed them, they do shit pretty heavy. No matter what the breed is, autos don't have that massive aggressive biol load.
Jimmy: It's like comparing a chihuahua to a clydesdale for the amount of poop that they produce.
Adam: Oh, yeah. The brown algae that you're talking about, we'd always get that in northern Minnesota. And it was because we had such a high iron content up in Grand rapids area, because it's like on the.
Robbz: Iron Range, that would affect good, healthy green growth, for sure.
Adam: Yeah. So that was always just a pain to get rid of because the brown algae would just tear through Placo's stomachs. Any of them. bristle noses, any of them. It's like glass, and it just shreds their insides.
Jimmy: Seriously? I didn't know.
Adam: And they starve to death. Yeah.
Robbz: They got to have other food besides brown algae, that's for sure.
Jimmy: And poop can't feed them.
Robbz: Poop can't feed them. Poop.
Jimmy: No poop. Poop.
Robbz: All right, next item on the list. I'm a new fish tank enthusiast, and what should I start with? I should start with a nano tank.
Jimmy: No. Wrong.
Adam: Never.
Robbz: Why? Adam? Tell me why.
Adam: The smaller the tank, the more problems you're going to have. If you're going to start as a beginner hobbyist, the smallest that I would recommend is a 20 gallon, either a long or a high. A 20 gallon high is better because it takes up less floor space for most people. And everybody likes their angel fish. You can put an angel fish in there or two. That would be kind of pushing it for most hobbyist tanks because they're just starting out. What I always told my customers is if they wanted to have a nice tank is to stack their fish. And so you start with some corridors, catfish on the bottom. After you've cycled your tank, you take your time. You start with some corridors on the bottom, and then you got to figure out what you're going for. If you're going for barbs, fast moving fish, and then you go higher than that. So the barbs will kind of stay in the. Middle, then if you wanted some other fish in the top level, like some daniels as like a ditter fish to keep your barbs happy, that's what I would recommend. And you can do like half a dozen quarries, half a dozen barbs, and half a dozen to a dozen daniels and then everybody's happy. Your entire tank looks full and you've got a decentish community tank.
Robbz: So think of it like this. New fish owners are going to make mistakes. We all make mistakes. We're not perfect. We do our best and do our homework, but they don't know what to look for. Stuff is going to happen. And let's say they started, we're going to say ten gallon versus a 55 gallon. They got ten fish for the 55, they got two fish for the ten gallon. If one fish dies in that ten gallon, the water craps out immediately. There's not enough biolload in a ten gallon tank to handle that. Where if one fish craps out and they didn't catch it because again, they don't know what they're looking for, they don't know the corners, they would suck in the water flow, whatever else. A 55 gallon can handle a dead fish all the way through decomposition, all the way until they just don't see a skeleton.
Jimmy: With a large amount of water, you've got more room for error. And when you are a beginner, you need room for error. It's just like driving. Nobody takes you downtown Minneapolis to teach you how to drive. You go out, learn on the country roads, you learn the small towns. So definitely the bigger tank, you can start with the better. Quick question for you, Adam, I heard you say ditherfish. I know what it is. But for our listeners, can you explain what a dither fish is?
Adam: Okay, so a dither fish is a fish that makes fish feel comfortable. I'd use endlers or even guppies when I was breeding wildcat German rams. I found that they bred better if you gave them another fish. And sometimes a fish will go swipe at them to make themselves feel big. But most of the time if you have like a really flighty fish and they're kind of calm and keeping everything good, then the other fish will be much better off and they can release aggression on them if they need to for the barbs and everything else.
Robbz: Jimmy can relate when he's in the mood. He always wants people somewhere close by.
Jimmy: Yeah, exactly. So that's obviously trying to get it on.
Robbz: Walmart.
Jimmy: Denny'S.
Robbz: Denny'S perkins hashtag 1699 breakfast.
Jimmy: All right. Lord, here we go, right off the tracks again. My goodness.
Adam: Well, technically the arowana that you fed.
Jimmy: Your Red Tail catfish that's still funny.
Adam: Is a dither fish.
Robbz: All right, moving on.
Jimmy: Wow. I wish you could be here in this room, Adam, and watch robs just turned four shades of purple and a little green and then he's bite in his tongue and he's shaking.
Robbz: To be fair, I had nothing but a salad tonight, and then I had a big piece of chicken. So it's constipation, that's what it is.
Jimmy: I could sense that. I could sense the irritable ball syndrome happening.
Robbz: All right, so the next one I've been told all growing up, even from my expert grandmother, that snails, and this was misinformation, and this is from the beginning of the hobby and again, the aquarius hobby. We again, 1920s, 1930s is when stuff started happening, and they kept it trying to do as natural as possible. They had wrecks of Victorian tanks, stuff like that. But somewhere around after World War II, we started hearing snails have excuse me, that chicken. Snails have diseases. So snails are bad, jimmy snails are good sometimes. So here's the example we want to give. If you're going to a pet store and they're selling you nice product, like a nearite snail, a mystery snail, and not like mystery we don't know what it is, like an actual breed, like gold mystery snail, those are great options for your tank that have their pros and cons. The stuff that you have to look for are pond snails or apples nails. And that's, again, different from the mystery snails they sell. It's the same type of genus. It's still a type of apple snail, but these are more vivacious. They're pond, they'll eat your plants, they eat everything. They're not an applicable snail.
Jimmy: Pond snails are illegal up here. I shouldn't say pond snail, an apple snail, because if they get out into the local lakes, they can destroy vegetation beyond belief, and there's no longer what's that? rattle?
Adam: I'm pretty sure apple snails are illegal or mystery snails. I'm right on the border with Wisconsin now, and they have a whole bunch of snails that are illegal over there.
Jimmy: Yeah, each state is different, but I know that apple snails, back in the day when we were able to bring them in, apple snails, just for the listener. Apple snails are large. They're the size of a tennis ball.
Robbz: They will get and need to get that big.
Jimmy: And we would get them in, and they would be huge, and they were inexpensive, they lived, and they would eat. If you put them in a planted tank, you'd have no plants after about three days because they would eat that much.
Robbz: Now, again, the mystery snail versus an apple snail. They're both apple snails. There's the wild variety that will just eat and destroy, and there's the tank variety, which do get the size of a baseball. They're large, but they're not vivacious. They're not that aggressive. They breed well, but they're not that heinous snail that you're getting. And again, snails don't really bring diseases. They're a type of mollusk, and they don't carry common fish diseases. So if you're seeing ick in the tank, the snail is not going to be getting it, and they're not going to transfer anything. The only thing that's going to transfer is if you dumped your water in when you bought the snail.
Jimmy: And what if we told you 100 times, rob, wear a condom, don't that we've told you that's off the record, that we've always said do not put your water, anybody else's water in your water because you don't know what they have.
Robbz: So the only other thing I want to bring up the snails point are, again, your pet store, if it's a good, reliable pet store, has done this homework and they're going to be selling you different types of different solutions. And the only other thing that they sell in pet stores and this is the thing that I think all three of us hate, but hobbyists, there's pros and cons as mts or Malaysian trumpet snails.
Jimmy: Oh, God, don't get me going on that. I hate those things.
Robbz: Here's why. Malaysian trumpet snails are asexual. So if you have two, no matter what, they're going to breed. They breed in droves everywhere. And the shells are a relatively small snail, but they're a perfect spiral spine.
Jimmy: Hard as a rock, very hard.
Robbz: So again, they have a live birth. They don't do eggs and they're everywhere. They're in your sand, they're in your gravel. And they will have no problem that if you have fine, fine sugar sand in your tank, normally that's packed down, nothing can get into it. They will burrow to the bottom of your tank and dig around, which is why they're excellent in planted tanks. So if you have a planted tank without a motorized filter, they're the best thing for you. And I hate saying this because I really hate trumpet snails to my core, nothing is better for wriggling around and aerating your soil and cleaning off your plant without destroying them than a Malaysian trumpet snail. But if you have a couple of snails, you're going to have a couple of thousand in no time.
Jimmy: If you see 50, you've got 1000 easy.
Robbz: So let's say you have a north. Go ahead, Adam.
Adam: Oh, you can't kill them no matter what you do. I've tried leaving them in buckets outside in northern Minnesota, 50 below weather, you think you're a dead, you fill it, put the gravel back in the tank. No, they're not dead, they come back. So there's nothing that you added to that tank.
Jimmy: I've had tanks where I've dried the I've taken the gravel, I've thrown the gravel out, I've left the tanks that dry for three months and I put water in them and I've got trumpets nails about a month later.
Robbz: I've even heard stories of people saying they bleach their tanks completely like let bleach. soak in for ten days, dump, dry, wipe clean, and they still come back. So they're very resilient, very hardy. But cockroaches, the bigger thing is not just numbers because you can go in and theoretically you can try to kill them, but you can't squish them with your fingers. They're real hard. And this is the real problem. If you have a hang on the back filter, a canister filter, any motorized filter that isn't some sort of sponge filter, it will burn out your filters. Because again, these go everywhere. They will crawl into your filters. They have hard, hard shells, and they will burn out your filters.
Jimmy: Here's another thing that people don't realize, and I learned this the hard way. So I've got a tank full of baby fish, but there's trumpet snails on the bottom, which I thought at the time, this is a great idea because they're eating up all the food. The baby fish aren't. The baby fish didn't grow. Didn't grow, didn't grow, because these Malaysian trumpet snails absorb all the calcium in the water, and the small fish don't have any bone development.
Robbz: They were breeding in such droves, it takes all the nutrients out of the.
Jimmy: Water in such a way out completely. I don't hate them.
Adam: I did find something that does kill trumpet snails, though.
Jimmy: Cockroaches?
Adam: Not assassin snails. No. Cooley loaches. yoyo loaches and clown loaches were the only things that I found that had decent success. The cooley loaches would bite them, and then that little cap that comes on the very end, that little hard row button thing, they would peel that off and suck them out like spaghetti.
Robbz: So loaches are a notorious snail hunter. So if you're trying to keep populations down and have an ecosystem and you have a snail problem, that's a fantastic solution. And one other to add to your list, Adam, is puffer fish. If you have a brackish tank or even non brackish, you have a rare type of puffer. Any type of puffer loves snails, however small. They will crunch them in half and eat them like their treats. People keep just tanks of trumpet snails so they can throw them in and feed them to their puffer fish.
Jimmy: Weird people.
Robbz: So, yeah, if you have a planted tank, nothing's better than a trumpet snail. But we still don't recommend having them. They're not disease ridden. They just multiply like rabbits and blow out filters. But that's about the worst you can get with snails. And like we said before, assassin snails are a great control mechanism. So even mystery snails do have an aggressive population rate, but you can easily kill them, get them out of your tank. But if you want them auto controlled, get yourself one or a couple assassin snails. They're very slow breeding, and it's a snail that actively goes out and hunts and kills and eats other snails.
Jimmy: And they're pretty.
Robbz: They have black and yellow pattern, nice spiral shell. And if they can't find other snails, they're omnivorous and will clean up excess food off the bottom. They'll be opportunistic in whatever scraps they can find.
Jimmy: Let's take a minute and let's talk about Neerite snails. Nerite snails have become one of my favorite. And if you go online and you take a look at all the different types of nerve snails. They have very beautiful patterns on their shell. And these are, I believe, brackish snails. Correct.
Robbz: They do. Fresh and brackish, yes.
Jimmy: But when you keep them in fresh, they can't breed. They have to be kept in brackish.
Adam: Or salt, don't they?
Jimmy: Yeah. And from my understanding, that's the only way you get them to breed. So if you want snails that aren't going to be breeding, nerite snails are a great solution for your problem. And they have the tiger variety, they've got zebra variety, and it's just a pattern on their shell, and they're very beautiful. They actually have a little tiny one with horns on it, which reminds me of marvin the martian from bugs bunny. Who doesn't like bugs bunny?
Robbz: I feel like you're in the marketing department somewhere.
Jimmy: Listen, we got to sell this stuff. I got to say, on this podcast, I used to just hate one person in this room, and now I hate two people. These guys have been my friends for years, and I just want to punch them both in the throat most days.
Robbz: We love you, too, Jimmy.
Jimmy: Oh, God, I'm going to kill you both.
Robbz: So the other snails we didn't mention, and the reason I bring this up is because they're treated as the peace songs of the freshwater snail. Is the ramshorn snail sweet like ramshorns? Right. They have a curly cue, pretty snail, and they come in multiple colors. You can get bright cherry reds, blacks, whites. You can get different patterns. They now have blue that we're finding, and they're very thin shells, so they're very squishy, but they have more character to them. They have those weird antennas like you spoke of, and the shell is just real gorgeous. So if you're looking into snails again, mystery ramshorn, near.
Jimmy: Right.
Robbz: All great options. Be very cautious of trumpet snails and know that you can never get rid of them if you're going to add them ever again.
Jimmy: It's kind of like getting a disease.
Robbz: And never get an apple snail.
Jimmy: No, never.
Adam: Our ramps aren't still weren't they illegal at one time in Minnesota or they're good now?
Robbz: No, they're good. They were worried that they discovered a new species, and they worried that they were going to be able to invade waters, so they had them on a caution list. They removed them after they figured out, oh, yeah, they're going to die after it freezes.
Adam: Yeah. They worry so much. There was so much stuff on caution list that it just never ended. I remember when you could have prairie dogs until some idiot Wisconsin put them next to crested porcupines and got monkey pox.
Jimmy: Oh, yeah. I think we hit a sore spot there.
Robbz: Minnesota actually has opened up prairie dogs again. We have a local zoo shout out to the trowbridge Zoo in virgos, Minnesota. It's a privately owned zoo. The guy started it out of his own backyard. He has a small farm, great zoo. He's been a hobbyist for years of crazy critters, and he has a lot of kids and decided that he wanted to spend more time with his kids than being on the road or doing daycare. So he decided to use his hobby to make money for his family. And he has opened a wonderful zoo. If you're listening in and you live in the Minnesota area, give it a check out. But he actually has an active prairie dog colony free roam in the middle of his zoo. It's wonderful to look at. They breed, they have fun. And actually, their main den is in the middle of an elk exhibit. So they're sitting around these giant horned elk, and they just see these prairie dogs running around all the time. It's the cutest thing ever.
Jimmy: We're so close to North Dakota, and you go out to the North Dakota badlands out of the maduro area, and you go and they have they call them prairie dog towns. And it's just the wild prairie dogs that are out there. And what's very interesting about watching them is they'll be out there like Rob said, but they'll be out there with bison. They have tons of buffalo out there, and they all watch. And the last time we're out there, we're watching the prairie dogs, and they popping out of the holes, and they're pretty active. But what's really cool, as soon as an eagle came flying over, one of them chirped, and everything was gone. And when they did that, all the buffalo looked up, kind of like, what's the problem? Because they all react to each other, giving alerts.
Robbz: It's pretty adorable. But anyways, back on track. Next on our list is if I'm starting up a new tank. I don't want to cycle it. I'm just going to use my other tank's water and dump it in there.
Adam: It will not work.
Jimmy: It'll work a little.
Robbz: I'm calling bullshit on Jimmy. So here's where I like it.
Jimmy: You got to put in the dirty water. The dirty, dirty, dirty water.
Robbz: If you're just doing water, like Jimmy said, just plain water, you're just grabbing the clean water out of your tank and dumping it in not going to do the job.
Jimmy: I'm squeezing my sponge filter in.
Robbz: That's what you got to do, galore.
Adam: Or you take a five gallon bucket and drain the one tank and then dump that into the other one and then fill it up all the way with clean water.
Robbz: Not going to work for the weight. You got to have shit in it. Grab that nasty filter, grab that cartridge. Or if you're doing a water change, you got to make sure that you're vacuuming the shit out of your gravel.
Jimmy: Yeah, if you vacuum and that's what I meant. Yeah, I know. Adam has been doing this a long time. We just like to give him crap because he's the New Guy on the Block, which is kind of like the New Kids on the Block, but he don't make as much money.
Robbz: We're making money.
Jimmy: We're not even making friends. That's the best part.
Robbz: Shout out to anybody that wants to become a sponsor and showcase their products, fish processes, anything else, certainly give us a call. Our email is on the website. Aquariumguyspodcast.com. We would like a sponsor, please.
Jimmy: What if Kentucky Fried Chicken would sponsor? That would be cool.
Robbz: We're going to get pet at the sponsors. That's what's going to happen.
Jimmy: Yeah, I don't think that's going to happen.
Adam: People who eat tasty animals.
Jimmy: Yeah, we will go.
Robbz: Thanks. You just ruined our chance for a sponsorship, you dick.
Jimmy: I got to tell you one quick story. So my son is a professional musician, and he opens up for National Acts. He's very, very talented. The band that he used to play with years ago, they had some problems when I mean problems, I mean health problems. Somebody in the band got cancer, and so the band had to break up for a while. And they're all still great friends, but a few of the other guys have gone out now and started another band. And what's kind of cool is they went out online, and there's a local donut company in fargo, North Dakota, called sandy's Donuts. And they went out and did a video on sandy's Donuts. So I just went to their last show. My son opened up for red jumpsuit. apparatus. Shout out. And anyway, the other band was there, too, and they had free donuts.
Robbz: Oh, my God.
Jimmy: Sandy sent over, like, 20 dozen free donuts for everybody at this show. There's 300 people drinking beer and eating donuts. There was no more fun to be had than that.
Robbz: I'm sorry. It doesn't even matter if their music is good or not. sandy's, donuts is literal cocaine.
Jimmy: Delicious. Shout out to sandy's Donuts. Hey, sandy's, donuts. Call us and sponsor.
Robbz: Oh, my God. Yes.
Jimmy: You know what? Just give us three dozen donuts. We'll be happy.
Robbz: Yeah, you don't have to pay us. We'll just advertise you. Give us donuts.
Jimmy: We'll work for donuts.
Robbz: I totally don't have diabetes right now.
Jimmy: No way.
Robbz: Worth the toe tingling. That's all we're saying.
Jimmy: Hey, Adam, we're going to send you down some sandy's donuts.
Adam: Okay?
Jimmy: So if you get an empty box, you know the donuts were in there. No.
Robbz: What are you doing? We have to force him to get his ass up here and eat donuts. That was our only leverage.
Jimmy: Adam is about how far are you down at adam's? Probably about adam is joining us today by phone. He's about 400 miles.
Adam: Five and a half hours.
Jimmy: Five and a half hours from us. 300 and some miles.
Robbz: Way too damn far.
Jimmy: Adam lives down in wabashaw, Minnesota, where they filmed part of grumpy Old Men.
Adam: Yes. And it's also home of the National Eagles Center.
Jimmy: Tell us about that real quick, would you?
Adam: It's got three eagles and Red tail hawk, and it's the National Eagles center. It's actually kind of cool because it got a lot of little activities for kids, and it talks a lot about the Native American culture and how they respected eagles and stuff. And they're actually in the process of expanding it. I think in the next year or two, they're going to, like, double the square footage. They get, like, two or 300,000 people.
Robbz: A year, and then are you smoking crack?
Jimmy: There's that many people in wabasha?
Adam: No, but they get a huge crowd. I was surprised because that's why they're expanding it. They're thinking that when they add this expansion, it's supposed to double or triple the size of the Eagle Center. Some guy donated, like, a couple of million dollars worth of eagle memorabilia to.
Jimmy: This place, and they have to have.
Adam: A place to put it. And so they're expanding the Eagle Center, and they figure that that will double again, their visitorship.
Robbz: That's huge. Yeah.
Jimmy: I know locally, the zoos around here that they can only keep an American bald eagle if it's been hurt. Is that kind of still the story?
Robbz: They also have special usda permits if they have some sort of deal with in a zoo.
Jimmy: Really?
Robbz: That also works.
Adam: Yeah.
Jimmy: That's cool.
Adam: And then in order to see, I had a Master falconer that would come to my store, and in order to work with them, there's first tier, second tier, and third tier, and you have to be a third tier person to even handle it. And then once you get your own eagle, you have to notify everybody state, local, and federal that you have the eagle in your possession, including the Secret.
Jimmy: Service, because I know those guys.
Adam: I'm pretty sure you do.
Jimmy: I know they know you.
Robbz: That's all that matters.
Adam: Yeah. Are you still on that list?
Jimmy: No, I'm not on any list. I've never been on any list. I just had just a disagreement with the Secret Service because they thought I went around the roadblock. That's just a long, long story. Again.
Robbz: Well, again, we appreciate you on Adam. We hope to have you as a regular occurrence, as you could say, an honorary extra aquarium guy. And he did agree that he's going to be getting an actual decent mic. Right now, he's just on his phone. We try to set him up as best we can, but he's getting equipment, and he will have it by next podcast. Damn it. Yes, I will or will beat you with an eagle.
Adam: Yeah, that probably wouldn't go over good, but okay.
Jimmy: Not at all.
Robbz: Yes. Definitely lost that pit of sponsorship.
Jimmy: There we go.
Adam: Yes.
Robbz: All right, so to finish off this list, we have a few more. So this one I'm going to take. This one's been a pet peeve of mine for a long time because I'm a big nutritionist with certain fish. So I get a lot of times where people have these exotic giant fish and I deal with a lot of weird individuals. Jimmy, you deal with a lot of the pet stores, the guy asking for fish that eat shit, that type of stuff. Me, I'm the guy who's got I have an 800 gallon aquarium, I have three alligator gar. That type of conversation, right? I get the freaks. That's what I deal with on my side.
Jimmy: I thought all the freaks that I knew were all reptile keepers. Adam, that's why Adam is a reptile keeper. That's just a dig on him.
Robbz: See, that's why I am so avid about the Ohio Fish rescue is because these guys have 1800 gallon tank for these fish. Makes sense. But if you're getting a 20 gallon tank for a monster fish that could grow 810ft long, it's not going to be a great day for you. But the big thing that we get in the misconception is feeder fish are the best if you have a predator and for what? And some fish require feeder fish and I get this a lot. So let's do an example. Let's say it's not a monster fish and it's a piranha. People have a fervent belief and I've been told multiple times my fish won't eat or cannot eat and shouldn't eat anything but live goldfish. Bullshit.
Jimmy: How do you feel about that, Rob?
Robbz: It has nothing to do with, oh, that poor goldfish had to get eaten. You should feed your fish salad. No, he's a predator. He should have a solid protein diet. It's nothing to do with animal cruelty because fish, big fish, eats smaller fish in the wild. That is the normal circumstances.
Jimmy: But I eat fish.
Robbz: You are a hobbyist. And when you buy these fish from a pet store, you haven't quarantined them, you haven't taken the time, you haven't seen their diet, you don't know what nutritional value you're bringing to the fish. And above all else, what parasites or infections and disease they carry for your fish. They're not going to have the complete vitamin, mineral and nutrients for your predator fish. You are responsible for doing that. So do your homework on your fish. If you have a piranha, they will eat other things that aren't moving.
Jimmy: They love other piranhas eyeballs.
Robbz: If you have an arrawana arijuanas strike movement, start with crickets, then move yourself to grabbing a nice set of tongs and then activating on the surface and train them into eating shrimp or your own mix or what do they call it? Predivor. It's different brands. They have pellets that are solid protein based diet for predator fish of all sizes. Take your time, do your homework and for God's sake, stop feeding him goldfish.
Jimmy: You know, the thing that the thing that killed me when robs had this red tailed catfish that ate of marijuana.
Robbz: Is actually a hybrid. It was a red tail catfish crossed with a tiger catfish.
Jimmy: And he was half ninja, too. God. Anyway, rob's would feed his thing frozen food grade shrimp that you buy at your local grocery store. And I thought how did I never think of that? But it's $10 a pound. But, I mean, that thing would eat three or four big shrimp and look at you and knock on the glass and go, is that all you got, dude?
Adam: Is that why you ate the arijuana?
Robbz: This was after the Iowana. I realized I didn't quite feed him enough. And I'll tell you what happened with this particular catfish, because the hybrids are.
Jimmy: This is a sad story super aggressive.
Robbz: So the hybrids, they grow to immense sizes. I had an immense tank at the time for it, but when I fed it, I had some shrimp that I was thawing out because I want to give them thawed shrimp as my goal. One frozen fell in the tank, and he crunched that to pieces like it was somehow better than, like, a bag of doritos. It was like a puffer fish eating a snail. It had that crunchy value, and he was super excited to do it. So I decided to try to do semi froze, and he just went crazy over them. I would feed him. We have these cups. What would you say this is? 12oz, 16 ounce cup? A 16 ounce cup. We have a restaurant bias called zorbas. It's a local place that does pizza and shit. So we get these cups. These are like nice cups they just give us with a $3 soda. They rip you off, but they give you a cup. And I would fill a 16 ounce cup. It's roughly about a pound of shrimp a day for this thing. And he would literally fill up until he's the size of a softball.
Jimmy: I was going to say he looked like he ate a freaking baseball. What he looked like.
Robbz: And he would nip at anything in the tank just because he was just this ravenous predator until he fattened himself up on shrimp.
Jimmy: Plus, the water that Rob was using in this tank was from the nuclear power plant down the street.
Robbz: Yeah, that helps. So if you have a fish, any type of predator, big or small, I've given examples of fraud. They're relatively small for predators. Don't feed them goldfish. If you got oscars, there are better options on the market. Or you can make your own and do your homework. I used a shrimp mix. I would add vitamin supplements directly to the shrimp. It's nice and easy, like hiding a pill for your dog and cheese as.
Jimmy: He spits it out on the floor.
Robbz: When you're eating a pound of shrimp, they'll just swallow. They don't spit nothing out.
Jimmy: Rob'S makes such a good point, these large fish. The problem down in Florida is that it doesn't get cold. And so people that buy oscars I love a small Oscar, I think they're.
Robbz: Cute.
Jimmy: I think they're friendly. I think they're very personable. But the problem is they get huge. And when people get them huge, they don't want them anymore. They poop up the tank so bad. So now in Florida, they actually have such a wild colony of Oscars out in the everglades area that they are paying people to go out fishing for these things. I mean, they're actually physically fishing for them with fishing poles. And through several of my suppliers, I can buy wild caught Oscars.
Robbz: And Oscars are native to the area, but there's actually the bread colored tropical varieties that jimmy's talking about.
Jimmy: So what? You would think that they wouldn't last very long out in the wild, but for some reason, they are just like the big snakes and the butterfly fish or the lionfish out in the saltwater end of it, that these are becoming so invasive down there, they're creating all kinds of problems.
Adam: I've heard lionfish is good to eat, though, from my scuba diver friends, because they go fishing like once or twice a year, there's a lionfish hunt, and if you have your scuba gear, you can go hunting for.
Robbz: I was going to say only have experts prepare these, though. They're very venomous.
Jimmy: They are, yeah. You probably don't want your grandmother frying these babies up for you unless you do, unless you're in the will for your grandmother. I don't know. But the butterfly fish have just become I'm sorry, keep saying butterfly fish. The lionfish have become such a problem down there, and they are going out there and they are, like Adam just said, they are spearfishing these things left and right, and they are just ruining the coral reefs.
Robbz: So back on point with the predator fish, I've also had the argument that live fish enrich their behavior. That's true. Anything that moves, they're going to be aggressive towards, and they're going to have their natural instincts, and it's going to be an enrichment to the tank. But you can still do your homework, and you can be that source of enrichment again. tong work. Like, let's say you have a beta. Betas, when they're bred from a farm, have live food. When you get them, you're probably going to do it frozen, dried, or maybe some sort of pellet to enrich them. All you do is you take the small pointed toothpick and you poke the water surface and it imitates a bug, and they immediately look up, they hunt it, and they'll nail the pellet. And that's how you train betas into getting the food. You can do the same thing with arowanas, big fish, piranhas, any type oscars absolutely. And mimic something on the surface where they actually have to chase. But in rare situations, you'll have a lot of weird breeds, octopus, saltwater octopus. They put them in containers where it's a treasure hunt, where they have to go find them. I've had plenty of freshwater stingray and freshwater stingray. Naturally, hunt in the sand below. So what I do is, of course, I'll feed them on the top, but also hide treats for them in the sand that they have to go hunt and dig out. Not very deep. Again, they'll dig, but only so far. And that really does have them hunt and prowl the tank rather than just finding a corner and doing what they want.
Jimmy: Yeah, there's sense of smell. They'll suck it right up.
Robbz: So do your homework, be creative, and just remember that if you are going to do feeder fish, quarantine them, give it a nice long time of you feeding them to make sure that they haven't had any symptoms and signs. But I still recommend not doing feeder fish if you can, so help it.
Jimmy: We've talked. Go ahead, Adam.
Adam: Sorry. Goldfish. Especially if you use them, they actually have an enzyme that destroys vitamin B twelve. And I think fish, I know it does it in reptiles and turtles and stuff. So you actually have to freeze them if you're going to ever use them. You have to freeze them solid and then that destroys the enzyme so that you can feed them and they will be food safe. But they're still not a reasonable part of the diet.
Robbz: So Adam has vivaceous arthritis along with his canker sore, so he takes a lot of vitamins and knows his B twelve.
Adam: Let me tell you, it's in all the reptile books because Oscar people know about that. All the Oscar keepers do that. They just freeze them. And turtle keepers, especially aquatic turtle keepers, they don't even feed live, they just throw them right in there. The only thing that I know that people have had decent success on is rosy red feeders. But even then they gutt load them and everything else. They go way above and beyond. If they absolutely want to use live food, most people just buy them from the store and I just feed them anything, you know what I mean? I feed them the basic food. I wouldn't feed them special diet that's gut loading them.
Robbz: And rosy reds are specific where you have a lot of other issues as well, because rosy reds can be got from the aquarium trade, where there are normal breeding and captivity requirements to make sure they're at least trying their best to make sure they're healthy fish. But rosy reds are also commonly bred or captured in the bait trade, which they have way worse conditions. Yes, to harvest these fish in and keep them in. And you just really don't know the best way is do your homework, do your own food and get them off of live fish. So, Jimmy, I got a big one for you.
Jimmy: What's that? Rubsy?
Robbz: So this started, what, 2000?
Jimmy: I don't know. What is it?
Robbz: The beta plants? bullshit.
Adam: About 2000.
Robbz: It was about 2000 and they had the beta craze, I think is what we called in the fish hobby. And what happened was people figured out that, of course, betas have a labyrinth. They can breathe air, and they don't necessarily have to have moving water for oxygen in the water. So somebody, I'm assuming it was somebody that was in a floral shop, decided, I'm going to put a fish in a vase with plenty of space, probably a gallon vase, and then put a plant and a cup on top and, oh, guess what? Fish will eat the roots. And they sold these things by the thousands across the United States, and there was a massive boom of betas sold absolutely everywhere.
Jimmy: They were at gas stations, every home, every office. Everywhere you went, you saw these gardening vases. I think it's whoever making the vases probably came up with it. And like Rob said, it was probably about a gallon clear vase. It was kind of shaped like a bowling pin, almost. And at the very top, they had a round little plastic cup that you could kind of cut a hole in the bottom and you'd buy a piece lily, which is really kind of a land lily, isn't it?
Adam: Well, you can turn any they're semi aquatic plants. Yeah, they're semi aquatic. Aren't they toxic, though?
Robbz: They're toxic if you eat some of the flowers and blooming pieces and the leaves, and it's toxic to different types of species.
Jimmy: Yeah. And so they have these roots hanging down, and it looked very natural, except for the purple marbles on the bottom. And everybody said, oh, you don't need to feed the fish, I'll just eat off the roots. Now, you go home and you eat a salad every meal for the rest of your life and let me know how you feel in about a month.
Robbz: Well, that in humans. Plenty of people can be vegetarians. However we want to make fun of them, but we're a different species. I mean, I can eat a salad. Not like it, but I'm still going to be decently. Okay, in the morning. baiters are predators in their own environment. They're insect eaters and they forge in their own habitats for small fry. And you have a bug in the water, and when you're trying to force them to eat a plant, they're not going to hit a root, they're not going to eat it at all. So they starve, these betas. And it was so explosive, thousands were sold per day. How was your sales back then, Jimmy?
Jimmy: When that thing first started, I was probably selling an average of 15 to 20 betas per store, and I had 14 stores at that point.
Robbz: How often was that?
Jimmy: And I'd go up there every other week, so it was bimonthly. Twice a month I'd go up there and it got to the point where it got so crazy that I would bring in three cases. And when I'm talking about cases we've talked earlier about in this podcast about how they ship them. They ship them in a small plastic bag with about an ounce of water. I would say it's probably equivalent to the size of a twelve pack of pop. They put 150 betas in there, and I'd buy three cases, so I'd have 450 bedas. I would spend, or I would spend either hours putting them in cups or I'd punish my children and make them do it. And I would take 400 and 5500 bettas with me whatever I had, put them in four or five boxes, and stores would sit there and go through that thing, and they'd all pick out 100 at a time.
Robbz: So it exploded during that time. Bunch of misconceptions. And just to clarify, betas do not eat plant matter. They need a high protein diet. bloodworms are a recommendation. Live or frozen food is even better. Do not try to feed them any type of goldfish flake, algae, wafer, or for God's sakes, plant roots.
Jimmy: You like to feed tubaflex too, don't you?
Robbz: Have rubbed tubaflex is great. And again, that's really high protein. And tubaflex is normally sold in cubes, freezedried cubes, and you can just squish them against the glass of your tank. And it's a really fun feeding experience. And it also allows more fish that have a harder time catching food and opportunity to get it because it's stuck to your glass.
Jimmy: Yeah, like Rob said, it's nothing more fun than seeing 25 fish come up here and just devour that freeze dried cube, which kind of when you push it in the water, push up against the glass, it absorbs water. Really quick like a sponge and just kind of secures itself to the glass for a few minutes and then they just devour it up.
Robbz: So we saved the best for last on the list. And this is the one that angers every single person in the hobby that knows anything of what they're doing is fish grow to the sides of their tank. And this is a misconception that frankly is true. Fish will grow to their environment. But what happens is, let's use the goldfish as an example. Adam has a store, someone walks into adam's store, he said, I want ten of those. Adam goes, whoa, whoa, whoa. What size tank do you have? That's none of your business. Sell me the fish. They take it home. They put ten goldfish in a ten gallon aquarium, and they don't last very long because they're stunted. They will stop growing and only grow to the size of their tank, but their organs never stop growing. So eventually you will kill the fish just because you stunted the fish. Goldfish are the best example because a goldfish needs a large amount of space, they can grow eleven inches. Just those 25 cent goldfish you used to see at Walmart, I think now there's somewhere like, what, $0.50 in a normal pet store. Those will grow. Again, mine, I had a podcast talking about bubbles of goldfish that was eleven and a half inches.
Jimmy: Let's talk real quick, Rob. Let's go back to last Saturday. You and I are in Minneapolis, down in the bloomington area, and they had a beautiful koi that we're going to bid on. And he was probably, what, 24 inches?
Robbz: He was 28 inches.
Jimmy: 28 inches. Did you hear how old he was?
Robbz: Two years old.
Jimmy: Two years old. Holy cow. You get a fish to grow to 24 inches in two years in the correct conditions. This fish that, that we, we were looking at, they had several large core that were for sale. And what they did is they brought out a huge blue tarp, laid it on the grass, and then they brought these fish into these huge plastic bags full of oxygen and laid it on the tarp so everybody could walk. Take a look at these fish. And this fish had robin eggs, blue eyeballs. Right.
Robbz: You were mesmerized.
Jimmy: This fish would look up from you on the ground.
Robbz: If it was a woman, she would have had her way with you.
Jimmy: Oh, my gosh. I would have drug your home. And she had it was the most beautiful eyes. And this fish went for about $190, and that was cheap in my mind, very low.
Robbz: Normally, you see that type of fish go for anywhere from $800 all the way up to $1,500.
Adam: Have you ever seen the koi auctions that they have online?
Robbz: They go crazy.
Adam: Oh, yeah. They'll pay a couple of hundred thousand dollars for fish for koi, but they.
Jimmy: Currently are out of our league.
Adam: Yeah.
Robbz: So again, two years and you can get that growth. Now, 20 inches for a koi after two years is definitely something to stare at. Normally they'll go into that two year time for a 20 inch fish. That's pretty normal. But still, it paints the scenario that we're stunting our fish. So do your homework and study tank size. If you're a pet store, you're going to have a bunch of fish in a small tank because they're only going to be there for a couple of days. If things are going well in your store, they're not going to be there long term. Not enough to stunt and ruin the fish. If you're taking a fish home, make sure that you're having the correct size. Now, normally when you talk to a pet store owner, oh, yeah, a goldfish will do great in a 55 gallon. What they don't seem to ask you enough of is, do you have a 55 gallon hex, meaning tall instead of wide? That's really not great for a normal comet goldfish, but fantastic for a fantastic goldfish. They don't have the length of a normal fish, and they don't mind swimming up and down. I always use an example of an angel fish versus a cichlid. A cichlid needs length of the tank. Angel fish need height to make sure that you have enough for them to swim up and down. So instead of going by gallons, do your measurements and see if they have enough space total to grow for their accommodations. Do your homework and know that these fish are going to be with you for their whole duration and know their lifespan. That tells you if you're stunting them or not. Goldfish. These common goldfish are known to live up to 45 years. That probably blew you away right now. 45 years for a goldfish. That hurts a lot of people's brain. So is it what I'm feeding them? Is it they haven't bread and they're egg bound? Or could it be that you have them in a 20 gallon and guess what? You killed them after three years.
Jimmy: Everybody is concerned about buying a large tank and they're worried about this large tank weighs so much and it's going to come crashing through my floor. If you can keep a refrigerator on your second floor, or if you can keep a waterbed as long as you've got a house or an apartment that's not really any older than 20 years old, you're going to be able to support that tank. And people go, well, big tanks are way too much money, jim, if you sit back and you look for used tanks because people all of a sudden will go, I'm done with this and I'm going to sell this 180 gallon tank, guess what? Just because they're asking $1,000 for it, doesn't mean you're going to give them $1,000 for it, because there ain't a lot of people standing in line to buy a big, big tank.
Robbz: So you'll see, all these people that either didn't take the time, don't want their pet anymore, and craigslist, Facebook swap and shop, whatever you're looking for, you'll find an entire 55 gallon hood, light filters, stand tank. All you got to do is add gravel, decor and fish and maybe a heater. I would never forget the heater. And you'll find these setups for $100. If you look at the nano tanks, fluval, some of the Walmart kits just for the bare bones kits, he's looking at spending close to that, as I.
Jimmy: Say, 60, $75 easy. So don't be afraid to buy somebody's used tank. Ask them the questions, when was the last time this held water and you wanted to take physically? Look to make sure there's no cracks, because a crack can easily turn into a shatter. And it's not a big deal to buy somebody's used tank. I'd rather buy somebody's used tank than let it sit in a closet or in somebody's garage or actually going to the landfill. So you can find some great deals on large tanks if you just look around and be patient and you'll save yourself tens of thousands of millions of billions of dollars. Probably not that much. I might be exaggerating.
Robbz: He's going to be working for Madmoney on Cnbcbusiness.com. Millions of money. Just invest in tanks.
Jimmy: How many times did you buy used tanks? From somebody that you sold them the new tank, and then their kids got just interested and you bought that tank for pennies on the dollar, or you said, you know what, it's not worth anything to me. And they said, well, you just want it. And you'd go, yeah, I'd take it.
Adam: I got a couple of 180s that way.
Jimmy: How much did you pay for those.
Adam: Originally or when I bought them back?
Jimmy: When you bought them back, the best.
Adam: I did was $10.50.
Jimmy: Would you give them a case of beer or twelve pack or what you do?
Adam: No, they wanted a couple of fish, so the fish literally wholesale, cost me $10.50.
Jimmy: So you just did some swapping?
Adam: No, he swapped them some fish for 180 gallon tank.
Robbz: He mugged them on gunpoint. That's what happened.
Jimmy: Hey, I'm going to need a new car probably next year. Just keep an eye out for me, that's all I'm saying. I got guppies, I got beddies. I'll trade somebody some bedding, some guppies.
Robbz: For hey, we got feeder. I mean, Endler's library.
Jimmy: We got four handler libraries over here in northern Minnesota.
Adam: You're going to love them.
Robbz: So quick story time.
Jimmy: Oh, I love story time.
Robbz: Be on the lookout, you'll hear? Just watch the swap and chomp. You'll see some things. And I like to talk about a free story. Right. Jimmy and I are in a particular situation. This is not going to match for everybody, but it's just note that you need to look out for situations. Pop up on craigslist, set your filters, send an email notification when you see the keyword tank. There's ways of doing this. And I got a call from a friend of mine. He knew that Jimmy and I are in business at this time, doing our website. It was fishfinders plus. And hey, I saw on your website, I was looking at it the other day and I saw on your website that you guys taking fish, like yeah, if you're going to flush it down the toilet or you're just done with it and you're trying to kill the fish or worse, let it into a lake or stream, we'll take it. We'll make sure to rescue it, find it at home or take care of.
Jimmy: Ourselves, do the right thing.
Robbz: He says, well, you know what? I'm going to have a guy call you. He's in a particular situation. Oh, he has an apartment building that's been oh, not this story illegally damaged, and he had to evict them. So this was three stories in a building in a small town close by us. And this guy had, what was it? 13 aquariums.
Jimmy: And this is 13 large aquariums.
Robbz: 13 large aquariums. And then probably just a couple of smalls around the house.
Jimmy: It was on the third floor, which was about 275 steps.
Robbz: It was a two bedroom, very small apartment, and the whole place was completely and utterly destroyed. It was damaged from head to toe. We're talking they broke the linoleum.
Jimmy: Yeah. The only thing that wasn't damaged was the aquariums.
Robbz: That was it. They had slime coating. It was like some sticky substance on the walls. Real gross.
Jimmy: Like, they had been cooking bacon for six weeks on end. And it was just the grossest thing. And thank you, by the way, and I'm still pissed for taking me along on this little adventure of ours that we went on.
Robbz: I had no idea what we're coming up with. So he told me that, hey, I got this guy that was evicted out of this apartment.
Jimmy: This started at 09:00 p.m., by the way.
Robbz: There's a bunch of fish in this apartment, and I don't know what to do with them. They haven't haven't been fed in over a week, and I got to get rid of them. Okay, yeah, they're coming to, what was it? Strip the entire apartment. The apartment the next day?
Jimmy: Yeah, I think they were going to.
Robbz: Start doing construction, like excavating, because they literally had to just rip the sheet rock off the walls to rebuild the apartment to see what was happening. And it was late.
Jimmy: Yeah, it was very late.
Robbz: It was like when I got the call, it was like 05:00 p.m.. So I got a hold of Jimmy, we're both finished work, and we get over there about 07:00.
Jimmy: Yeah. And by the time we had seen what this guy had, it was 09:00 p.m.. And now we don't have anything to haul these tanks in. Any vehicle is big enough.
Robbz: Well, we go upstairs and again, 13 tanks. And it was just filled wall to wall with beautiful peacock cichlids, big cichlids. He basically did his own little farm, is what he was doing. He was breeding in certain tanks where he had studs or he had all the females, and he had grow out tanks. He had certain small batches. And we probably took, what, 1200 adult fish at least, out of there.
Jimmy: Pale after pale after pale. It's 03:00 in the morning. It's 100 degrees. I still hate you for this.
Robbz: So we drove out, we got a bunch of bags, and we have a bunch of equipment, because, again, we ship in fish. We had foam coolers, we had bags, we had oxygen tanks, and we were begging fish left and right, hauling them for three stories. And then we took all these giant tanks. And that's why I have my 125 right now, is because I just came from that tank. I recycled this broken tank.
Jimmy: But tell the best part. This guy said, Just get him out of here. And then we got him about halfway out of there. Then he wants to start negotiating a price.
Robbz: He's like, oh, so how much are you going to pay me for this? I'm like, whoa, you said you needed this out tonight, and we're just getting it out of here. If you want it, we'll just leave it in your yard. Oh, no, I need this gone. Okay, then we'll make sure it's gone, I believe.
Jimmy: Wasn't that going somewhere? I mean, I was catching an airplane like the next day.
Robbz: You had to leave the next day at 05:00 a.m.?
Jimmy: Yeah. So we got done at about 230.
Robbz: In that department, brushed my teeth, showered.
Jimmy: And went out and got on the airplane.
Robbz: I got a couple of friends, I called him over and said, hey, we need some help hauling these tanks. And we busted our balls getting these tanks from and filled three stories in a very narrow stair shaft stairwell. And it was quite the experience. But just keep a look out. You don't know when people are going to dump stuff out, give it free or see something at a garage sale. Garage sales are huge for it. I've gotten an entire, I think, 75 gallon aquarium, the whole kit and set up for $15.
Jimmy: I was going to say, I bet you we got probably 4000, $5,000 worth of equipment. Just the stuff. He had new tanks that weren't even still had the label on. They're still wet.
Robbz: Not even wet if they weren't broken.
Jimmy: Yeah, we went through it and almost.
Robbz: All of it was broken, but still it was fine.
Jimmy: The new tanks that were there. But somebody had an anger issue before they left that apartment and got evicted.
Robbz: So it's not hard. Do your homework. Make sure that you're accommodating the size needs, space needs, not gallon needs, space needs of your fish. And enjoy that hobby. When you have more space, it's much easier to take care of the fish. You can do more things, have more space for a community and actually watch an actual ecosystem. You can have five species and 20 gallons or five species and 120 gallons and there'll be a completely different ecosystem. Well, I think that brings us to the end of our list. If we miss something, let us know. Again, you can email us or call us. The contact information is on the bottom 218-214-9214. We'd love to have your voice on the podcast asking the question. And Jimmy, you got anything for us?
Jimmy: Well, you know, I just I just want to say thank you to Adam Elmshar, who was a previous owner of Pet North in Grand rapids, Minnesota. He's a wealth of information. We're going to have him on this program with us as much as we possibly can. He's got some great stories. He didn't get a lot of airtime tonight, but we're going to get him some better equipment and we are going to continue telling stories out of our butt. And Adam, do you got anything to add?
Adam: No. Thanks for having me on here, guys.
Jimmy: Oh, we had you.
Robbz: I thought he was going to say, please, spade and neuter your pets.
Adam: Oh, no, that's feed of people.
Jimmy: No, that's Bob barker.
Robbz: That's Bob barker.
Jimmy: Oh my God.
Adam: Whatever.
Robbz: Bob. Bob barker, spade or neutered. Wow.
Jimmy: So much angle, man.
Adam: He just erect good dog breeds. And then the people that breed the crap are the ones that breed and everybody else wants to be responsible. That's how you get bad things.
Robbz: We've all seen Bob barker on Happy gilmore. He's going to come and kick your ass.
Jimmy: Kick your butt, Adam.
Adam: He probably would, too.
Jimmy: Fantastic.
Robbz: Awesome.
Jimmy: Thanks again, Adam, for spending the time with I know it's getting kind of late here. If you hear some of the kids in the background that adam's got four children, him and his wife. His wife is a school teacher down the wabashaw area and they've got four kids and stuff. And so once we get this podcast going here a little bit better and stuff, and you'll hear Les, doris lammond and kids going, dad, what are you doing?
Robbz: There we go.
Jimmy: On queue. Thanks for pinching her.
Robbz: All right, well, thanks again, guys, for listening. Next week, hopefully. We'll have Greg mccall on from bacall Farms. And please share this with a friend. Go to any of your favorite podcast stores, subscribe to make sure that you have notifications delivered directly to your phone. And we'll see you next time.