Hi, guys. It's the crazy sales clown. This week, we go to Joe Shrimpshack.com and get yourself this. Oh, God, these ads are getting out of control. Go to Joe Shrimp check.com this week, guys, they have the entire Shrimp King food product line on sale for 11%. And you can get yourself another 15% off this line by using promo code aquarium Guys at checkout. It was a good idea. I just can't do this ad, Joeshrubscheck.com. Even we can't do clowns. Welcome to the Aquarium Guys podcast with your host, Jim colby and Rob Zolson. Welcome to the podcast, guys. I'm your host, Rob Zolson.
I'm Jim colby.
And I'm Adam El nashar.
This week, we have a ton of listeners messaging in with different questions, needing a lot of different help. So I'd like to dive into it. But before we do, of course, we have to introduce our guest. Before I introduce our guest, I have to let you know that this week's subject is flower horns. And flower horns are by themselves, a contested subject in the aquarium hobby, not because they're just because they're some sort of hybrid mutant fish that aren't found in the wild, but because the competition is so fierce and everybody is extremely passionate about this weird, weird fish. So for those that are listening, a flower horn is a large cichlid that has a round ball on its head. You can Google flower horns before you start this episode. It's very important, and I have to put a parental warning, even though this is an explicit episode, that we're going to refer that ball on the flowerhorn's head as a cock. It's spelled kok. That is the official term for that part of the fish were immature people. We can't help but laugh at the word cock. So you have been warned. jimmy's already smiling.
Rock.
You said cock.
Rock. I said cock.
Jealous? The fish are sometimes bigger than him.
I am, but I'm not going to censor cock. This episode is going to go downhill. We're going to have fun doing it. And to guide us on this journey downhill, we have Jay from J Four flowerhorns, the I believe, current world champion for competing flower horns. How are you doing, Jay?
Hello, guys. Thanks for inviting me. I'm good. Hello.
It's our pleasure having you, man. We started doing this on Monday, our normal recording day, and we tested the night before. Everything was good to go, and then your headset broke, and now you came back on a Thursday just to make sure that you give us the information we so deserve. So thank you for your persistence, Jay.
No problem.
Can you just give us a little bit more about your business before we kick this off so we get a little background about you and what you do?
Yeah, I started a business ago. I'm selling firstly locally. So I bred my farmhorns and sold it locally for, like, very cheap, and then after a year I started an ebay and finally I get my website and everything ebay.
There's still fish being sold on it, but it's not that prevalent, at least that I see anymore. But I haven't really done a lot of fish shopping in ebay. I think I've done it twice. Is it still being utilized for a lot of the trade that you see?
Yeah, I see a lot of fish in a variety of it. Flower Horns is a lot of sellers in there too.
Wonderful. So we're going to get into a deep dive interview about flowerhorns and how you compete them and all the secret information you care to share with us. But what we're going to do first is get to listeners questions. We have so many, we're not even going to tell you about our week. Even though last night my 125 gallon decided to leak all over the floor.
Oh, yeah, I just came over to rob's and his wife is still cleaning up the mess.
I guess I was up until about 05:00 a.m. Last night. So I got like a nap and I had to put in a full shift and now I'm here. But this is also just before we do the questions, we're doing our first test. We're doing, twitch? TV aquariumguys. So if you want to see our fat faces, please go on to the live stream. Wave. Hello. We're only doing this live. I don't see us recording this because we want to use it for our podcast. But hey, it's another way for you to interact, ask questions. So certainly check it out. We'll also have the link in the bottom of our website according to Podcast.com if you need to find it easier. You ready for questions? Jimmy?
Do me do you?
Okay, first one. Hey guys. Recently set up a ten gallon to breed guppies and shrimp. My wife also conned me I don't know, is that the correct spelling? Conned me into getting some cardinal tetras and a female beta. Now I had three female guppies in, one male, one platy, and the pet shop threw in five tetras, one female beta, and five cherry shrimp. This is a lot of fish for a ten gallon. Please Lord, don't let him put it just in 110 gallon. The tank was set up from the water from a big tank. I had a sponge filter and the big tank was going to collect the bacteria. Also let it run without fish for a week to cycle a bit more. Got all the fish in, let them acclimate, netted, none of them with the local fish store water went in, had them for about three weeks, added the shrimp. After adding this shrimp, my female beta got stuck and unfortunately died. Oh boy. While I was at work, I found her and did a 20% water change. A few days later I noticed one of my female guppies have gone missing and found her dead at the base of the sponge filter with white fruits around her and did another 20% water change. Four days later I had another guppy drop dead and repeat the same water change the next day off. So I turned up the tank light. Remaining fish were alive swimming in the afternoon I go to feed them, but another guppy was dead and also now shrimp is dead. So I'm seeing this all trickle downhill. I feel like this all stems from number one, the tank didn't cycle enough, or you didn't use nitrifying bacteria in a bottle that you can purchase from your local pet store to get it cycled first. So that's number one I didn't see because you're giving me detailed structures. I feel like this may be a beginner fish keeper. You also may have chlorine in the water, so use a product to remove the chlorine from the water. That would be huge. And your tank sounds gratuitously overstocked. If you have fancy guppies with the long tails, you also have a problem with male betas or sometimes even female betas nipping finn. So that can cause a lot of stress and having stuff die. But to go on now I got more dead fish to the 70% water change. Everything was okay for about four weeks from the male guppy dead. And yes, this just keeps going downhill. Jimmy, do you have any other recommendations besides you've overstocked? Your choices may not have been really applicable. I don't see any chlorine remover.
I would just start with maybe one or two varieties. I think you've got so many different things going on there and you're not really quarantining any particular fish. And depending on where you buy them from, if you come in with one sick guppy, it's just going to go to everything else. And a dead fish unseen laying on the bottom will skunk up the tank fairly quickly. If you don't have enough bacteria like you should, that will just continually domino affect everything else. So I would start out by taking most of the water out, putting all fresh water and using bacteria in a bottle and starting out with just a few fish and then build from there. But I know we all get excited with that first tank or that new tank and we just want it stocked and ready to go. But I think to spend some more time acclimating these fish and putting in a few at a time and not going so gung hole right away.
Less is more. Once you get a Beta going for a good long while, then maybe find a tank mate, it's just so much. And then on top of it, you put in some more information about feeding. Here a small pinch once a day. And then also you listed something about a cube of black worms with spinach defrosted bloodworms and then also having some old algae wafers. Number one, if that food is in there over 24 hours, especially in a small tank, you're going to get punished.
Right.
So feed every other day, number one. And number two, if you're going to diversely feed, feed one thing for that one day and then the next time you feed, feed something else. Don't feed all three things at once. At most, just do a small bit of flake and maybe one algae wafer. If the algae wafers there by the next day, remove it. That's where the larger tanks are so much easier to do. They're not going to punish you if you have a little bit of food left over that some fish didn't get. There's so much more forgiveness. Doing these ten gallon or lower tanks can be really difficult to do and.
I really believe that we could just give them permission to buy a 55.
Yes, if your wife conned you into tetras and betas, we can con you into a 55 gallon tank. Go to your local Facebook page, find it for $50 a used one and be happy.
Yeah, and the thing is too, with LG wafers, there are so many different LG wafers out there and some of them are great and some of them are terrible. And if they leave a large amount of residue on the bottom and the fish aren't eating it, that will skunk up your tank also.
So I appreciate the questions lex, there's a lot to go over, but yeah, definitely normal beginner questions there. We've all been there, don't feel bad. All right, next one is from LJ. Hello, I recently discovered your podcast and I'm a fan but also need help with the following advice. Can you recommend me a company that will ship fresh water, fish and plants to Canada? Thanks a lot LJ. So thanks to COVID and international laws and the spread of thereof, good luck sending anything to Canada right now. So if you're going to try to find a company, it has to be a company that's not in the United States and frankly, I don't know what that would be.
I only know of one company that routinely ships to Canada, but unfortunately you have to be a wholesaler and that would be ceased farms out of Florida.
And they're blocked as well.
Are they blocked as well as they.
Have to go from another country to get fish to them? They can't ship there anymore either.
I was going to say because I know for years I've heard about the paperwork that they send fish and they have huge customers up in Canada. But since COVID started, I've not really fallen through. But I know Cigarettes Farms has in the past sent stuff, but unless you're a wholesaler or a pet store, they probably won't be able to help you out.
I guarantee after this travel ban is gone, cigarettes Farms will be that will be the first day they start shipping back to Canada. So certainly if you're a pet store or consider you want to be a wholesale license LJ you can certainly contact them. But, yeah, it's very difficult. Man Through COVID so sorry, I wish we had better answers for you.
I would just reach out to your local Facebook groups in your area and see who's got extra stuff, get a.
Feel for the surroundings.
Who wants to smuggle some white cloud across the border?
Oh, I normally think that would be a drug reference, but we're fish people, so next question from Peter, this is an update. So tank looking much better now. temps drop massively, so feeding once a week. Will the white cloud gobies be okay with the amount of food? So Peter was the one that messaged us before. I believe he's from the UK and he's the one that has the sunfish tank that was having such a problem. And now we got pictures before to now. It is looking beautiful in there, we're not going to lie. It's a nice mixed sand bottom and a lot of beautiful plant life and, yeah, it's definitely cleaned up since we've last seen it in there. The only thing I could say is, I can see from looking in that you could say dyeing, hair, algae, I go in and take a filter what do they call them? Filter brushes? Excuse me, I had to swallow.
There like a tube brush. Yeah, a toothbrush that you clean your tube and you stick them in there and you spin them around and it's like putting spaghetti on a fork.
So if you want to see an example of this, go to our friend Chris the Maticoris biggs on YouTube and he just put out a video this last week on how to deal with stuff like hair algae. And he uses methods of brushes and it's really slick, especially because yours is literally dying off. So this is the perfect time to remove it. So in there you have what you call white cheek gobies. I have not had these. I've seen them, I have not had them. Have you had them, Jim?
I have had them in the past, yeah. I like them.
Have you seen any vibration problems or feeding problems? Is his normal feeding schedule you think will be fine?
I think so, because they do a lot of stuff on the bottom, looking around for food and stuff, so they will find stuff to eat.
The only thing is, I know you gave us Peter information before when you message in about diverse food, but just mixing in a little bit of bloodworm goes a long way for Golby's because bloodworm sinks to the bottom quite fast and Golby's loves a lot of protein. So if you don't have that already, add that into your loop, Peter, and you should be good to go.
And your sunfish will like him too.
There's an up close picture for you, Jimmy.
He's pretty.
He just clarified they come from the same river as zhou. I Golby's. I don't know how to pronounce that. zohu zoe. I'm going to butcher and everybody's going to make fun of me.
I can't see it from here. I'm too old.
So you should be good to go with that. Just make sure you mix in one of those days, because I know sunfish love the frozen bloodworms as well. All right, next question. We have so many. I'm so tickled pink that we're just swamp.
Jimmy, I know it's nice not to hear from your mum all the time.
Every now and again. Next one. He actually started it by putting a text message in, but then he decided to change it to a voicemail. So let's just go to the voicemails then, in his own words. Here we go.
Hey, guys, I love the podcast.
Keep up.
I've got a few questions for my planet aquarium. So about six months ago, I started a planted aquarium, but I had little to no knowledge of the fact that just sand is not a good substitute for planted aquariums. So coming back six months later with some plants in it now and a whole bunch of fish, I do have leftover buckets and stuff, but how would I change the substrate or add stuff to the substrate to make it be more inhabitable for plant? I already have a whole bunch of osmo code in it, which does help. However, I'm wondering if there's anything else I can add to it or do in that matter and stuff like that. I do those daily or weekly fruits. Not bad.
All right, we're going to pause there before we get to a second question. So, number one, he's been using sand and says it's not good for plants. Oh, contrera, sir, it is good for some plants. Now, those plants are having to be like the easy plants. For instance, stuff like hornworth, guppy, grass. I've used a lot of what we call dwarfs or jungle vale. There's a whole long list of plants that have no problem with sand whatsoever. The majority of my tanks are exclusive sandbottom tanks, and they don't need a ton of nutrients directly from the soil, like some of the fragile crypts or even anubis want to have. Now, that being said, I still have crypts, I still have anubis in those tanks. But number one, people screw up when they're doing the sand bottoms and make it real thin. There's not a lot there in the first place. So triple up your sand, guys, put a few inches, make it nice and thick down below so they have a lot of rooting bed, because there's not a lot of nutrients in the sand. But there is at least more the thicker you go. That's at least my rule of thumb. And then if you do have plants that require more of the nutrients, you can add fertilizer tablets into your sand, but it's a double edged sword. Doing that also puts in you're putting fertilizers in your sand, and then there's no gaseous release, and air pockets form in your sand that can be toxic to your fish. So make sure that you're stirring up your sand every so often if you're doing that. Otherwise, the best recommendation, if you truly don't want to stick with sand or don't have the plants that work with sand, is just mix it. Find yourself some good gravel. And when I say gravel, go to your local hardware store, Home depot. Get yourself some mixed river rock, and that adds a lot of different calciums irons into it. But you're not adding any type of fertilizer. You can't beat using stuff like volcanic ash soil that you can get it's manufactured. It looks like little balls that you put in your tank, and you would put that and then put sand over top to cap it. Or you just use normal potting soil, peat potting soil, and then put something over top to cap it as well. So if you want to do the dirt like the potting soil or the volcanic ash, you have to remove it and essentially restart your whole tank over. There's no real easy way to do it, unless you want to have like, half dirt, half sand, and then still a mess. So try mixing it first. Try making it triple thick first. Maybe add some fertilizer tablets or at least liquid fertilizer to the tank. If you feel like nutrition is not there in the soil for them, give that a go. If not, well, start from scratch, remove the sand, put a base, and then cab it with sand instead.
Yeah, and just to give you a quick one, easy. I put sand in some tanks. Been dissatisfied with it, like yourself. And the easiest way I found to get rid of the sand is I take a siphon tube, but I siphoned the sand out, and you may have to fill the aquarium up several times to get all the sand out. But to try to get sand out of a tank with a net or a bucket is just so cumbersome and it takes you for so long to do so. I've had some shrimp, started out with my shrimp tanks, and I use sand. I didn't like it. Rob loves it. I'm not a sand fan, and I took it out with the siphon tube, and that worked out very well for me. And then Rob turned me on to the volcanic ash, and I really like that. It's also very good for your plants. Like Rob said, go ahead and start taking things and mixing them together as long as you've got some way with sand. Sometimes plants have a tough time pushing roots through because the sand is so dense. And if you want a sand tank, maybe get yourself some coolie loaches and some different things that will actually go in there and move the sand around for you, and that will give you more aeration into the sand and your plants will do better.
All right, part two. Ready? Do it.
Hold on.
I wonder if this light right now I have two shop light leds from a plant tank. And I've done some research and stuff, and they don't produce much light for the plants that they can see. Obviously they see the different reds and blues. And I was wondering if the grow light would work. And the fact that I've never seen it, I've never seen anybody have them for their planet tanks. And I'm just thinking of those typical grow lights. People start off from seeds and stuff, and I'm wondering if they would do well for your planet tank. I've done some a lot of googling and research on that matter, and I've just seen nobody do it so very has me on the edge that nobody would do it. But it's worth a shot for especially how cheap they are. And then my third question is my third question is what else can I do to improve my planet tank? The planet tank I can hardly grow AR alkanini butchered that name, but I.
Have a whole bunch of plants I.
Can'T grow that are in the easy column, like AR luigi Triple Red or luigia Red or stuff like that, or purple camboba. No, I can grow Camboba. Hit that back.
It's just a whole bunch of plants.
That can't grow that.
All right. So I'm going to stop them there. So we have two more questions in that. Number one, just what he just asked there is, why can't I grow easy plants? Now, he mentioned ludwig a couple of times. I would not say that's an easy plant.
I know you always see the easy.
The mine grow like a weed. But I have it where it does bad and where it does good. Where it does great is where you have the tank and it's already established and you do not have an algae problem. You put it into a tank where it has an algae problem or even a minor algae problem, and any algae will cover it. And then immediately the Led wig will shed and die. It's a hardy plant as long as you don't have algae. The moment algae covers it and sheds all over your tank. So the stuff that you're mentioning is not what I would call easy. Start with your hornworths. I have never seen a human being on this Earth that can kill hornworth 100%. Maybe you'll have a couple of strands of the needles fall off, but I can't get it to stop growing. Guppy grass is another one. It floats around in your tank. You can have the worst algae problem in your life. You don't have to plant the stuff and it just keeps on growing. So start with the really easy basis plants and go up from there. Biggest thing that I find that you're doing is with these quote unquote medium grade, like a ludwig plant is the algae. This is common for crypts. It's common for a lot of other plants. And then you said lighting. I am a ghetto person. I use cheap lighting. I have all different types of plants. I have very beautiful planted aquariums. I have complicated plants. I have super easy plants, and I use just the generic Led aquarium lights that I get off of Amazon. I don't get anything special. I know I've done the spectrum work on the leds. They're nothing particularly geared towards plants. They're just lights for the aquarium. But I'm just concerned on how long it's been running because I want to have a balance where the plants are healthy and I'm not overdoing it for algae and penetration. If I have a lot of stuff blocking above, I'm not going to be able to get certain patches of my tank illuminated correctly. So I've used those, and I've also used garbage shop lights. I've never been picky on the lumens. There are species out there that are picky and do have some red. If you want to go in depth on which light you should pick, especially if you're doing those quote unquote shop lights, go to alexander's YouTube channel. I believe it's named the secret history in our aquariums. And he just did a series, I think it was a three part series on lighting for your aquarium. And he showed high end why he likes these fluval models. And he showed some, frankly, redneck square lights that are really good option for people that are on a budget. So check it out. There's a lot of description. He also goes into spectrum analysis and why it really doesn't matter.
And the one thing we didn't cover is the deeper the tank, the more light you need. And that was like, always my problem with this 90 gallon cube that I've had never had enough light to get down. And I love Amazon swordplants, which I think in my book are fairly easy. I like using the nubias, the Amazon sword plants because if they do crap out on you, they don't shed. There's a dead leaf on the bottom. You can easily reach in with your little grabber and grab them out of there and stuff, and it's just a lot easier. But like all these different ones that shed, they can really skunk up your tank very quickly. And if you're gone for the weekend and for some reason your plants die, they will fill up your back filters full of crap, and that will then increase all kinds of other problems. So if you have a tank that's really deep, you might want to spend a little bit more money and get yourself a really strong light. Our friends in West fargo, North Dakota, that sell a lot of plants, they have two or three strip lights on their planted tanks, and they sell a ton of plants, and you don't ever see dead plant there. So don't be afraid that if you think one strip lights good, maybe two strip lights will be better.
It's always how long you have them running versus how powerful they are.
Put them on a timer, they're there.
For, what, 8 hours? And then they shut them off at least. Yeah, right. So some people run 14 if they don't have enough lights. You got to play to the symptoms, but hopefully that helps you out. Go check out alexander's YouTube channel. And if it really comes down to you have the lights, you got the algae down and they're still not growing, go to reflowers us and use promo code aquarium guys to check out for 25% off and get yourself some easy fruits. Boy, that was good.
The other thing about the water, though, too, and I learned this is kind of a newbie because I'm only about a year into keeping fish. And so it's like I learned that because we push salt, like, for all the different things. And I made the mistake of adding salt every time I refilled or did a water change on my 20 gallon. And I figured that's probably why all my plants started melting, because I have guppies, so they can do kind of brackish. I had salt creep around my tank and everything, and I was like, why are my plants dying? I was like, oh, figured it out.
Too much salt.
Well, I'm just going to finish this. It's only a couple of seconds more easy schedule.
And yes, I have to go into a lot more detail about my tank and stuff, but I'm just kind of speechless because I've heard people growing them in, like, a bucket outside of water in my tank. It kind of just kind of concerns me. anyways, keep the podcast.
Love it.
Great work. I'll be asking for more questions in the future and keep coming up with podcast with you.
Thank you, broski.
All right.
So that catches us up with this. Now. I think we have a text message or two. We love questions. Guys, we're going to crank these out this episode because we don't want to get behind. Thank you and love the podcast. I have a two hour drive each way and listen both ways. I'm new to the hobby and really appreciate what you guys are doing. I'm a little behind. Started from beginning, and now I'm in episode 14. So I haven't heard if you named the Juice yet, but did you do? Juice might be a winner.
There we go.
Any who, take care. Keep up the good work. cheers. ps. I'm really tempted to call Ohio Fish Rescue and play Billy Ray cyrus and hang up on them.
Yeah, that way Rob gets punched in the throat next time he sees big gym.
If you guys are, like, longtime listeners, I give you creds to go all the way back, find the Ohio Fish rescue's number and. You're on permission just to call him and play Billy Ray cyrus and tell them you love them. I think we're caught up miley cyrus.
And Joe rogan recently, and her voice is all like a 60 year old lady.
It was pretty great. Like that smoker's lung. It's like how you expected betty White to sound. But betty White doesn't sound like that.
And she looks a lot better, too, honestly.
I mean, betty White is hot. We also got a couple of other messages from some people. They reached out and they asked us, are they nice? They seem to be nice. People have reached out to us and asked if we would be willing to speak at any aquarium clubs. And I just want to put this out there. Both Jim and I, schedule dependent because we do have lives, would be willing to speak pretty much at any aquarium club. Virtually in person is limited right now. We'll see if you have a request in person, we won't immediately deny it. But certainly if you guys want us to speak at any aquarium club or show, email us. Go to aquariumguyspodcast.com or email or telephone number is there. You can leave us a voicemail as well. We'd be happy to help your club out or any other way of helping. And if you have news for us as well, certainly reach out to us. We're going to be doing a podcast here in a future in the bit, I'd say about a month away, talking a little bit about restoring the everglades ecosystem, specifically in the manatee area.
Yes, I am excited about that. They reached out to us here just.
This week, and we're not going to name them yet. You'll have to stay tuned and hear more about them, but we're pretty excited to have them on the podcast and see exactly what all this is entitling, because how great would that be?
That'D be Andrew. And the thing is, too, is that if you have a fish club out there and you guys have got some something cool happening and we can help advertise it, let us know. We'd always be happy to give you a shout out. If you've got somebody who in your club that you want to present, we will be happy to interview people. We're always looking for people with a fresh perspective on fishkeeping. We're always looking for entertainment value also. So if you've got a fish club that's looking for some free publicity, give us a call.
Now, again, we do have paid for ads that we have to keep the lights on somehow, but if you have a not for business charitable club, happily share your info. So, that being said, one last update. We did the conspiracy episode. Remember that, Jimmy?
That was fun, where we talked about.
Diddling dolphins and got in a lot of trouble.
Yeah, HR was not happy with you.
Well, at the end of the podcast, we specifically talked about malin sweetwater?
Yes, we did.
And how we had all these freshwater and saltwater species in the same tank. Well, after that podcast aired, I forgot to put this in for notes because we've been so busy. After that podcast aired, it wasn't even a week, and they took down all the YouTube video and the website altogether. Watch. So I figured I'd give you guys an update on that. I talked to our friends at the community tank tct, and they actually downloaded a copy just because they thought it was such a crazy video. Trying to do some more research on it because, again, they're the ones that broke the story. I was just so lucky to repeat the information. So after I found out that they took it down, they put it back up. So certainly go on YouTube, look up Mountain sweetwater and watch the craziest video. I even updated it in our show notes. But yeah, they took down everything once our podcast aired.
And didn't we try calling them?
We did. So I don't know if we gave them the information by calling them, but definitely a weird thing all the way around.
It's good to offend people across the pond.
Sure. We will share it for everyone. Well, let's dive into the topic. Jay, I'm sorry to keep you waiting, buddy. We just had a lot to cover this week.
It's all right.
So, Jay, in the light of getting more information about yourself, number one, where are you from, buddy?
I'm from Chicago. Originally from Philippines. migrated here in the Us. About eight years ago. Me and my wife are nurses.
Well, welcome. Happy to have nurses now in the COVID day and age.
Yeah.
So what got you into the hobby? Is it just family or what inspired you to start doing this crazy hobby?
First, when I was a kid, I got like a guppy tank for a ten gallon tank and started there up until I came in here, I saw in the alley apartment before, I saw 29 gallon in the trash, the garbage. So I picked it up and started.
Set up literally just like, hey, that's not trash. You pull it out. Like, I'll give it a go, see.
What holds you about it. It has everything, like filter and everything except for the heater. So I search and then Google what's the best fish for 29 gallon that can have an easy and maintenance or something like that? Flower horn popped up. So, yeah, I got my flower horn.
Jungle said 29 gallons is good for a flowerhorn.
No, it's not.
I want to clarify that before we get hate mail.
The minimum of tank size is 75 gallon.
I mean, the minimum that you recommend. But they could technically safely be kept in a 55 gallon as long as you have just one and crazy good filtration.
Yes, but not the kamfa. Grows like twelve to 14 inches. 55 is like twelve inches. Right. For the dimension.
Yes.
So they can turn around that well.
Have to turn around, yeah. All right. So that's what you started with flowerhorn and you were stuck. That was your fish, and you're like, I'm going to be doing this for the rest of my life.
Exactly.
That's fantastic. So when did you start getting into breeding or competing flower horns for the competition?
When I got my first flower horn, I met this guy from USA. So they said there's a competition. Okay. So what I did is I talked to the Champions for different years from different states, and I asked for information how to choose how to groom a fish. And I talked to the people from masia the Champions in there, so gained a lot of information about it and created my own way to groom a fish.
How do you groom a fish? Like, I'm assuming this is groom is the verb of raising, not taking a brush and seeing how their scales lay out.
Not really tlc. They're providing tlc. My routine for the competition fish is feed them in the morning after 15 minutes, I put, like, a mirror or something like that to mimic different something or some fish invading the space. So in that way they can try and protect it. And you can see the color change and their head just popping up, like about 5%. And you can see that when you do the mirroring or the tool. The tool is like a picture of a powerhorn, and you let them follow in the tank glass.
So it's very similar to the beta concept, where you take a black pen or you hold up a mirror and the beta sees another fish in the mirror, they get pissed and flare.
Yeah. But the aim is to make them feel that they're the boss in the tank.
So it's all of ego boosting for these fish. Not only are they cox, but they act like cocks is what we're going at here.
Okay, we're going to be in hr's office again.
We are. So there's a lot to go over here. Just rob dwell. Just robs. There's a lot to go over here with this fish. So let's start with where they came from, because this is one of those unique species that really didn't just appear in the wild. We made them. So can you give us some history on how we have flower horns today?
So, a little bit of history of the flowerhorn. It's the product of several species, mainly from Central American cyclists, like trimac, mitas, red territories, and due to generations of breeding, they came up with different types of fire horns. And there are five types of the main firehorns, like the kalifa, zenzo, golden monkeys, titanilks, golden base and so on. So, yeah, how they came up.
Now, earlier, before the podcast started, I asked you in the chat about frontosas and whatnot, weren't they related also?
They don't I don't think they're related. Okay.
They share that shape of the head.
Yeah, the shape of the head. I see that, too, for the males.
So you're going through this list of species that somehow had to interweb to create this flowerhorn, and it's basically you listed all of the meanest shit I've ever heard of.
They are meant the idea is just.
To make one giant pretty looking sick that's guaranteed to bite your finger. And they're like, okay, great. And then this giant, massive tumor on the top of his head came, and it looks like something of a cartoon. They're like, perfect. It's angry, it has an attitude. It likes to follow your finger, and it has this giant ball. By the way, we're going to call it a cock.
Yeah, they're amazing fish. They interact with you like you said, they follow your fingers. He came home. They actually wiggle his hair like dogs in the fonsoy. And they believe to bring luck and prosperity to family and business. Because the happiest in Asia, they believe that the plum you see the floral line across the body, the black one? Sometimes it resembles with characters, like numbers and letters.
Wait, so if we can find a group of flowerhorns, we could potentially get the winning lotto numbers?
Exactly. That's what I was thinking, too.
Sorry about that. Yeah. Somebody won a lottery in Asia.
Are you kidding?
Yes.
Damn it, Jimmy. I'm not good. I knew this would happen. All right, so is there any one person that's responsible for this frankenstein fish?
Are you trying to go beautiful? Are you trying to get that one person killed?
I don't have any specific person, but I think it started Malaysia somewhere, and it goes, like, so fast. And then they have competition there in Indonesia, and it spread out like fast.
Just spread. Everybody's like, hey, I got this weird mutt that's angry, beautiful, and has a giant ball on his face. You got to check this shit out. And that just spread. And now everybody's into flower horns.
Yeah. And they have different kinds right now. Different types. So in Indonesia, they have a specific farmhone type. They're popular in it. It's indosu. So that's the most expensive fish that I've ever known. One fish, senso, like three time grand champion. A friend of mine helped sold it in the Us in California for $15,000.
For one fish?
For one fish, yeah.
You guys are getting up to koi standards. Like, you can see koi easily get dropped for 1015 grand for the highest end stuff. And I mean, even some of the record stock, I mean, what is the record they have on some of this? Over six digits.
On the flowerhorn world, this golden monkey and exhibition in Malaysia was sold was $600,000.
Golden monkey?
Yeah.
Like the monkey, like the movie monkey.
Yeah, the face looks like a monkey, but the jeans don't exist anymore. The breeder the person that breeds that died and then the jeans died with him.
I got a quick question. So all these different type of flowerhorns, are they all the same fish? Because these are hybrid. Are these all different parents?
They have they have different regional lines.
Okay, yeah, there's some very beautiful flowerhorns, and I can see why they would go for so much money. Rob just pulled up the golden monkey up here now. And just take a look at that. And that is gorgeous.
It looks like it's screaming out of David bowie's hind. Just like a party coming out. It's the living glow stick, basically.
Yeah.
So when you're breeding these fish, when somebody spends $600,000 on a fish, are they buying it because they want to have the best fish or are they buying it for breeding stock and hoping.
They'Re buying like, a trophy or something like that? For collection? Mainly for collection, yeah.
That is interesting because I would not spend that kind of money on a fish.
Now, how long do these fish traditionally live.
For?
The previous generation, they live up until ten years. Eight to ten years. But now due to, like, inbreeding and stuff like that, probably about four or five years.
So isn't it already it's not inbred, it's just crossed. So crossing the species don't lower the age restrictions.
I mean, like the dad into the daughter or something like that.
Well, like, for instance, you said Green Terror, you were naming some other species that were into it. And they have to my remembrance that they have about the same lifespan, it's about that ten year mark. So making this fish, crossing it with other species didn't drop the life cycle. Instead of just crossbreeding in breeding, over.
Time it lowered their immune system and stuff like that. So, like, the sensor right now is like a big belly, stuff like that. And then they get digestive problems.
Yeah.
So every time you breed something, cross something, you come up with another bunch of problems. Just like breeding dogs, for instance, and you have certain breeds that have hypnoslasia and different problems like that. So I totally get it. But I can see where people are trying to go for these most beautiful fish. They are absolutely gorgeous. As we're looking at them up here on the screen. I would pay money for that. I wouldn't pay $600,000, but I definitely would try to get some of these. They are gorgeous.
Now, Jay, how do you breed these? Because they're super aggressive. Generally, if I see them, it's only one in a tank. I don't see a pair swim together. Is it like handling a beta where the females introduced after a time of flaring or something different ways?
The first time it was a success, my champion in 2018, I tried to find a female from Thailand, was able to get a success because when I tried introducing them, I put a divider in it. So I put the pot for the female to lay. And then when I tried to get the divider, they tried to kill each other. So what I did is I let the female lay the eggs and switch the space and let the male do their thing. And I was able to success about 30% of it in Thailand. What they do is they put they put like a container or something like that for the female and then slowly introduce them, lower the temperature to lower the aggression and then slowly introduce them.
So traditionally just the method, by introducing them, are they always going to fight in some form as they're going to be guaranteed thin nipping?
They do both are really aggressive. A female can hurt the male and then become infected or something like that. And yeah, it's pretty hard.
So you're definitely prepping for battle scars all the way around when you're trying to do the breeding process. So if you're looking for a champion specimen, it's probably just something that matured the concoction and bloom. And it's probably never bred before, is that correct? You're not going to show like a breeding bowl that you've had a long time in a show tank that has scars. You're going to show something that hasn't.
Bred before, because once there's a scar, like, they bite them in the head in the bite.
I told you I'm doing my best here, all right? We're immature people. We can't help it.
If there's any scars in there, it will leave forever. It's bad for the competition. It's a minus points in the competition.
Hey, Jimmy, at least you don't feel alone that someone would break your cock to make you go away. His ex wife probably would have.
My ex wife, definitely. Yeah, absolutely.
All right, so on the pot, do they lay on the side of it or are they more like a nest and you're kind of just using like a shallow pot?
Yeah, in a nest.
So this must be like a half inch tall and it's just kind of like a bowl.
Yeah, like a bowl. And what I do is I remove both of them. So some of the flowerhorns that know how parenting is, they try to eat all the eggs. So in my way, I take both of them and leave the nest there and hatch.
So as your fish are breeding, you are always right there watching and trying to defend the eggs against both mom and dad.
Yes.
And how many eggs do they lay? Because everybody asks. They want to know. They're doing the math in their head.
How can I make $600,000 for a good size wildhorn? Maybe at least 500. A small one? A small female, like about 300.
And are the eggs always good? I mean, I know, like, parrot fish. I've had parrot fish lay eggs. I've never had one hatch because they were hybrid. So these are all good to go. Most of the time, the eggs as long as they're fertilized will be good, right?
Yes.
Interesting.
So do you have to do anything after the eggs have been laid, for instance, angel fish, you have to essentially take the slate that they're laid on and you got to fish them with water, with air, just to make sure that they have enough oxygen released onto the eggs. Is there anything that you have to do? Is it just scattered, trying to leave them? Make sure to run the temperature. Maybe a little methane blue.
It's going to be the same thing with this angel fish. You put the slate on the sideways and put the strong bubbler beside it because naturally the TriMech and midas to protect the eggs by fanning the tail to get rid of the bad eggs or the molded one. So the same thing, you can put it in the side and put a strong bubbler and then you use a.
Little methane blue also. Yeah, perfect.
So what is your hatch rate that you see on your batches since you're a champion breeder?
Not too much. At first was like about 500 eggs or something like that. But the only hatch, like about 300.
Don't count yourself out. All right. For fish breeders, hitting that mark is pretty solid. Like, if you're hitting, in my opinion, 50%, it's a good day.
But I stopped breeding. I usually buy juveniles from Thailand right now in Indonesia because breeding takes a lot of space. When the 300 fishes will grow like about an inch and a half, they will start killing each other. So you need a lot of space. Got you.
So essentially you only breed the stock that you're going to compete with and everything else that you sell, you make sure to get from reputable wholesalers and bring in juveniles and raise them up for quality.
Yeah.
So what do you feed? What's your secret for feeding? Starting with fry and then two adults.
For fry, I use the I use the egg like the dried egg. Egg yolk. I went for fry and then later on I crushed some pellets, like a sumo grand sumo flowerhone pellet. And then yeah, I feed them like that bloodworms too to boost your growth.
So is there any special regiment that you get for that growth? And is there anything you use to add the color or you just want your natural color untouched?
Unboosted the colors and everything, like the features, like colors. The cock is usually from the jeans, 80% discovered from the females. And you need to get the best female that you can get because it's all coming from the female.
So how do you look at a female and be like, that's going to give me a giant cock?
Yeah. On Thailand, I asked a sample, a female with a cock. I have purchased a female like two weeks ago with a huge cock.
Well, the females have a huge cock as well.
It's pretty seldom you see those, but I got one two weeks ago.
Yeah, because my understanding is the females traditionally have kind of like a half bump. It's like a cock wanted to start and is never there. So there are females with full on giant cocks?
Yes, they do, Jimmy.
Goddamn it, you're losing it. You got to keep this shit together. This is hard for me as well.
When I see it on Thailand pages or Facebook, when I see one, I grab it. I buy it. Because for breeding and I'm aiming for going a fry or batch with a clock. So that's it.
All right, I got to have a moment here. Just a little silliness. But what have we been doing? I've been trying to keep it serious. So have you ever just been on your phone and be like, your wife comes in, catches you, like, what are you doing? I'm looking up cocks on my phone. I found this amazing cock. I ordered it already. And she's like, God, I just wanted a little time together, that's all. Oh, my God.
It's like, oh, she'll be excited, too.
Do you have so your wife sees.
The cock on the phone and she's excited.
You got to share it. I like that too, if you and other flowerhorn friends, because I'm assuming this is a circle, right? Especially when I'm trying to find people to interview and we're lucky enough to get you, jay, you got to have flowerhorn friends. Do you just send them random pictures like, dude, check out this cock. And they're like, dude, you need to get that. Or, hey, can I borrow that for breeding? Is that just like the whole goal?
Yeah. As a group, we have a team. In the Us. We have different teams, and we help each other in this game, in the competition. The vital thing in this is choosing the best fish that you can get, because this is one fish, one tank. So if you fail to choose, get a bad fish, you will waste your space and time. So for us, we help each other. Hey, is this a good one? We say? No, it's not.
I'm just so fascinated by this. It's a different world, really. Now, coming on the outside, we have to paint this for the listeners, so.
No, we don't have to paint.
I'm going to paint this for listeners. No, don't do it.
They're going to drive off. Most people listen to their podcast on their way to work. They're going to drive right into a tree.
Right?
Oh, my Lord.
Stop. If you need to Google Cox, pull over. No, don't google that. Don't google Cox and drive. All right, listeners, but coming from the inside circle of fishkeeping, not necessarily flowerhorns. People that are totally opposed to flowerhorns come from two different sects. Number one oh, it's a man made fish. How could you? It's not natural. This whole idea and you're crazy, right? This is the most entertaining shit I've ever heard of in fishkeeping. So shut up. You don't get to talk about that. And the second reason is people just think they're flat ugly. Like, why would you have one fish in a tank? It's a monstrosity. And the whole thing, well, clearly they haven't seen the right kinds. And if you've never sent a to your friend, you don't understand the whole hobby. So get on it. Certainly give this a listen to people. If you have a 55, 75, 125 reconsider right, this is definitely more fun than you're getting at. So I don't want to hear those arguments for feedback is why I put this out there.
Jimmy, this is the most politically correct episode we've had since we've admitted females have big cox, too, coming from the.
Editor, who's also going to be in the same HR meeting with us on Monday. So my question real quick is, so you're looking for a female. Is this like you go on tinder or something in Thailand, and you're looking for a hot female. What do you pay for a hot female with a yeah, let's talk about prices.
I mean, besides the cock jokes, because I think we've stressed that enough.
You have you're right.
You got to chip into this, Jimmy, and participate. But what do prices go for? I'm assuming, like, you're saying what's a.
Good female go for?
A good female is going to cost more than male. Is that the truth?
Yes. So for the female, she's around about for a very good one for $400 up.
So about $400 minimum just to get a nice female minimum. And how big is she when you get her? Is she breeding age or she for.
Me, I want to make sure they lay the eggs already.
Okay.
So how about four or five inches?
Also, they lay eggs at that small size. Where you buy these females from the farm. I'm assuming they must have tank after tank after tank of these high end fish.
Yeah, they do.
Can you just go online and look at each individual tank or how do they sell it?
So I'm going to ask if you have a list of available for sale and they're going to show it. And then I asked for a video that proof that it laid eggs.
And so once it's laid eggs and you're interested in bringing it over so after you bring it over here, it can't be cheap. Do you buy one fish or do you buy a box full of females?
I ordered in bulk Thailand.
So how many females do you purchase? I would imagine you probably get 1012 in a box or how many in a box?
For Thailand? About 24 x 19 x 13. It's about 20 to 25 fishes. Okay. Inside. Yeah.
You're throwing out a lot of money on one box of fish plus shipping.
Yeah.
You're like, should I do three months for the house or should I buy some flower horns?
Should I pay the mortgage?
Should I pay the mortgage for three months or do I get a box of flowerhorns?
I include them with my orders.
Okay, so you just get one for yourself and a bunch to sell so you can kind of recoup your money. That's good. Smart thinking.
That's why you have friends that are cock enthusiasts, so that they can all share the price. Yes, I'm killing Jimmy soul every time. This is sad, by the way. Killing you softly. You got questions. I'm taken back by a minute by this whole thing.
I'm sitting here thinking about all this stuff and all these phone calls and is the government listening? What are they thinking? What the hell is going on with all this stuff? When you bring over a nice looking female and you introduce to your male, are you selling them the fry to other people or are you saving all the fry for yourself and then just going through and picking the best ones and doing some culling?
Yeah, I'm doing culling, too. I offer some of them at a pet store for the credit for food and just keep about five, six of them for me.
And how big are they? When you decide that these have the right look, the right colors, the right.
Two, about 2.5 inches to three? Yeah. You can see all the features that you like. Make sure that the pearls are crossing around the nucleo hump. That's a safer word. Nucleo hump? Yeah.
What's the nuclear hump? Come on, we can go with that's a safe word.
It's a safe, like blueberry pancakes.
Nucle. What are you, a nerd? jeez. All right, so what do you keep them for? Parameters. Like what temperature do you have to have? Is there a recommended PH or these things just as hardy as the other cyclists that came from?
No, the PH will be around 7.8 to 8.2. Hardy boys keep minimum, and they like it warm, so about 82 to 84.
So do you purposely crank it up for breeding or for other times of the year? Is there a temperature that you do for showing as well?
No, it's the same temperature.
So, for instance, like rainbow fish, if you change the water or change the temperature, they'll literally change colors. Just be based on mood or whatever cycle.
They think it's imitating.
The flowerhorns do the same thing. Like after a water change, they blow up.
They shrunk their cock.
Wait, shrinkage. Hold on, hold on.
We now have a seinfeld episode.
Cold water shrinks the cock.
Yeah.
Oh, my God. You're making this up. duh. Jimmy, can I get a flower horn? I want a cockpit.
They lost their color, and.
That means that the cockpit what are we, all nine years old? My God. I don't know, Jimmy. I don't understand flowerhorn people. This is the first real conversations I get on this.
This is really a real. Conversation.
I sold them. I've kept a couple. I've never kept good ones. The cock must be just what, fatty cells then? What is that made of?
I'm sorry.
One vet open it up, it's like a fat inside of it. Yeah.
So it's like fatty cells on top of the head.
So if this is the case and the cocks fluctuate, do you see, like, how do we say a shrunken cock and be like, that fish is sick, or it doesn't have enough food and it's going lean. It's like a camel hump. Is that what we're going after here?
It's one indication that you'll see your fish is something going on and they're sick, the water is off, something like that.
Because there's no such thing as obese fish. Right? betas do this a lot where they have just too much food and they just get rounder than hell and die. Like us or kind of like us. So the flowerhorns, if they're too overfed or eating too much, do they, I don't know, get too big of a cock or does it a stomach protrude?
It's a protruding they'll see protruding in the stomach. They mostly die, yeah. Because they're very weak, especially the sensor. They have very weak digestive system.
The significant health is a nice looking cock. If it's too fat and eating too much, it's not going to expand the cock. It's just going to do it in the stomach. But if they're underfed or in bad health, you'll see a deflated cock. Okay, we're all clear on this. So how about colorations is there?
I'm glad my mom is not around to hear this. My mom passed in 2012. I'm just kind of saying I'm glad.
Imagine Jimmy.
No, I don't want to imagine.
Imagine that you created a fish in a lab, right? And you're like, I want a fish with a mood ring to tell me how it's healthily doing. And you're like, let's put a giant bulbous on its head and call it a cock. That's what's happening right now. I live in an alternate universe that it's just not just something there, but also shows health on the fish. I'm blown away right now.
I'm going to buy your wife a mood ring and you'll be able to tell when she's pissed at you because you'll have a big welt on your forehead where she hit you with it.
I'm going to have my wife pick out a cock. That's what's going to happen. I'm going to have them go to the J four's website and just find the one she wants. I'm pretty sure your wife's found plenty.
That she wants other than you, robs.
Wow. Finally, Adam speaks up.
Thank God he's here with me. Thank you.
Helping me out the whole time.
Adam is just ashamed that he has to talk about cock, that's all. He doesn't want to. I do have a serious question, please.
Somebody have a serious question?
When you're breeding the fish, do you.
Have to lower the PH at all? Because these are South American style fish. Would that increase a real quick utility?
Yes, some they do for some reason. Not too much with 7.4 somewhere around there.
Do you use buffers for that or a little ro that you splash in there?
Like the ro?
For those people who don't understand that fish in really hard water, sometimes it's very hard for the sperm to get into the egg. Is that correct? The way I said it, I'm just.
Making cases that you see you screw up your sense.
No, I'm not going to say any, but what we've talked about is that sometimes the fertility rate goes way up when you have a little bit softer water.
I mean, it makes sense if it's too hard to keep microbacterium. And for some species of I'm just saying.
Sometimes soft is better. I'm just saying.
All right, moving on. So in these tanks, we've talked about the acclamation of the water, the PH, the temperature, food, how you raise them. Generally, when I see Flowerhorns, they're almost exclusively kept in completely bare bones tanks.
Why is this for injuries? Number one, for injuries, if you have a fish that has, for example, ache, they tend to scratch it in any substrate or something like that, and they scratch your head. So that's why it's easy also to maintain without a substrate. You can see any white poop or something like that.
So I've also been told, and I just want to confirm this because clearly you're the expert, and this is from the people that hate on flowerhorn, so I'm pretty sure it's false information that flower horns are just kind of retarded, and you can't have anything there with them because they'll back their cock into it.
I don't think we can say that word, can we?
Yeah, I'm saying this is my podcast. Damn it. It's your podcast, too. Say retarded.
So I want to ask a question about white poop.
Is that honestly the case, though? Are they kind of dumb and just, like, mosey around and poke themselves? Yes, they're kind of retarded. Jimmy I knew it.
All my tanks are like.
Go ahead, Jay.
Yeah, all my tanks, they don't have bare no substrate and no decorations, too. All I have is, like, the sponges and the heater. Yeah.
The one thing you said that kind of you said you have to watch for white poop. What is that?
Parasites.
Okay.
Monitored the poop. It's easy to pin, too.
Yeah. With the angel fish, if that string of poop that hangs out of the angel fish, if it's clear and then solid and clear and solid kind of looks like kind of like DNA, actually, that's usually a sign of hexamita.
Yeah, hexamita.
And so it's just very interesting that also we're talking about poop and cock. So this is very much fun for everyone.
It's a little bit for everyone.
Yeah.
So on the parasite front, I've heard that flowerhorns are definitely more susceptible than other fish. Is that correct?
Yes, correct.
And that flowerhorns may have more swim bladder issues than other fish because they're crossed. Is that correct?
Correct.
All right. I'm reading these myths from listener submissions from Myth finders, so I appreciate this. And you see a lot of videos where people at least like food. The flowerhorn, for instance, that's a youtuber, right?
Okay.
I thought maybe I saw the video.
Right? He's known for keeping these no filter nano tanks and then showing month after month video montages of how these tanks are doing. But he started his channel doing a flower horn that he loved, and the things seemed to be like, finger trained. He could do little food tricks with it. It was really cute. But he's had some swim bladder issues where they couldn't swim correctly. And then the cock was actually above the water line and essentially got dry and rotted.
Yeah, wrinkled, something like that.
Yeah, wrinkled, dry.
I'm sorry about that.
God, you guys. Oh, my God.
Poor Jay. I wish I'd wore a pair of.
Depends because I'm going to pee myself here very shortly.
All right, so I think we've talked at least a good amount about.
The.
Care and the species. What do you recommend as far as don't for a beginner doing a flower horn? Just the things that you hear most.
Common, mainly most of the newbies right now are buying. They don't cycle the tank. Please cycle your tank before you buy anything in there. And make sure you get to buy in a reputable. Sellers. We have a lot of sellers in the Us. You can have a lot of choices and also stop over feeding your fish. My ratio of feeding them, if you have like, four inches, feed them like four pellets in the morning and then four pellets in the evening. That's it. And good parameters be diligent in your water change.
I mean, it sounds pretty straightforward. Honestly, I was thinking it's going to be more just no decorations, keep your water decently, hot.
How about keep their cock hydrated?
I'm just trying to go remember the questions that I was bombarded with by people, and one of them was, do you train your fish? And if so, how can someone do that? Train like what, follow your finger or do tricks?
Can your fish do your taxes?
I don't know.
Well, retarded fish are easier to train in the competition.
You need to do when I compete, I need to train my fishes to follow the fingers because when the judges in a competition, like aqua shallow, the judges will lay their hands in there, let the fish follow to seed each side of the fish. If there's no scars, the pearls are perfect, the flower lines are permanent, and straight finish are strong. So you need to see everything in it. So you need to train the flowerhorn.
Just to be able to be seen. Kind of like you have to train your dog to sit still so they can make sure all the coats done and all that bs. Let's go to some fan questions. I think we've asked enough about Cox. Let's let some of our listeners in discord ask some questions.
I got one more quick question.
Well, please.
So after how many times do you show your fish? Do you show your fish one or two times or is it something that you show all year round and then you go to another fish? And what do you do with your.
Fish afterwards besides he's showing his cock off at his house all the time.
Yeah, my fish joined the competition. USA competition he won and then he joined another competition, international one he also won Champion. And this weekend is joining another competition. So I've been joining a lot of competitions in worldwide essay.
And for those people listening, are there trophies? Is there cash prizes?
Yes, there will be trophies and plaques, certificates and cash. I don't know what cash. I haven't received any cash yet, no.
So you are the World Champion, is that correct? For this last year, not really world.
But in the Us there's a competition. I want it as a grand champion international. I want the best in show, best pearl Asia. I'm joining another Asian competition this weekend. Hopefully the same fish. I'm using the same fish.
Explain to me when you go overseas, are you physically going yourself or you're just sending your fish?
No, it's an online video submission. So you take a video of your fish showing every aspect of the feature of your fish. Let them follow your hand, like about 30 to 40 seconds and submit it. Take a nice picture of the side, both sides and a cock.
So both sides?
Yep.
Another question. You you're kicking.
I'm just going to say, what if there is a what if there's a mole on one side of your cock?
Hey, you have that checked out by a doctor and you cough twice.
I'm sorry, I just coughed. I'm eleven years old and we're talking.
About all right, so in your videos on your website and again, what is your website for those that are listening? And we'll have it in the show notes, so check it out.
But Jay, please share it's. Jforflowerhorns.com and you can check there. I also sell another species like R, one stingrays in there and also a variety of flowerhorns. We have golden bases, tisils, stalfa, srds and superad monkeys. And also use the code, the aquarium guys, and enjoy the 10% and all discount for the next two weeks. And also I'll be giving away two cans of 550 grams grand sumo powered food and a free fish, golden based mail. He is about 3.5 inches free shipping.
Wonderful. And again, that will be in the Show notes sign up form. It will be right in the bottom of the website as well. So sign up. There are restrictions, and we have the right to reserve who gets the fish. Because if you do not have the tank on hand ready to go, we will not be sending you the prize and we will select someone else. But certainly if you're willing to get into this flower horn craze and get a beautiful flower horn from J four flower horns, sign up. It's something you can't miss out on and appreciate the shout out and promo code, buddy. But on your website, you have these wonderful, beautiful fish and you show them with video footage. You take your hand and essentially you show one side, you show the other, and they show the top of the clock. That's the traditional style of how they actually compete as well. So you're not only showing them for the customer, but you're doing it in the same way as though you were competing them in a tournament.
Yeah, but I want to make sure that people see in each there's no defect. I know people don't like it, but it's the best way to show the fish.
It's not just you doing it. This is a pretty industry standard. I did a lot of research for this interview and I saw a lot of people use the exact same methods. There's nothing that isn't being done and out of the fish. If you're going to pick someone that's human personable, no fish should be just grabbed onto unless you have to. But if you're trying to find the most human personal fish, flowerhorn is probably up there, right along with my Golden penis dojo loaches Dead series. You put your hand in there, they'll slurp up your fingers like they're looking for food. I feed them treats. They love being menhandled. Don't look at me like that, Jimmy. And also, if you guys are watching the twitch stream, we're wearing the new Golden penis fish hat found on the aquarium guy's store.
That is very nice. I'm wearing my faster pussycat T shirt.
What?
Just kind of fits right into this whole conversation this evening.
Adam, did you have another question, by the way? I did. Do you not have any current with these fish? Are they just, like, not able to handle current at all?
They love the calm water especially. Imagine you have a big head and heavy and you're sleeping with a current. It's not nice.
Adam, if you had a massive cock, you wouldn't want to be drugged around and raced. I do. I've got the four kids to prove it. Okay.
I was just thinking about Rob. Rob and I and our wives went to Florida a few years ago, and I'm just picturing Rob and the surf getting his ass kicked by every wave that comes by.
It was a great time.
Yeah. And I don't know, I just keep thinking about you getting slapped around. It's kind of fun.
The giggles. All right, I was just wondering about this because in order to grow African cichlids faster, you put current on them.
Yes.
And then South American, you do the water changes. I was just wondering if you could grow your flower horns faster by putting current on them.
Oh, for the fry? Yeah, I saw it in the grooming part.
Okay. No, you don't want to put them on a treadmill when you're trying to show off your car. Got you.
Then that would probably make the hump go down too much and then they wouldn't okay, that makes sense.
Hump get soft.
No floppy cocks. All right, so again, the listeners have a ton of questions, so we've answered a few of them. So I'll go through, I'm sure. Oh, God. Yeah, we've definitely answered quite a few of these along the way. What the flower horns taste like? Have you ever eaten a flower horn?
No, I didn't know.
Okay. All right. That's unknown.
And do the retarded ones taste different than the regular ones?
Jimmy, they're all going to HR. Jimmy, they're all retarded.
You guys should all free up Monday morning for a meeting.
I give them crap, but the friends that I know that I've helped get flowerhorns and walk them through the setups, I've gone to their place and I've never seen fish people with such joy. Because they're one of the few fish that interact with you. They're almost excited when you come up to the tank and they come up and you put your finger in the glass, they're following it, they're looking for food. And their day is basically based on looking at you, and they're just overwhelmed with joy. So when I say retarded, they are happy retarded. The owners like my dog. I've never seen an interaction with an aquarium such as a flowerhorn. So I may be making a joke here, but honestly, it's something that you can't replicate in any other fish species.
That I know of.
Maybe a dolphin?
An Oscar? What Oscar?
An Oscar. There you go. All right, so next question. Do flower horns have certain pedigrees besides the breed species you've already listed?
They do, yeah. One thing that I not mentioned is the super red monkey. And there's a lot of strange right now. The kml senso from Indonesia, and yeah, there's a bunch of types right now.
Do you see anybody doing the glow fish with flower horns anytime soon?
No.
Are you sure?
Super monkey.
Next question. How much is a competition male that you'd see maybe on your site or in the market? We said female before.
Yeah. For the males. Now there's different types for zenzo, for competition. For zenzo category, you can buy flow. You can spend for about two hundred and fifty dollars to four hundred and fifty dollars. And that's a competition grade for the council. You need to spend like about really good ones. $750 to $3,000. dang yeah. For a beginner, I should say start with a mid gamer, like about maybe 150 or something like that, and start booming practice.
So are both males and females shown?
Most of the competition are males.
Okay, so most of the competition are the males, but the big money is the females for the most part.
For the breeding aspect, 400 maybe for the females, but for males, especially kampfa. You can't breed kampfa. Most of the kampfas are sterile. Yeah, they have secrets and how they made it in Asia.
A lot of lab work.
Asia made people got a lot of room of breeders. They lock it up and they won't show anyone in there how they make it.
We'll lock those secrets someday. So, next question with Cox, is it bigger, better, or is it more to do with shape and girth? No, I'm just reading this.
Okay.
These are fans and listeners and most.
Of them are twisted.
All right?
Or is that from your mom?
Judge the shape and it should be the pearls. See the white thing in there? It should be crossing around the clock to determine if it's high quality. So the shape of the clock is really important, too, for the competition. Yeah. Okay.
Jimmy cheated. He moved his mic just to giggle.
All right.
That's unfair, Jimmy.
I'm sorry.
All right, hispanic.
I'm nine years old and an old man's body.
In other news, this is not to do with the flowerhorn. Jay, we've talked on another episode and we were talking about we were talking about turtles and frogs came up as well. And Adam, in his wisdom and knowledge, shared with us about scrotum frogs on Lake titicaca. Right? And apparently now we've got a new statement from one of our sources in the discord that a porn website managed to raise a large amount of money to ensure the continued conservation of the endangered scrotum frog of Lake titicaca. They're naming their fundraiser campaign the scrotal Recall.
Give me the address. I'm sending money.
Right, so we'll give you some updates on that moving forward.
We thought Adam was just pulling this out of his butt. Actually.
Yeah, now you're being for real. And now actually, he knew what he's talking about. And now us talking about it has gotten a porn company to sponsor it. You're welcome. I wish we could get a porn.
Company sponsor us and maybe just send us free lube. So when we go into HR, it will just be much easier when they hose us.
Much easier, if you know what I mean.
We are so going to hell on this.
All right, don't worry. In the future, episodes will have a conversation, maybe an extra episode where we talk to HR. Just for you, Jimmy.
Yeah, HR. I've talked to HR and they are willing to come on.
Excellent, excellent. They need to at this point. So, Jay, have you done any judging or are you just strictly the participant? Submitting your flowerhorn in so far, I'm just competing.
Nobody invited me to judge yet. So, yeah, so far I'm enjoying competition.
So, Jay, might I inquire? Would you be willing, if time doesn't come in the way, because you're a busy person, you have a business, you're a nurse, you do these competitions, you breed on the side. And who knows, maybe you donated to the Scrotum Frog Relief Fund, so you're a busy guy. But would you be willing to do a flowerhorn competition for the aquarium guys in the future?
Sure. Yeah, I have a plan of doing that too.
Excellent. So that's what we'll have to do, Jimmy. We'll have to do a yearly flowerhorn competition, and we'll have to figure out what charity is involved with that.
I just want to tell people, please don't go online and start googling the stuff we're talking about because I'm afraid you're going to go to a porn website.
No, just at least pull over. If you do, don't Google and drive people.
Do you guys have a group in Chicago that you get together and compete against each other?
The aqua Shell last year, they hosted the competition.
Was that one where you physically went to, or is this also online?
Yes, physical. It's going to be physical. And also the 2018 the one hosted is the Golden aquariums.
Okay. And how many fish would you have in that competition?
The 2019 were about 70 fishes in there.
70 fish? And what size do they bring in for you guys so you can display?
Yeah, so it was held in the aqua Shield, and then we bought the fish in there. It was fun.
And how long do you display them for? Are you there for a day or two.
Or two days.
Two days.
Well, I got another question that just was submitted in a private message to me. So someone was asking that if you watch, like, a Westminster kennel Club dog show and you hear them ironically say the word bitches continually, is that the same thing for flowerhorns? They just talk about cock continually and say nothing about it. It's like it's everyday terminology.
Yes. It's going to be like to know.
Is this aired on television or the Internet somewhere where we could go and listen to, like, judges or some announcer talk about a show?
Oh, I don't know that word, but they probably use the safer word, which is a nuclear hump or kok or coke or something like that.
Coke. I want to coke. All right, I'm done with the generic questions. I am done with the degenerate questions. So is there anything that we missed in the overview and at least getting our feet wet in flowerhorns?
I think we covered everything.
And at this point during the podcast, are you thinking yourself, I wish I wouldn't have done this?
No, I'm having fun, actually.
Are you having fun? Okay.
I'm a number one fan with you guys. I listened to Brunov told me about the 38, number 38 and the funny stories, and now I'm building my garage fish room. And there's one episode helped me out, too.
You had some questions you're going to bring to us on this episode. How can we help you with your fish room, sir? You said that you had questions for me.
Yeah, I have a question about heating my fish room. So now I have a two car garage. I insulated everything, the door, the side and the ceiling. Now I'm debating how am I going to do the heating because my garage is like about 50ft from the house. So do you recommend running a gas line or?
Yeah, I would.
I would too.
Around here, you're in Chicago, so you're just as dangerous as we are. The best thing to do for heating something like that. Once you super insulate it and stuff, once you get it heated up, it takes a long time to get your cement heated up on the floor, which is pretty strange to talk about, but it might take you, let's say, a week to get up to a constant temperature. But once your floor is heated and the rest of the house is pretty economical to keep warm with a natural gas little furnace, and you can get some pretty small ones for your local hardware store from somewhere between one hundred and fifty dollars to three hundred dollars. And for a 30 $40, you can buy some industrial fans to keep the air moving. And the biggest problem you might have with natural gas is you might get a little more condensation inside that building. So you want to make sure that the installation that you've used is, is waterproof because you might get some condensation. But I've heated all kinds of different buildings with different ways and the most consistent has been the natural gas and the cheapest. I know people that have used electric heaters, I know people that have used propane and I just like natural gas just much cheaper and easier.
So just a reminder for the listeners, heat the room, don't heat the tanks. If you're going to make yourself a fish room. And it's not like living space. Like, for instance, Jay, he's using a garage that's dedicating for this fish work. So heat the room if you can. It's way cheaper. And make sure to have a rebreather. I don't think we went over this a lot in our episode. You said that maybe a little bit more moisture, have a meter to read the moisture in the room. And if it gets too high, set up an exhaust fan, essentially like a floor fan, where you can pipe it with dryer ventilation and just plummet outside to get that moisture out of your shop without losing too much heat.
Yeah, and keep every one of your tanks covered up as best as possible. Beds are great because with an open tank, it's like boiling water. It just evaporates so much faster. But if you have your room at 80 degrees, your top row tanks might be at 78, your second row down might be 76. And so the top rows, of course, can be warmer. But if you get the I've never had it where like the room has been 80 and the top row has been 80. So always been about two or three degrees cooler than the room. And I know we had Steve Rebecca from Angels Plus talking about that same exact thing and stuff. So find that temperature that you like and once that room is up to that temperature, it holds very well. And I also learned on this podcast from some other people that sometimes you need to let the room breathe. If you don't get it in the correct amount of oxygen and you're continually using the same air that all of a sudden your breeding will go down, your fish will quit breeding and not be as active. And I never realized that until we had somebody on this podcast who told us that and stuff. So you want to still introduce fresh air into the room and stuff. And if your fish quit breeding, maybe it's time to get that room totally opened up for a little bit and then close it back up once you get the oxygen back up to where it belongs. But yeah, I didn't realize that we had that gentleman on.
So also when we're talking Jay, you're mentioning that our recommendation didn't necessarily work for the tanks that you were doing of pallet racking.
Yeah, I have a 33 inch long. It's 48 inches. It won't fit. And there's no braces in between those minard pallet, I mean, metal ones won't fit unless I will buy a plywood. But it's expensive.
Yeah, for the cheapest rack you can make is just take two X fours and just make sure as long as you are supporting each corner and the edges, you can have just a two by four frame for it to sit on. You can make your own and use three and a half inch bolts to bolt them together. And you can make it rack to hold a lot of tanks for probably $50. $100? Yeah.
Perfect.
And so if you're looking to save money like we all are, you definitely just want to make your own racks. Some people buy green treated lumber because it holds up better because it's going to get wet, of course. But for $1015, you can buy some black paint and put two coats on it and you'll have a rack that will last you a long, long time. I don't like using metal in a situation like that where you're constantly getting it wet because then you start having rusting issues. Between all of us. We put together many of fish room and it's fun to learn from other people's mistakes rather than your own. It's just a lot cheaper.
Yeah, correct. I'm doing it step by step right now. I drilled all the tanks, so I'm figuring it out with the racks. And how the heating?
Well, Jay, I'd love to chitchat more with you after the podcast if you got any more questions on your room. I also got some other secrets on how to not drill your tanks, because that's a sucky job, but we'll chitchat back and forth. But, Jay, thanks again for coming on the show, man. We really appreciate you.
Thank you. It's been an honor to be here, and thanks for the invite.
My pleasure. Adam, you got anything else for us? No, I'm good. All right. I will not be seeing you in HR. Well, guys, if you dream of Big Cox, go to J fourflowerhorns.com and find yourself award winning flowerhorns on the website and use, apparently, aquarium Guys promo code at checkout for 10% off his goodies. And if you want to win yourself an award winning free flower horn and two large containers of food, certainly go in the show notes. You'll find the link for the sign up or to Aquariumgeist podcast.com. On the bottom, you'll see the sign up sheet. Sign yourself up for an amazing flowerhorn today, buddy.
And if you win that flower horn, we'd gladly have you on this program to talk to you about stock.
No, we won't.
Okay, you just enjoy that.
Just wanted to go to HR with everybody else.
No, he's coming on very soon. All right, guys. Well, thanks again, Jay, and we'll catch you guys next week. bye bye. Thanks, guys, for listening to the podcast. Please go to your favorite place where podcasts are found, whether it be spotify, itunes, stitcher, wherever they can be found, like subscribe. And make sure you get push notifications directly to your phone so you don't miss great content like this.
I never knew that a Minnesota sex to be so sexy until I heard.
Adam'S voice go, Frank, kiss him. Don't you know that's my boy?
Don't you know.