Ad 1: Thanks for calling shrimp envy, where our shrimp are so good they'll make you blush. How can I add a bit of spice to your tank today? Hey, there. I'm looking to turn my tank from bland to grand, if you know what I mean. I've heard you guys are the masters of shrimp seduction. Ah, someone looking for a bit of aquatic romance. You've called the right place. Our shrimp aren't just any shrimp. They're the casanovas of the aquarium scene. Sounds titillating, but will your complete envy shrimp food keep the passion alive? Oh, it's the equivalent of shrimp aphrodisiacs packed with all natural, organic ingredients. It's like a candlelit dinner for your shrimp every single day and night. Maybe I should set the mood with some Marvin Gay while I'm at it. Absolutely. Create an atmosphere of romance. And if things get too steamy in the tank, our no fuss return policy will cool things down, no questions asked. We like our shrimp happy and our customers happier. Well, I'm sold. Time to add a little sizzle to my tank. Thanks, Shrimp envy.
Ad 2: Anytime.
Ad 1: Visit shrimp envy to start your risque aquarium adventure. And remember, when it comes to shrimp, keep things spicy. Shrimp envy, where your tank, isn't just water, it's a love potion. Dive into the fun@shrimpnv.com and use promo code aquarium guys at checkout for 10% off your order.
Robbz: Welcome to the aquarium guys podcast. Welcome one and all. We are in studio B in perham, Minnesota, and Jimmy and Adam both have apparently lives. It's a Friday evening and they find other things to do with their family and concerts and other things. So I am sitting here in the studio, happy to have some sturdy replacements. So let's do a big round. We have today our special guest and topic for the evening, fernando Edwards. How are you, friend?
Fernando: I'm good, how are you doing?
Robbz: I am so good. We had not real tacos. They were tacos, I think is what you would call them.
Fernando: Hard a tacos.
Robbz: I'm thoroughly bloated for the podcast, but thanks for coming on. And again, your specialty business is Fernando's Aquatics and you're pretty well damn known on the internet scene. I gotta say. Now I'm in Minnesota and we've been friends, so maybe I'm a bit I mean, I have friends across the country that has messaged me about some of your products and that we need to get you in the podcast. So now they can shut the hell up. All right, I'm talking to you guys. So thank you again for coming on. And then we have bystanders in the audience, dan, as always. Howdy half friend. And Nathan, now you are known as bug. What is it? In discord?
Nathan: Bed boy.
Robbz: Bed boy in the discord. I was going to say bedbugs, but.
Nathan: That'S also beta nut job. That was me.
Robbz: That was you?
Nathan: Yes, sir, that was me.
Robbz: Were you some of those guys that were trying to go on fish lore and working yourself to go speed running, getting banned?
Nathan: No, I was practically just I don't know, I just made that separate account just to play along with the joking during that discord because I think I made it at the same time within probably ten minutes of when they were talking about it.
Robbz: Well, if you're listening to this, we have a fish community for the Aquarium Guys podcast in Discord. If you haven't heard episodes before of me talking about it, get on there already. Clearly we're having fun. Aquariumguyspodcast.com. Bottom of the website, you will find the link for discord or even in the show notes. Join up and join bed. Boy, the more I say it, the creepier it gets with some more shenanigans and question since I brought up the topic, who was the one that was doing the speed runs on getting banned and fishlower.com? I can't remember, but whoever did it, what was the post, Daniel? It was, Hi guys, I need help. I'm setting up a ten gallon tank for my black Arowana.
Nathan: I bet you that whole place.
Robbz: Yeah, that's somewhere I'm thinking ten gallons too much. I might downsize to a five gallon do I do once a year, water changes and eight feedings a day. Okay, it was something to that regard. I'll have to find it. I don't encourage any doxing to any website, but dan, was that funny? Well, normally this is where I would say something politically inclined, know the latest law of some sort of species control and then get Adam to get pissed off and rant. And then I asked Jimmy about some rock concert and know how he got pissed off at PetSmart, but since I don't before we begin the podcast, anything fishy related in your lives recently?
Nathan: Dan or Nathan just acquired my parents fish when they moved over. They've moved from Indiana probably three weeks ago. Had them mixed in with my 40 gallon breeder and my 29 gallon that I have. They have a Grammy, a couple of cherry barbs, and a Corey cat and a golden nugget pleco, so a bunch.
Robbz: Of bread and butter stuff and then one really nice high target.
Nathan: Fortunately well, unfortunately, my parents thought they were a lot smarter than they are about fish. They walked into a fish store and they saw a Cichlid that they wanted to put in the community. Didn't call or talk to anybody like me or anybody about it, threw it in there and yeah, they had a mass massacre of neon tetras within ten minutes of that.
Robbz: I don't know if you've heard on the podcast before, but we call that the Thunderdome around these parts.
Nathan: Yeah, it was pretty bad, but thankfully, I think I might be able to get rid of those cherry barbs, so they'll quit eating my guppy babies.
Robbz: Call me. Yeah, call me indeed.
Nathan: You can definitely have them.
Robbz: How about you, Daniel?
Dan: Getting a little antsy. I think we need something know? I want to see if we can find some local sunfish.
Robbz: One listener did want to know about our bathroom saltwater tank that you built. How that's going? It's alive. It's alive. It's alive. Since you're not describing it, I'll describe it every time I take a dump in my own bathroom. I get to watch what I like to call king of the hill. It's just a micro hermit crab wrestling dome that ranks next to the shitter. So if you're wondering what I'm doing so long in the bathroom, it's cheering on or betting on the particular hermit crap that's winning. Well, survival of the fittest. Since we're on an absent episode, I also meaning to finally introduce our fully onboarded and hired editor, Dalton. Welcome to the podcast, my friend. You've been on here a couple of times, but now you got a formal introduction. Welcome. One and two. Can you give a brief description of yourself?
Dalton: Yeah, well, thanks for having me. I live down here in Florida where it's hot and sunny and miserable, but I've always been into the hobby. My parents never were, so I had to get into it. And I've got I don't know how many tanks I've got right now. 1415 in the house. I got two of them sitting empty. Got to fill up. They're ready to go. So don't have any in my bathroom, though. I think I might have to might have to get me a little bathroom tank.
Robbz: So what we got to do, just for the sake of this bathroom conversation, because I'm sick of getting made fun of, is I need pictures of you guys that have bathroom setups and submit them in to aquariumguyspodcast@gmail.com. And from the submissions, I'll probably let this go for maybe a month. So recording this on close to Thanksgiving, so we'll say Christmas time, I will draw something out of the hat from one of your guys'submissions and give you guys a prize. What should I do? A T shirt?
Dalton: Extra credit for every picture that has a turd in the toilet?
Robbz: In the yeah. Uh, I'd like to put out there. No one needs to be shitting in these photos because I do need to share it out to the public. So please make them decent. But we do want to see your bathroom aquarium setups. Well, Fernando, thank you for coming. You're actually in person. You're not, like, joining in discord for this. You drove all the way up from Minneapolis to bunktown nowhere. Welcome. Hopefully you didn't hear too many banjos.
Fernando: No, it was a good drive, honestly.
Robbz: Just a nice cruise down the freeway. So, Fernando, I know a bit about you, but I'm going to pretend I know nothing about you for the sake of listeners on the podcast and do my best here. So, number one, you're well known on different social media platforms and specifically known for live bears. Tell us more about your fortes and.
Fernando: What you're known for fortes. Well, I mean, I guess primarily right now, I'm known for keeping wild tie species alive, bears, live bears in general, mostly for conservation reasons or efforts. I am also known around for keeping or reselling freshwater aquatic fish, more of the uncommon rare species, bronogobias, those types of species, hillstreams.
Robbz: So when did you start your business? You have a Fernando's aquatics, is what you're known by on the business side?
Fernando: Yeah, I want to say I started it 2017. I had about maybe eight, nine tanks, and now I got a whole basement full of probably about 40, 50 right now. And then after this expansion, it's going to be about sissy tank, so we'll stop there.
Robbz: What is this expansion? Tell us more about what your plans are for the lair.
Fernando: I can't go into too much detail about that right now, but I'll be letting people know soon and as everything.
Robbz: Gets together come on, man, it's not that top secret. You can tell us something. Give us a bone.
Fernando: I'm going to be doing a lot of shrimp.
Nathan: Shrimp are amazing.
Fernando: I love shrimp.
Robbz: Well, we'll leave it at that. We'll keep your top secret stuff majority under wraps, but we appreciate the sharing. So here's the real thing, right? You have a successful online social media business where you actually sell these fish. You started in 2017, but what people don't really realize is that you're 20 years old right now. So this 2017 math's hard for me. So five, six years you've been doing this actually, as a business?
Fernando: Probably about five, four or five. I actually sell a fish rolling the business.
Robbz: So how in the world did you sit down and talk to your parents and go, yo, mom, get this, I can start pedaling some fish? And she's like, oh, you do whatever you want, honey. How does that go as a kid? Because when I was a kid, my mom did not let me sell fish.
Fernando: I mean, as a kid, younger, I used to be heavy in the reptiles, so before I even had any fish tanks, I always had about 89 reptile tanks. And then it started out as 89 fish tanks, came up to 2020, built a rack, and that's a whole fish dedicated to it.
Robbz: Repeat that if you can.
Fernando: Okay. No, it has started initially as probably about as a hobby, probably about nine tanks. And then over the years, it just came in addiction. So over time now, I've been adding tanks.
Robbz: So your mom let you start with reptiles, and I'm assuming that reptiles don't proliferate as much as fish, so maybe you'll sell one or two things when you're at different swaps. Is that how that began?
Fernando: For the reptiles, it was never really selling, it was more of keeping them.
Robbz: So she was already cool with animals. Then we got into fish.
Fernando: Yeah, I've always kept animals my whole entire life.
Robbz: So when did the light bulb go off that you want to come. Essentially, your own fish store.
Fernando: Not going to become a fish store anytime.
Robbz: Oh, brother, you already are. You pedaling fish online. You're a store, but no one can walk in.
Fernando: No, initially when I got into the hobby is, I want to say probably about around 2017. Earlier, I started working at Tame Waters up in St. Paul.
Robbz: Sure.
Fernando: And I was working there a good.
Robbz: Minute, and that's where the passion got in. Then you started your own name. Now you're pedaling through your basements and got quite a name for yourself after all this time.
Fernando: Yeah.
Robbz: So you're in your basement. I'm assuming that this is your parents basement. And I'm asking these questions because people are wanting to know how someone so young does that breed at home business or collected home business. So that's the real deep dive I'm trying to get at, because our listeners are dying to know how they can tell their wife or significant other how they can make a fish basement, much less how you managed to do it at 1516, sir.
Fernando: My mom right now still doesn't.
Ad 1: She.
Fernando: Enjoys the fact that I have fish. She doesn't like it the fact that I've taken over her entire basement.
Robbz: So it's still a point of contention. Come on, I want part of the basement back. We really like to do some canning, please, Fernando.
Fernando: No, it's my basement. It's not how she imagined everything would be.
Robbz: No, but she's cool with it.
Fernando: Yeah, but she's cool with it.
Robbz: All right, so you started the business and you just did it from the collections you had. So if you thought it was cool, you bred it, you collected it, and then you sold it online.
Fernando: A lot of what I do is I breed, but I also get fish in to resell or I work with local breeders and resell fish from them.
Robbz: So how many local breeders do you think you work with in the regular, we'll say in a six month period because some breeders I'm assuming you work with once a year.
Fernando: Yeah, it varies. I'd say right now in a six month period, I'd work with probably local breeders, probably seven or eight nice different.
Robbz: Species of fish, bring them in, do different quantities, and then you breed some of your own as well. So what breeding projects do you have right now?
Fernando: So, right now a lot of what I have right now are wild type live bears. I've got LeMia and agropasiata, the humpbacks. I've got a couple ziphofer species, wild type sword, tails, pygmy swordtails. I've got one other species. I've got the knife live bearers. Right now, I did take an L earlier this summer, so I'm getting back into motion right now. I'm loading up right now.
Robbz: That's still quite a decent list to start off with, especially if you're doing a rebuild, something from your basement.
Fernando: Yeah, but yeah, no, right now that's primarily what I'm working on for fish. I do got some plecos wild bristles. I'm working on Mexican North Crayfish. I'm working on breeding, or I am breeding right now. So a couple of sword tail strains.
Robbz: So walk us through your basement. As it stands, you have a super complex, mishmash basement of different tanks for different sizes. Do you have stuff more uniform? Any fancy auto drip systems? Are you a sponge filter guy? Give me some detail.
Fernando: I use sponge filters I don't have for water changes right now. I'll be doing buckets.
Robbz: You're bucking it?
Fernando: Yeah, that's how I my guy.
Robbz: How many got taught? I should have wrote this down. He had 46 aquariums right now. He said 40 50, 40, 50, and you're doing buckets. See, that's why you got the arms while you're fit.
Fernando: I regularly go to the gym. I try to keep my health intact.
Ad 2: Don't stop lifting your buckets.
Robbz: I do as well, but he's more of an alcoholic and comes to me on this podcast. You know what I'm saying?
Nathan: Yeah. I've been bringing five gallon pails and stuff of Ro water and other, like, my tap water upstairs.
Robbz: All right, that's it. I'm done with you guys. I'm giving you guys a free python for those that are listening. If you are a beginner hobbyist and you're trying to do the bucket method where you have to siphon water into a bucket and then refill your tanks, that right there is the number one reason people stop doing the hobby. I'm sorry, but maybe you're old and you have an excuse, but if you're young, laziness is a thing that's work. Go get yourself I'll have a link, hopefully, in the show notes. It's, I believe, around $15 you can get on Amazon. It's this little plastic adapter you can put up to your sink called the python.
Nathan: I've used them at the store.
Robbz: Yeah, you can hook up a garden hose to it. What it does is it allows you to add fresh water to your tank. But more importantly, it has an adapter where you just use the water's pressure and it turns it into a vacuum and sucks the water from your aquarium back down the sink drain. Wow. It's the only way to get this done, people. It's $15 to save your hobby. So if you're, again a new listener, or even an old listener that still does buckets because I don't know why, get this python unit, please. What about plants? What about plants? What do you mean, what about plants? Well, we have a question from the audience. I'll repeat them so you can hear. What about land plants? Like, hey, I want to put some of my fish tank water on my plants. Get some fertilizer right there. It's putting it out there. You can still use the python to pour it into a bucket, but that's you. Please, dolphin help. Here's the deal.
Dalton: You get more tanks so you can scoop some of the water out of the tank, use it to water your plants, and then just siphon it out with the python for your water changes. Come on, man. More tanks.
Robbz: All right, so here's what you guys do at Dee's Fish Co. You guys got that little watering pitcher and you just dunk it in the aquarium and suddenly it's full like a little ladle bucket.
Ad 2: Oh, yeah, a little bit of koi juice. Good for the plants.
Robbz: Yes.
Nathan: I really like filling the water there with that. It makes it so much nicer when you get to the small nano tanks and you just get to just spend your time just filling the two and a half, five gallons over there. The ten gallon tanks.
Ad 2: Are you mixing?
Robbz: Are you a guy that likes to just pick rocks for the sake of Zen?
Ad 2: I'm not retarded. I like rocks.
Nathan: I would say that that's what the fish store is. Honest, when I want to just go enjoy myself 110%, I go to D's Fish Cone, Detroit Lakes.
Robbz: I promise you that Fernando will sign you up for some Zen in his basement. You know what I'm saying?
Nathan: I'm changing waters, mopping the floor, cleaning up after the parent.
Robbz: As long as he puts the lotions on your skin, that is.
Nathan: Then I'll get the python.
Ad 2: No?
Robbz: All right, back to the original question. We wanted a virtual tour with your words of your basement. So again, sponge filters, you do bucketing by hand because you're a madman. Continue. Hold on, I got to start reading some of these chat comments.
Nathan: The chat comment, once you go python, you never go back.
Robbz: Question for Fernando. We're going to pause your basement question because you're giggling. Question for Fernando. I tried an outdoor ponds for the first time this summer and bred 1000 plus endlers or given to me by a fellow Aquarius. I'm having a hard time figuring out what varieties I have. Do you know of any good books or sources to help me classify feeder? Guppies? I mean, endlers variety?
Fernando: I don't know any books or websites for endlers, but I'm in a lot of Facebook groups for endlers. So if you have Facebook, I would go on I believe it's Wild endlers or in class endlers or some type of group. And there's a lot of experts who know their stuff about them.
Robbz: I am pulling up a few of them. There's actually like a Twin Cities Guppy page that's a local from Minnesota.
Fernando: Oh, yeah, that one's good, too. There's a lot of people in there, but you're right.
Robbz: Definitely crowdsource some information on those. And you'll find people that will have specific lineages and find details on where strains came from if you can give them more information. So provide those on the social networks. And if you're listening to this and you're some sort of luddite that doesn't use social media, facebook is for old people. We can all agree to this. Facebook is what everybody did for social media after we left MySpace. But for some reason, that is the best place for fish keepers. I don't know why that even a young group of people still hang out there, but it is the de facto place for fish. You can go to Instagram to see some really good content creators showing steps, but as far as groups, posts and communities for special activities, there's nothing better than Facebook, and that hurts me.
Fernando: Facebook does have a lot of info there's.
Robbz: What?
Fernando: It does have a lot of info, for sure.
Robbz: So check that out. And self plug because I'm a ho. Check out the aquarium guys Facebook group. Anyways, back to the tour of this basement. You're thinking about it.
Fernando: So when you first walk in, there'll be about one big major rack. That first rack contains about 2010 gallons. It's set up in sets of three. So there's 2010 gallons, and this is.
Robbz: A two x four rack. Some sort of wood.
Fernando: Yeah.
Robbz: See, I'm carpentry inept, so I don't make things out of wood. I got the steel racks. So you're a brave man. And you did this at probably age 17. So it's definitely another spit in my face. Can you tell I'm jealous? Just a lot.
Fernando: But then on one side, I do have a couple of then I have a 40 long. I have another rack, which I recently just set up, which right now is holding about want to say 15 more ten gallon tanks. Then I have a third rack down there which has 310 gallons. One five gallon, 240 gallons.
Ad 2: None of these are plumbed together, are they?
Robbz: No, they're all just they're all independent systems.
Fernando: Yeah, I have different pond pumps going to them.
Ad 2: What's the maintenance like on those waiters?
Robbz: When you say pond pumps, you mean like old school metal pond piston pumps?
Fernando: Like the AP.
Nathan: Those AP pond pumps.
Fernando: Yeah, APS.
Robbz: I have to look this up. AP pond pump. Thank you. Google, by the way. Like this?
Fernando: No, I believe it's. Maybe Gemco.
Robbz: Okay. Gemco. You said diaphragm air pumps? Yeah. Okay, that makes a lot more sense. So you got like a couple of them for your racks down there?
Fernando: Yeah, I got two of them going right now.
Robbz: Linear piston pumps for it. So two of them and it covers all of your racks? Yeah, those are aggressive pumps, my friend.
Fernando: Then right now, I have two other racks that are currently being set up for 20 longs.
Robbz: Okay. What do you use? Just sponge filters across. What do you use for heat? Heat?
Fernando: My basement has a tendency to remain in the but I'll use heaters regular.
Robbz: So how many heaters do you use out of all those racks?
Fernando: I don't have that many, honestly. I probably only have about six.
Robbz: Five, six total heaters? Yeah. Got you just run to those specific fish that like maybe a discus or.
Fernando: I have one that's the only one tank I can think of at the top of my head. Fair enough. Right now.
Robbz: So you started getting this together. You made the brand. How did you start selling fish? Did you go to fish swaps? Did you just know a guy? Did you do a social media? How did you start peddling fish?
Fernando: I started meeting a lot of people, started networking a lot at the old fish store who I used to work with. I used to work with my buddy Phil Francine Waters, and I am part of the Minnesota Aquarium Society. So I've been for a while, I've been a contributing member. I've been doing the swaps, the fall swaps, the auctions. I was doing the auctions a whole lot when they were in person. Those were hosted in person. But, yeah, I ship a lot on Facebook. I do post on Craigslist, Facebook, Instagram. I sell through. Yeah, banned. I do sell a lot on banned, too.
Robbz: So just to describe to people that are listening, if you're not using social media to trade your fish or swap your fish, facebook added a hard ban on selling on Facebook marketplace. Any live animals you're not allowed to sell? Cats, dogs, horses, pigs, anything. Birds and fish.
Ad 2: Yeah, guys, we don't sell fish. We rehome them.
Robbz: The only loopholes is, of course, plants. But for some reason, Facebook doesn't flag corals. They don't think they're animals, and they just think that they're a salty version of a plant. So if you're not selling a plant, you're not selling a coral. You have to be very careful. So how does one in these days, if you're recommending to a listener that's trying to figure out how they're going to sell their fish, how do you dance around the rulings in Facebook?
Fernando: My friend, word play is a lot. Word play is a mean.
Robbz: That's how I work my know. I don't ask her for some activities. I'm just like I just play Jiggy With It by Will Smith and she gets the queue. Is that what we're kind of doing on Facebook?
Nathan: Yeah.
Robbz: You can put a clip of that in here. Editor thank you. Jiggy with it.
Fernando: Getting jiggy with it.
Ad 2: Demonetized.
Nathan: Now, I see that a lot throughout, like, the Minnesota Fish Rescue and through some of the swap and shop pages on Facebook that they do. Like, they'll post a picture of a fish and do PM private message for info. I mean, pretty much like that.
Robbz: Is that how you do it, Fernando? Yeah, just be like, check out this cool thing. Wink, wink message. Slide to my DM, sweetie.
Nathan: Yep.
Ad 2: You gotta make it swabber.
Dalton: You could sell your aquarium water and include a free fish.
Robbz: Yeah, you could sell Fernando's bath water.
Ad 2: Robbie, what was that that you brought.
Robbz: Down to the you're 20? I can make those jokes you brought.
Ad 2: Down to the last swap. You had a few minutes, so you got something together.
Robbz: All right, Fernando. All right. You were at the swap with me. We had this wonderful swap down in, what was it, frog?
Fernando: It was St. Paul.
Robbz: It was St. Paul, but it was like a frog tin something. Community center. Yeah. We go to the swap and I decide to help my budy. I was just there to say hi to some people. Whatnot? I wasn't really there to sell anything. My budy Dean's bringing a bunch of his high end playcos up there to fill up a table. He didn't bring enough. Had he's never been to a real swap before? And he sold out his table real quick. I saw the amount of plecos he brought and I'm like, that's not. So I, you know, grab extra sponge filters and whatever I have at hand, some breeding mops. And then we decide to take these little tiny jars. Now, the jars are about, what you say, a half inch, give or take there dan.
Ad 2: Oh, God. They'd be like quarter inch, a milliliter, 2 ML. Yeah, they're just couldn't be more than five.
Robbz: All right. I looked them up. I bought these on a wish. I bought them because I thought they're cool little jars to use with magic, the gathering tokens. But yiddle, that I find out. They're just little glass bottles with a cork and they're used for like, cocaine and whatnot. I did not know that they're drug bottles, so I haven't had a use for them. I never use them for magics. They're just sitting around. So what I do is I put one single Malaysian trumpet snail inside of these bottles. I started sending them to friends, like, for instance, Bentley Pasco, his YouTube channel. He opened my gift on his live stream and found a tiny live, single Malaysian trumpet snail in a jar and.
Ad 2: Gave him like, an 8th of aquarium gravel.
Robbz: Yes, it was pretty great. So I give those out as pranks, but I'm like, hey, what if I bring it as like a gag thing to sell? So I bottled like 40 of these little things, brought them to the swap, and I sold them for a dollar apiece, literally a dollar for a single MTS in a tiny bottle, and I sold out. I'm not even joking. People thought they were hilarious. For those who are listening, malaysian trumpet snails are one of the most prolific pest snails you can get. If you're having just a sponge filter in a planted tank, they're probably your best friend. They're going to keep your plants clean, they're going to aeriate the soil. They're going to do a lot without ever touching your plants. But if you have a mechanical filter, these tiny little up to one inch snails are live birth asexual. They are super prolific, and their snail shells are real hard, so they'll get into your filter and then burn out your motor. So they're giant pest snails. So people will see them, know that it's a. Joke buy it because they want to give it to their budy. And when kids see it, they just see a snail in a jar and lose their mind going, Mom, I want it. It's a dollar. So it sold really well. That was a tangent and a half, by the way.
Ad 2: Oh, my God. Those things have killed so many impellers.
Robbz: They have.
Ad 2: Good for them.
Robbz: Really?
Ad 2: Sticking it to us.
Robbz: Taken out by snails.
Nathan: Yes.
Robbz: Good for them. So that was a lot of fun. But you said you had quite a bit of success. I saw that you brought eels to that swap.
Fernando: I did.
Robbz: I have questions. What were those eels? Tell us more about them.
Fernando: Those those were, I believe, marbled eels or spotted eels.
Robbz: I think they're marbled eels.
Ad 2: That's one of the mast assemblas or just, like, a spiny eel.
Fernando: I don't remember the name from the top of my head.
Robbz: He had them that long.
Fernando: Guys I know. They're from South America. I still have them.
Ad 2: Oh, South American Eel.
Robbz: No. Well, hopefully they're not what I typed. We gave it a looked up marble, and we looked up it's a giant molted eel.
Fernando: It's a different species.
Ad 2: And then the cops are on their way.
Robbz: The cops are on their way. All right, so I'm going to get the question. What's the coolest thing that you have right now?
Fernando: Right now? I do got some pretty good epistles in right now.
Robbz: What were the epistles that you brought me?
Fernando: Those ones are the Hansor.
Robbz: They are gorgeous. You got me a trio. It was it two females and a male?
Fernando: Yeah, one male and two females.
Robbz: Yeah. Everybody's a dream, but we only get it in the fish world, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I love it. You got to see this guy. It's so much more fun doing an interview in person because I get to make them much more bashful. I'm a lot of guy to look at, and I'd just like to apologize for this evening, friend man. Dalton, we got to have more guests in person. Put that on the scheduling books.
Dalton: Yeah, I'll get right on it.
Robbz: Dalton, did we miss any questions from Chat?
Dalton: I haven't seen haven't seen a whole lot of questions.
Robbz: All right, keep your eyes peeled.
Dalton: I don't really want Rob to talk anymore about his python, but I do have a question. Fernando, why did you choose to go the fish route versus the reptile route? Because it seems like it was a passion thing for you and not you. Thought you could make more money going with fish.
Fernando: I got into keeping first crayfish. I'm very interested in freshwater invertebrates right now. I've always been, and big majority of wild type live bears mostly, though the reason why I probably chose to remain in the fish route is because reptiles smell bad.
Ad 2: You guys have everything down. You got the feedings down, like the care.
Robbz: It's perfect.
Ad 2: Just the smell of a reptile room.
Robbz: Is that what it is?
Ad 2: It was easier to sell the fish room to your mom. Just be honest.
Fernando: No, working in that. Tame Waters had played a major impact in that.
Robbz: I am so sad. Tame Waters. Finally. I think it's temporary. If you're listening to this, phil, we know it's temporary. The deal with Tame Waters in St. Paul was that he had a really asshole landlord and they gave him ultimatums that they're going to exuberantly raise his price with no benefits. And they've already been mean to him. Like, in the middle of winter, his furnace goes out. They make him buy a furnace? Yeah, it just doesn't make sense. Make any sense? So he had a terrible landlord.
Ad 2: Did he try painting over it with white paint?
Robbz: Yeah, don't worry about it.
Ad 2: That's the trick.
Robbz: So hopefully he finds another space and opens up again. But that was a fantastic shop. When you go in there, you definitely get inspired. Or you're really into black vedas. One of the two.
Nathan: Can I make a comment on this discord chat real quick, please? What's the deal with people not wanting any snails in their tank? Just out of pure curiosity, I guess if you don't want them I mean, they make assassin snails. I wouldn't throw away a tank.
Robbz: See, these guys, they're just emulating our hatred. So we talk about hating one snail. Suddenly they're on the bandwagon. All snails must go.
Ad 2: It's the spiral. It's scary shape.
Robbz: Yeah, I make fun of carneys. Suddenly someone shit at a kid's elephant festival.
Dalton: What what do they call threw the tank out? That's going to be an interesting story. But I'm the one that threw the tank out. And it's because I had Malaysian trumpet snails and they were just everywhere and I will not risk them going to any other tank. I've got pond snails. I don't worry about them. I like some snails. I've got one of those big white Hercules snails. I like those, but I don't mess with the trumpet snails.
Nathan: Those trumpet snails I got. I had a 40 gallon breeder from Dee's Fish Co and it had some trumpet snails in there. And that's what sold me a lot on the assassin snails. Those assassin snails work wonders.
Ad 2: Sorry, this is probably going to be for the patreon, but just to go back. Did you just call a circus a child's elephant festival?
Robbz: I couldn't think of a carnival. Carnival was the word I was looking for. All right? That is the best use of the.
Ad 2: English language I've ever this is why I don't eat.
Robbz: I have a diabetic spike. All right. You can suck my big toe. Oh, wait, no. What was it? I'll punch you in the throat. Where's Jimmy when I need him?
Ad 2: I want my money back.
Robbz: You want your money back? All right. Well, Fernando, what are a couple of the things that you've learned in doing this process that you think you can help a new listener that's inspired by your story at basically 15 years old, getting cocking your mom into letting you essentially steal the entire basement and then start getting your hustle on.
Fernando: Patience. Patience is a virtue. Stay focused. Water changes.
Robbz: Water change. Water changes.
Ad 2: Okay.
Robbz: We're getting very, like, high school coachy vibe. We're looking for more tangible. But what about water changes? Was the hard lesson not getting them done enough?
Fernando: No, not that necessarily. What's it called consistently doing, keeping up with maintenance and water changes. For example, like, if I have some fish breeding or fish are sick, I'll do more water changes than normal, than average on certain tank. And for me, consistently doing that even when I didn't feel like it, like pushing myself to continuously do that day by day, probably one of the big things.
Robbz: Would you say that burnout, especially as a 15 year old kid, is pretty real?
Fernando: Burnout is real.
Nathan: So real.
Fernando: Yeah.
Robbz: So what do you do to combat burnout? You just look for more people to get motivated. You go to tamed waters to get inspired. What's your secret, brother?
Fernando: I don't have any.
Robbz: Just just push through it, and it'll be better after the wave is over. Yeah.
Ad 2: Free racing pigeons.
Robbz: Racing pigeons?
Ad 2: Yeah, racing pigeons.
Robbz: Shout out to Phil.
Fernando: He does have some nice pigeons.
Robbz: Love it. Okay.
Dalton: Let me ask Fernando. What's your favorite tank you have? Doesn't necessarily have to be a breeding setup. Doesn't have to be any special fish in it. But what's your favorite tank? Jim always talks about his favorite angel fish tank that he had. Rob's has talked about his. But what's your favorite tank that you have or have had?
Fernando: My favorite tank right now that I have is probably not even a fish tank. I have a 20 long, and I have these marbled newts that I didn't get too long ago, and I've been falling in love with those guys recently a whole lot.
Ad 2: You can have newts out here.
Robbz: Absolutely. Really?
Fernando: I don't believe, like, shipping them might.
Ad 2: Be legal, but I could imagine getting I don't know.
Robbz: There's a state to state thing where the other states have issues, but, yeah, you can keep them, sell them. If they are native species, then that's a whole other issue. If they're not native, then you're more kosher.
Ad 2: Man, I want some newts.
Robbz: You just want a bubbling cauldron for a Halloween thing. Some newt on your shoulder, you stirring a pot.
Ad 2: That's not how any of that works.
Robbz: Putting a mole on your face, you put moles way ahead of you there, champ. Way ahead. All right, I'm going to sign in to the aquarium guys. Email. Guys, if you got questions that you'd like to ask on the podcast, we have. That whole episode is dedicated to doing some of the questions, but I'd like to take the opportunity to pick this gentleman's brain of ours, since he's had such a diverse section of different fish and more importantly, a lot of live bearer species. With some of our questions here that we've gotten in the last short period of time. Give me one moment.
Nathan: Dan that's the reason why I bought that circle, a little circle tank from you guys is because what PIBBLE punk said he's got the rams horns for an excuse to get a pea puffer. That's definitely the plan. I want to do the rams horn in there and then have a pea puffer. I get that for sure.
Ad 2: Yeah.
Robbz: All right, here we go. Thoughts on Wondershell by Mark. Hey, aquarium guys. Congratulations on episode 100. Love the humor, the stories, and love it when Adam gets triggered and starts ranting. It's funny. I've been binging your podcast and learning a lot. Keep them coming. I started getting the hobby six months ago and started with a 129 gallon tank, and then it became a 75 gallon tank, and now it's multiplied into five more tanks. Anywho, just wanted to get your guys thoughts on the WEKO wondershell. Does it work? What does it do? I've used it a few times and don't see any difference. Is it a waste of my money? Thanks, aquarium fellers. And good luck on the podcast. By the way, which one is Adam's favorite fish in his tank right now? Anything the government can't know about that's his favorite fish, since Adam's not here. Thank you for your question. And, Fernando, Wondershells, have you used them before?
Fernando: No, I haven't.
Robbz: They need better marketing. Remember the old wonder ball? What's in the wonder ball?
Ad 2: You know what I wish Wondershells didn't.
Robbz: Do is have a shitty marketing.
Ad 2: Well, I think that kind of bundles into it a little bit, but on the packaging, it says that it improves sex vigor. I don't think they can quantify that at all. It's weird.
Robbz: I need to pull up the wonder show.
Nathan: Who got paid to do those statistics?
Ad 2: I don't know who did their marketing or their package design, but it's not based in Long Beach like the rest of the company.
Robbz: Water purifier clears cloudy water, removes chlorine instantly.
Ad 2: It's on, like, the bottom of the package.
Robbz: Oh, that one's kind of crumpled on this picture. You gotta find a better picture. Well, I have used these shells in the past, and I'm a big fan.
Ad 2: How do you not have one on hand?
Robbz: Because I've used them. I'm out. I should have bought more, but fish food was more on the budget.
Ad 2: Scrape the bottom of the little package.
Robbz: Oh, dude, that little powder you get on the bottom of the wonder shells, I use those for the fry tanks.
Ad 2: Little aquarium schneef.
Robbz: Aquarium schneef. Cut yourself a little line of wondershell. Oh, by the way, don't do that. By the way. I know one of you idiots are going to try it. Continue.
Ad 2: So we had a regular come in. She brings us a little package of these pen plaques. Mango and banana flavored condoms. No, cuddle bones.
Robbz: Cuddlebones.
Ad 2: Okay, wait.
Robbz: They're flavored. Shoot. Should we just start calling them that? They're flavored.
Ad 2: Cuddlebones flavored cuddlebones.
Robbz: I don't I that seems like a car air freshener. You just got it mistaken.
Ad 2: I let the bad thoughts get the best of me, and I took a bite out of one of these.
Robbz: Okay. Okay. This is the type of guy that looks at a Milk Bone and be like, oh, Roy eats it, and then just takes a big I got to.
Ad 2: Make sure that they're getting the best. But, Penplex, if you're listening, I called your bluff. Those do not taste like anything. It's nothing. So we got to talk.
Robbz: Jesus Christ. All right.
Nathan: You use stuff in your hair, too?
Robbz: Yeah. The meliphix of mellifix. Yes. Thank you. Yeah, it's god help me, why do.
Ad 2: You think my hair is so nice and shiny? It's all the cuddlebone and mellifix that I'm ingesting.
Robbz: Yeah. You remember that weird dude in college that uses olive oil in his hair and smells like, I don't know, last week's foot odor? Dan tried, but he wants to be more classy, so it's mellow. Luca, you said I smell nice and dog food breath. You do smell nice, and I want to take every time I've said that back, because now I know every time I smell you, I get, like, a nostalgic feeling of my grandma's aquarium. I shit you not. I finally just like, that smells like my grandma's aquarium.
Ad 2: Most people just say tea tree oil.
Robbz: But back to the conversation at hand. We have a question here of what's the wondershell in Chat, because people need to know. Wondershell is by weco. Weco. You can find it in pet stores. You can find on Amazon, chewy.com, whatever else. And it's more or less known as a calcium add on. So when you have a tank going, let's pretend that you're one of those people that like snails. I do like snails. I don't like MTS, but I love ramshorn snails. So ramshorn snails do proliferate in the tank, and they will absorb most of the calcium out of the water because of how many clutches they have in a tank. And unless you're like Fernando and Flexing, water changes all the time. To get calcium back into your water, you probably would take most of the calcium out of the water. And calcium's a core mineral in water, especially when you're trying to breed fish. If you want to grow out fish, you need calcium in the water. So if you see that fish fry aren't growing to the rates that you normally have, calcium, people, that's what you're going to be needing at the very.
Ad 2: Least, just do water changes. That's why water changes are important.
Robbz: So get calcium back in the water, and the two best ways of getting it done, in my opinion. There's others. You can get powders other supplements, but the two most common that I've used is getting cuddlebone and buying wondershells. I enjoy a good wondershell. I don't believe particularly. It's a good use of what says is on the package as some sort of water clarifier and all that. I use it as adding minerals back to water, and if it does clarify the water, so be it. I don't care. I'm buying it for the calcium supplement.
Ad 2: Now, according to the packaging, it's also supposed to have, like, the tap water conditioner.
Robbz: Yes.
Ad 2: Built in. But they say you can also use.
Robbz: It as, like, a glass scourer. And I can pee in the water to start a cycle, too.
Ad 2: The sex, vigor, apparently just throwing all.
Nathan: These things out there.
Ad 2: I wonder what they taste like.
Robbz: God, no.
Nathan: We go.
Robbz: You're a bad example on these thoughts on wondershells.
Ad 2: Tastes like shit.
Robbz: So, Fernando, give it a try, buddy. If not, we'll send you with a wondershell tomorrow.
Fernando: I heard you.
Robbz: Just for you. Don't lick it. I saw that you licked your lip. I'll pervert. All right, next question. We have Schmelta as the title of the email. Schmelta didn't email us. Trust me yet. That will happen. But it says from mason says the Simpsons Season 30 Episode Six It's a mo episode. You only need to watch the first seven minutes. Look it up. Not ruining the joke for you.
Ad 2: Oh, my God.
Robbz: Oh, no. We're going to pull it up.
Ad 2: We're going to get banned.
Robbz: Simpsons, this is a review, so we're free use here, boys. Simpsons 30 Episode Seven here we go. Duh. Simpsons. Bubba. Dude, I love this.
Nathan: I haven't watched this.
Robbz: Remember this? I'm going to skip ahead, though. No. A tater tot hit the floor. Beards Lee. Tater beards lee. Jasper. Absence of mac and cheese. Where? Okay, tell me this is too much. I haven't do you know how long seven minutes is? I don't have that kind of attention span.
Ad 2: Dude, this is 2023, man.
Robbz: All right, you know what? We're going to do this offline. I'll have to email you back, but season 30 episode seven. I'll let you know. But our podcast does not align to have that large of attention span. Next one. Claire messaged a picture her fish room. Hey, guys. Hope you're doing well. Have a big favor to ask. I'm in the middle of setting up more fish tanks in my spare bedroom over the last few months, and fish tanks have been slowly entering the house. I am now up to 15 and have a very patient, understanding wife. Only three tanks are running now, but I'm getting there slowly. Anyways, I have a blank wall where I would love to have autographed pictures of my favorite fish tube channels and podcasts. I know it sounds like a weird request, but I think it would look cool in the room. Don't know how easy it is to send stuff from the US. To Scotland. If it's not possible. I totally understand. If it's something you do, please let me know the cost. Oh, my god.
Ad 2: Can you mount a dildo on a plaque?
Robbz: All right, that's fair. So I'm posting a picture in discord if you guys want to see the fish room. It's a very classy, like, nice little metal setup. And I think he's got a picture of Buddha. Or is that a hindi thing? I don't know. Definitely not. Help me out. What is that in the background he's got there? That looks like Buddha to me. Is it? Well, I'll tell you what.
Nathan: We've got a computer right in front of us.
Robbz: I'm asking dan, because he's supposed to be a hippie.
Nathan: Yes, he would know.
Robbz: Yeah. What is it you don't know? It's the Buddha. Okay? It is, budha. I thought Buddha was the fat dude that's on the back of toilets for white people. No.
Ad 2: What are you guys putting on your toilets?
Robbz: I always wanted to not aquariums.
Nathan: Not aquariums.
Ad 2: Just go back to the live laugh.
Robbz: What's the little fat asian that they put on the back of toilets then, if that isn't Buddha?
Ad 2: It's complicated.
Robbz: This isn't one of those those podcasts, I guess, but okay, so what we'll do for you, Claire, I will have to reach out to you. I will send you a digital picture, and then we will give you the blessing that you can print it out on your own, because sending something from the United States to Scotland is retarded. And imagine customs opening up the package to find an aquarium dildo on that picture. So, yeah, we'll get you a digital on the house, something you ask. We'll see what we can deliver. There we go. And if you want your own picture, she asked first. So you guys all got to wait. Next question. Alice? Hi, guys. I am a crazy house plant lover and have over 50 plants in my small apartment balcony. I am currently trying to learn as much as I can about aquatic setups. I would love to build a pallidarium sometime in the future, maybe with a few shrimps and snails. It would be great if you guys could invite people over to the podcast to discuss pallidariums and dirted tanks is the topic she's looking for. Do you know Tanner from serpent design who builds beautiful pallidarium, aquariums, and terrariums, etc. Think he never did any podcast. He must be invited all the time, though, right? And father fish and his dirted tanks with minimal maintenance. Is he crazy or brilliant? Greetings from France. So first one, tanner from serpent design is a gift from god to the aquarium hobby. I am a big fanboy of his. I have not reached out to him. I don't know if I would do him enough. Know when people got a list of people that they are a fanboy of, tanner's one of them. I have none of the skills that Tanner has. That dude can take, go to a dollar store, fart out $5, and make something that is truly breathtaking that will last for years. I don't have that inclination. The stuff I make came from a dumpster, looks like a dumpster, but I can at least breed a lot of fish out of it. I would love to be blessed by even 1% of that dude's skill. So if you know, if he wants to come on the podcast, we would be honored.
Fernando: I likes the way he talks.
Robbz: I like Tanner, and I cannot lie. Of course, Father Fish I have reached out to in the past. He was busy. And the problem is, at the time I only had evenings available to get the podcast done. And Father Fish is notorious for waking up real early in the day and then going to bed real early. Kind of like most old guys.
Ad 2: Yeah, I love Father Fish, but he strikes me as the kind of guy who still thinks that the Internet's made.
Robbz: Out of no, no, Father Fish is where it's at. He's got a lot of support making sure that the YouTube gets done, but that dude is a true wealth of knowledge. Oh, yeah. He's the guy that sits back, he knows a lot of shit and just school you on why you should be having undergrravel filters and how you should be doing water changes. For real?
Ad 2: Yeah, it's a national treasure right there.
Robbz: Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. He's, I think the foremost expert in stop with your know, let nature do what it's doing and your touching can screw it up a lot. That's another great guy. So I've reached out now that my schedule is becoming a little bit more open, and more importantly, we got Dalton here editing the podcast now to get these out. I would love to have Father Fish on. I'll probably reach out again soon. Next question, please. Mark messaged back again, said, hey guys, just bought some rice fish. These things are great. Wondering if you guys can make an episode about rice fish. Thank you. And my day wouldn't be complete without listening to your podcast. So Fernando, you perked up like your nipples kind of thing when I said rice fish. So you got stories for me?
Fernando: I don't know too much about rice.
Robbz: What? That's it. If you guys want to donate some nice Japanese rice fish to Fernando, message the Aquarium Guys podcast. He is in the greater Twin Cities area and he'll trade some, I'm telling you, top tier live bearers for some good sweet rice fish.
Ad 2: You need to come down to the store tomorrow.
Fernando: What time?
Ad 2: Whenever you're ready.
Robbz: You'll get a VIP experience of these.
Fernando: Fish, I will say I work at 08:00. A.m. What?
Robbz: You realize you're 4 hours from home, right?
Fernando: I know. I was planning to leave around three.
Robbz: You're calling in sick tomorrow, right?
Ad 2: I can shit your pants.
Robbz: Yeah, shit your pants.
Ad 2: Shit your pants.
Robbz: What are they going to do? Hey, he's got wonder shows. You can eat. We can shit your pants.
Ad 2: Shit your pants.
Nathan: You can't can't work. Shitted pants.
Ad 2: I'm 4 hours away and I shit my pants.
Robbz: They don't believe you. We will take pictures of your pants.
Fernando: I'm going to take the day off.
Robbz: Hey, my guy. All right. There we go. All right. So, yes, rice fish are fantastic. I've had them as well. I had an amazing high end, like, top tier platinum rice fish colony. Had an electrician come down. He knocked out the power to my fish room and killed all those rice fish. I could have strangled the guy. I did fire him. He did a terrible job. He was trying to install my Tesla charger in the garage. And I did fire him and get another company. So just poor shit work. And it had nothing to do with him killing my fish. He just did bad.
Ad 2: We found his house and put onion rings in his mailbox.
Robbz: True story. True story. Hello, aquarium. Guys. And Adam. Oh, my God. Rob is messaging in with this. Hello, aquarium. Guys. And Adam.
Ad 2: Put Adam in his place.
Robbz: I hope he doesn't listen to this. You were talking about fish documentaries in episode 102. There was a cool one made by the UK Jack Perks, the fish twitcher EW called Britain's Hidden Fishes, narrated by Jeremy Wade. No shit, my dude. No shit. I don't think it's openly available at the moment, but I had screenings across the UK earlier this year. Oh, it's newer. You can see the trailer here. Obviously, we don't have the most amazing section of species here. It's well worth a watch if you can find it. Jack Pertz might be an interesting guest for the show. He also has his own podcast called the Bearded Tits Podcast.
Ad 2: Get this man on immediately.
Nathan: Yes.
Robbz: That's got to be a bird reference. I don't know if it actually tits. No, if it's human tits, then he's my hero.
Ad 2: No.
Robbz: The bearded tit. That's bird cross dresser podcast, you know what I'm saying? Covering all sorts of conservation, including several fish episodes. The cats are episode is also a favorite.
Ad 2: Cats are responsible for everything extinct.
Robbz: Okay, it's got to be bird podcast.
Ad 2: This guy's a birder.
Robbz: Yeah.
Ad 2: By the way, ornithologists just have, like, this special hate in their heart when they name certain birds. I saw that the other day. It's like one of four things. So, yeah, Bearded Tits is definitely I'm.
Robbz: Just going to say cats are episode. Where has this guy been all my life? Anyways, cue of the great work. Love the mix of in depth fish care info and stories, combined with the absolute nonsense and occasional filth. Best regards, Rob. All right, we'll have to check out that trailer one more time. Britain's hidden Fishes by Jeremy. Wait.
Ad 2: We love you, Rob.
Robbz: That'll be cool. We love you, Rob. So apparently we messaged him back saying, hey, Rob, thanks for this. I'll be watching this as I'm a huge fanboy of Jeremy Wade, the other guy from the podcast. Do you know him or have a connection? Would love to get in touch with a guy with a Tit podcast.
Ad 2: And he goes on to something about his Social Security number, and I'm going.
Robbz: To keep the rest because he's trying to give me information on how I can get in touch with him. So, Rob, find more of this? Yes, more guys that are willing to be casually retarded and still have a passion for fish or our people. All right, next one. Tank cycling. Patricia Steedley. We have a 55 gallon tank with 19 glowfish, one glow shark, two Corey cats. We have tried everything we know how to do and this tank just won't freaking cycle. We've had it up since July and haven't had success in achieving a good cycle. I have a 20 gallon and a ten gallon tank that are both fully, so I know I'm capable. Any suggestions? We have gravel pothos planted in it. We have tried all the C, chem and API bacteria additives. Well, that might be your problem. We've added sponge about two weeks ago based on your tips. Okay. Brought it with the podcast. We've added sponge two weeks ago based on the tips and tricks of the podcast. Brought the poop juice and night out. Try so far, no dice. Please help. Well, I need to know what's more in your tank. If you haven't had a sponge filter, what is it bonding to? How much gravel is in it? Are you still doing water changes? What's the list of CCAM and API products you've been using?
Ad 2: Just auto respond with a thumbs up.
Robbz: Just auto respond. Okay.
Ad 2: The one thing that bothers me is every time somebody's having a problem, did you test and what were the results? Data.
Robbz: Yeah, data.
Ad 2: I need data.
Robbz: So number one, Patricia, you want the help? We read this email every blue moon or so, literally, when you hear the podcast, that's how often we're checking this email. So go to aquariumguyspodcast.com. Bob, the website. Find discord post in there. It's not just me. It's a hive mind of experts and other fish nerds that will help you and they will drill you with questions. Trying to get to the bottom of this. I can easily make assumptions of why doing it, but go back to basics. Put water in a thing. Squeeze some poop juice into it.
Ad 2: Have you tried letting.
Robbz: You know, let it sit for four weeks. Don't touch it. Don't change water. Leave it alone. Let it run. And if you really want to speed it up, add a little heat. You giving me faces. Fernando, you're a very quiet person, so I know it's been a lot to bring you on the podcast, but I feel like you have some advice for.
Fernando: This poor lady listening.
Robbz: You're just. Listening. Yeah, well, help her. She needs more than listening.
Ad 2: You're so mean to this poor kid.
Robbz: He's got it.
Ad 2: He's thinking it's the pothos, isn't it?
Robbz: This is where he's going to lean on the mic and tell us to urinate in the aquarium. Get that cycle started, you know?
Nathan: God, I'm good.
Robbz: I love you. All right, next question. Patricia, please message us on Discord. Respectfully, respectfully, respectfully. I think I had one below that I skipped.
Ad 2: It was new seasonal products.
Robbz: Oh, my God.
Ad 2: From Wish.
Robbz: No, I read this one before. So, now that we're done with caught with emails for the moment, we will check the wonderful list here in Discord. Dalton, how are we doing on live questions from the community?
Dalton: Dalton's sad I'm back, so thank you for that.
Robbz: I just pulled him in at the last second. He must have disconnected, and he's like, oh, yeah, now I have to know. Be on my no, no. Yeah, I've been trying to get back.
Dalton: On, but it just ignored me like my wife.
Robbz: Oh, no.
Dalton: There haven't been a whole lot of.
Robbz: Questions, but I do have one here. Rob's, different cultures have different depictions of Buddha. Indian version is very skinny. Well, thank you. That helps.
Ad 2: It's lack of red meat.
Robbz: Oh, wait, that's skinny Buddha fat Budha's in the back of the shitter. Okay, so I'm not alone. Thank you. I do appreciate it. I would love a Father Fish episode, but everyone would need to watch their language for that one. You're right. We would use words like cripes and golly g for that one. Let's see here.
Ad 2: That's why we can't have nice guests on.
Robbz: You can listen to him tell you to shove dead fish in your substrate. Did Fatherfish do that? Fatherfish is the man.
Ad 2: If he did that, is he planting corn over it?
Robbz: No, dead serious. That's an old school trick. Like, if you don't understand, if you look in a bunch of old fish books, we're talking, like, 1950s fish books and older. It was literally like how the Indians actually corn. The Native Americans did corn, and they grabbed a bunch of kernels, they shove them in a fish, and then put the fish in the ground and then grow the plant. They thought that that's what you're supposed to do with a dirted tank, is you take your plants and then you fertilize with dead fish in the substrate.
Ad 2: Sometimes you just got to sacrifice a few to the aquarium gods.
Robbz: You know what? I need to watch more Father fish, because if he did that, he's OG gangster information, because it does work. If you've never done that, it does work, but then you have to let the tank sit for, like, three months, actually, without fish.
Ad 2: I've had some tanks that are so old that, yeah, the substrate is probably, like, 10% bone.
Robbz: Yeah, but have you gone to, like, I don't know, your market, bought some sardines and purposely fertilized your soil talking. Now you're talking. I love it. All right.
Ad 2: By the way, that smell in the kitchen.
Robbz: Smell in the kitchen. Oh, boy. At Rob's, the father fish legit pulled up a picture of natives on that video. I don't know what you're talking about, budy, but you have my attention.
Ad 2: The painting we all saw in kindergarten of them putting the fish under the corn.
Robbz: Oh, literally. So he pulled up those pictures like, this is how they used to do it. Okay.
Nathan: I'm pretty sure I saw some YouTube shorts. I swear I've heard him talk about not taking dead fish out of your tank. I mean, I am pretty positive I've seen that.
Ad 2: That just sounds like a more chaotic takashi aman.
Robbz: This guy is my just I'm going to put it out there. Father Fish, if you're listening, I'm reaching out again. You're coming on this podcast, brother. All right, so let's get to the.
Ad 2: That'S the secret to fish keeper. It's necromancy well, and he notoriously UNDERSTOCKS.
Dalton: His tanks, so he can probably handle a little extra bioload from a rotting fish. Whereas I'd guess most of our tanks are probably overstocked and we just filtered the piss out of them.
Robbz: Is he starting that beta in a 125 alone trend that I've been seeing? On what? On forms? It's a meme. It's a meme. It's a meme. Like man, that's crazy. All right, thank you. Nathan Gullible. Yes. Thank you. You bit. All right.
Ad 2: That's what we call a fish and cycle.
Robbz: That's a fish and cycle. Oh, my all right, so let's go to the ask for help section of discord. This is where people can ask for help from the community. So we're going to go to the first one. Kate says, hello, everyone. I lost a fish a few months ago. I thought it was originally from ick and treated with ick. X recently had another fish get infected with the same thing. By this time excuse me. This time, someone from another fish tank server recognized the illness as a parasite, so it must have went to some other discord. I treated the fish with salt baths, one tablespoon per gallon. The salt bath seemed to reduce the white stuff on the fish. It came back up again and ended up dying. He's always kind of the run to the group. Didn't eat much. Might have been solely due to the disease. My grammys also has the disease. I'm doing salt bass to treat him, but not sure if the diagnosis is correct. Can anyone ID this disease? Yeah, picture I'm so glad we're a fish chat. Not like a gynecologist chat, aren't you right now? Can you look at my blue waffle?
Ad 2: Can you scoot forward a little bit?
Robbz: Can you scoot forward? Okay, so here's picture one. Gentlemen, if you want to see this, you can get on the discord, people. We have these pictures posted in whatever HD she gave us. So first one I don't really see much in here. It's a white fish, so it's hard to see, but I see a big chunk of shit over its eye. That is 480 in 480. This is the flip phone quality, people. So it looks like it's a white skirt tetra. I can see the yellow brain. Pretty normal of a white skirt tetra. You can see the indents here. So that malnourished.
Ad 2: It's definitely losing some muscle mass.
Robbz: Yeah, it's pretty blocky in that picture, too.
Ad 2: Now that zoom into.
Robbz: There you go. This one's a black skirt tetra. And it's got knobbers. It's got some knobbers there on its Dingledorf. Just look at that.
Ad 2: Yeah, that's not ick.
Robbz: No, that's not a hole in the head either. That's the opposite. That's shit protruding out of the head. We have, what, four white, essentially ready to explode pimples coming out of its nose?
Ad 2: No, I think it's more of a slime. God, what is this stuff called? Say epistylus.
Robbz: Okay, this is going to sound terrible, but you know those guys in the locker room that have those little bumps on the tip of their dick?
Ad 2: Does this look infected to you?
Robbz: That's what we're looking at here.
Nathan: Does this look infected to you?
Robbz: Does this look infected to you? Let's see. There's a little video in the locker room, Rob. There we go. Oh, that is a sick fish. Blow that up. This is the same thing the other one definitely that's definitely weird.
Ad 2: I would start by removing the Buddha from your aquarium. You didn't give it a prominent enough spot.
Robbz: It's the same thing the other one has. I would definitely guess that this is some sort of parasite. I don't know. I don't have an answer for you of what it is. I'd start with prazipro. I would get in there with the prazipro treatment for sure. And I apologize about the penis slump depiction.
Ad 2: You know, prazzipro's some pretty good stuff. It's pretty broad spectrum. Doesn't really work that well for internal parasites so much.
Robbz: Yeah, but that one's protruding out of its head. I feel like we're going to be good on that one. Heavy dose prazipro. Give it a try.
Ad 2: Yeah.
Robbz: And in case that that's a free floating parasite, add a UV sterilizer, long term. Go get one. Hang on the back or in line, whatever you can do. Sterilize the shit out of that tank. And don't get rid of fish or move them between tanks.
Ad 2: Yeah, there's been some nasty stuff going around past year.
Robbz: I would just pretend that that's what was it? Site Zero. And don't let anybody touch it. Use gloves. You don't want that shit on there you don't know. Next one, Hillstream being overrun by bi E-J-I. Anyways, being overrun by bladder snails. Steady says Hillstream tank has been success. One problem, though. Snail overload trying to maintain green rocks for the look and for the loaches. But bladder snails are out of control. I kill maybe 50 a day and smash them with credit cards against the stones and glass. The loaches love sucking down the gooey insides. They will run around this snail with the snail in their mouth, sucking down like a pacifier. Wow. This guy could write a novel. But I can't. Won't eat living snails. Anything else I can do? Whoa. What type of your loaches? Suck ass, son. All right, get better. Loaches. Continue. Smash and smash issue. Should I get assassin snails? I just can't stand them. And the tank looks a lot different for up and running. This guy's got a picture.
Ad 2: I actually like this tank very much.
Robbz: I do, too.
Ad 2: It looks pretty.
Robbz: I know the aesthetic he's trying for. He's kind of like a riverbed where the stones are covered in that green shimmery algae. But the problem is that green shimmering algae is a problem. Some of it is not just green good algae. You can grow bacteria algae as well. And my guess is you got some of that and you're growing snails because they love that bacteria. You got too much stuff in the tank, too much light going on in the tank and your snails are exploding. So dial back the light. You already have a good green base. Once you have dealt with what's going on in the tank, you can add light later. That algae won't go away. It will revive once you add light back again, even if it's six months from now, as long as you're not scrubbing the stuff off the rocks. So dial back the light and get yourself some real loaches that kill snails. Like, get yourself a clown loach. Watch them disappear. That guy will mow down every single mud snail in your tank. First message says, Algae shows crazy light. Cut off the light for a solid ten days. Reevaluate snail population based on food. Cut light cut food. Damn. I was hoping to keep that high. Algae rock. Look, I'll give it a shot and smash whatever I can see in the meantime, so give that a go, brother. Yeah. If you can't find a clown loach in there, you can go to places like the Wet Spot. They'll ship you. You know, maybe you can talk to might, you know, know a some. Get you some clown loaches. Otherwise do you have any loaches on hand, my friend?
Fernando: Not right now, but I can get some.
Robbz: He'll hook you up. Go check him out on his Facebook pages. It's in the show notes.
Ad 2: Hop in the DMs.
Robbz: Hop in my DMs. Next one. Are these hydra on the snail shell? We have a picture that I'm going to have to blow up.
Ad 2: Oh, yeah. Look at that boy.
Robbz: All right, what's the verdict, Dan?
Ad 2: Give me way in there.
Robbz: Look at all of that on the bottom. Is that food? That must be food. No, that's the only picture.
Ad 2: I mean, it's kind of blurry. I don't want to say that it almost hydras.
Robbz: It could be a tinge of black beard growing on the shell, and it's just starting, but it's going in a line, so that doesn't make me I'm.
Ad 2: Totally drawing a blank because I've had, like, 50 calories today. Good old Italian breakfast. No, they're those little nidarian organisms. They grow on the faces of shrimp and stuff. Totally harmless. I think you can cure them with a salt dip. God, no. It's not planaria.
Robbz: You don't got to whisper. This is a discussion. Shout out. Know snail herpes. All right, next.
Ad 2: Yeah, it says a little bit of.
Dalton: So was Dan's advice to give the snail a salt dip.
Ad 2: Just the shell.
Robbz: Yeah, to be fair, what we can see here, it is just affecting the shell. And as much as that would be a risk, you can technically roll the edge. You would do like, a margarita.
Ad 2: Totally not harmful at all, though, right in there.
Robbz: It's just rim your so you've seen this before? You've seen it deal with shrimp. It's non harmful, non effective, but an eyesore, for sure.
Ad 2: I think it looks cool.
Robbz: I have not seen this before. You just want a Mohawk in all your snails?
Ad 2: No, I just want a little bit of life in there, you know what I mean?
Robbz: Well, sorry, brother, we're inconclusive on what it is. If you want to risk the biscuit, you can take just the shell. Be very careful of the snail. You can rub it against the shell and then rinse it off afterwards to make it sure that's completely devoid of salt. And as long as that salt didn't get through the shell, you should be fine. That is a safe way of at least trying to clean off the edge of this shell. If any salt gets on the snails whatsoever, it does burn the snail.
Ad 2: Nah, man, that's hell's moving castle right there.
Robbz: All right, we should wrap this up with one or two more so. Next one MTS. Murder for science. Pac says I have a 55 pretty well overrun with blonde MTS. He showed me pictures of these things. These were actually really cool for evil pest snails. These things were actually kind of designerish dope. Anyways, tank crashed, everything died. It was ugly. So I let all the snails sit in the substrate while the water evaporated out, and then I left it bone dry for about another month. I went to put the substrate into a little endler tank, and no more than 3 hours later, there were MTS everywhere. So I'm going to feed the population, get them strong, then separate them into several groups and see what it takes to purge MTS from substrate popsicles.
Ad 2: Freeze a batch hard, no cookies.
Robbz: Bake a batch for 375 for twelve minutes. Exam day. Soak them in bleach. You guys have any other ideas what I can do to see what I can do to kill MTS? Toaster bath. So they want to electrocute snails. Use a nine volt battery with electrolyte solution is the best I can do. Like Dang MTS disclaimer.
Ad 2: Be nice to your snails.
Robbz: No, this is hilarious. The MTS electrolysis R D will be shelved until later one day. Beefthink Enterprises won't rest until the science has been settled. I said I love this. You must document results in detail and I will get you on an episode of the podcast. So, PAX, this is an official APB to the listeners that you better do this and do this right now. Gentlemen, roundtable. I will go around the room. Dan, what is some cruel and unusual punishment he can do to test how to kill MTS in substrate?
Ad 2: Do you want me to save him a bunch of time?
Robbz: I want you to give your honest opinion here.
Ad 2: Freezing them solid will not hold on.
Robbz: No, he will come back with results. Do not tell him what will and will not tell him what he needs to try.
Ad 2: I think it's time to start breeding assassin snails.
Fernando: I was about to say that, yeah.
Robbz: All right, lame. Next. Nathan, you must have a better one.
Nathan: What's that stuff? We clean the tanks with the vinegar.
Robbz: And say breeding assassin snails.
Nathan: What is it? That vinegar and water.
Robbz: Vinegar bath is what you're saying? Yeah. So dump the water out of the tank and soak the substrate and vinegar.
Fernando: Yep.
Robbz: Okay, love it. Actually, that was one of my no.
Ad 2: That'Ll just piss him off.
Robbz: Fernando, what do you think he should do?
Fernando: Maybe try drying them out.
Robbz: All right, drying them out? He tried that one. That one didn't. Oh, yeah, so that was his first experiment.
Nathan: He like, flip his substrate and stuff all the time to make sure it.
Robbz: Was dry, because he's going to document this. We're going to drill him in the podcast. So listen up, if you're not adding details of this son of a bitch, all right, we're going to make you look silly on this podcast. PAX. Anyways. Fernando, please. Another idea.
Fernando: Bleach.
Robbz: Bleach. Why does everybody soak in vinegar?
Fernando: Bleach? Water, perhaps.
Robbz: See, here's what I like. I would try to soak them in.
Dalton: Urine and ammonia peroxide.
Ad 2: It's not going to kill them, but just piss on them anyway.
Robbz: I would know it's dead serious. Here's what I did when I was a kid, right? I lived in the countryside and I wanted to see how bad my urine was on a plant. So I found this nice big weed in my backyard. Every day, at least once a day, I'd go and piss on that all summer. It was like a ditch weed. And I kid you not, it made it for the first half of the summer. Second half, it just started withering away because it was just too ammonia ridden. I would piss on that plant every day. So what you need to do is get yourself that little tank, that two and a half gallon tank, that five gallon tank. Whatever you want to do. Packs and every day, piss into that tank and just leave the urine in there, cover it. I mean, we're not monsters here. We don't need to let that smell out. Do it outside. But piss in that tank every day for a month and then see if any MTS live through piss. And for bonus points, if you really want to get them with bad piss, find a diabetic friend and have him pissing it, too.
Ad 2: I'm just going to go out here and say having a sealed container of piss and snails is exactly how you alert the ATF.
Robbz: The one and only item you should be shipping on Schmelta Airlines. All right, Casey. Casey, one of the audience members here in the group in person. Do you have any suggestions? I was thinking bleach. Bleach? They picked it. You got to give them something new. Think evil napalm. No napalm. Something accessible. Hey, Tannerite. Hey, what about Tannerite baby salt? Just a salt, like land snails. They're weak to salt, like slugs and snails and stuff. All right. What about salt? Just putting it out there. All right. Thank you, Casey. All right, so just to reevaluate, you could be a bitch and try to breed them that's out. You can use bleach and vinegar and you could piss in them and then also do a salt bake. So if that's not enough ideas, I don't know what is. If you got ideas on how you'd like to destroy MTS, please email us, message us on the Discord Aquariumguyspodcast@gmail.com. We'd love to hear your suggestions. And I promise you, PAX will be on for an episode. Gentlemen, you got any follow ups? Fernando, you got any questions for us?
Fernando: No? Thank you for having me on today.
Robbz: Thank you for coming all the way up. Nathan, Dan, Casey, you guys were a real riot today. Thank you.
Ad 2: Try Jeremy Wade's legend.
Nathan: That would be a kick ass assassin snail stank for sure. They would eat like crazy in that Malaysian tail or snail tank. That's my final.
Robbz: There you go. Well, guys, I'm going to do one last check before we leave the podcast for the live chat.
Dalton: Rob's Pivotal Punk had a question that we didn't answer way back when.
Robbz: Please question.
Dalton: My beta eats two to three grindelworms and a few bug bite pellets daily. Could I safely cut that back to every other day tanks having algae problems? So I figure I need to feed less.
Robbz: Hell, yes. And don't do it for two days at first and then go to every other day. Wean that tank off. Do a water change, and if you need to add more to the tank for sustenance in between, make that more of a how do we say, natural biome. Add some almond leaves in there and you won't believe what critters will be encouraged for hunting for said creatures in that tank. So put some botanicals in there and go down to that every other day. Oh, here we go. Last ones I see here. Brake fluid or brake cleaner? That one is actually solid. Instead of brake cleaner, though, I recommend carb cleaner. We don't want you to ruin the seal on your aquarium. Wait, what?
Ad 2: If you use WD 40, you displace all of the water in the snail, and the snail just unsnails.
Robbz: This is true. This is true.
Ad 2: Big brain. Move.
Robbz: All right, guys, hydrogen peroxide work.
Dalton: This is snail dip. Just for the record.
Robbz: No.
Ad 2: Dalton.
Robbz: Yes.
Ad 2: This is where we sign off.
Robbz: All right, until next time. Squish those. 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.
Ad 2: Put Adam in his place.
Robbz: The stuff I make came from a dumpster. Looks like a dumpster.
Ad 2: Then we found his house and put onion rings in his mailbox.
Robbz: Facebook is for old people. Mom, I want it. It's a dollar.
Ad 2: Sometimes you just got to sacrifice a few to the aquarium gods. Shit your pants.
Robbz: Yeah, shit your pants.
Ad 2: Shit your pants.
Robbz: Shit your pants. Shit your pants because you're a madman.
Fernando: He does have some nice pigeons.
Robbz: I'm a lot of guy to look at. Spit in my face. I'm a ho. Give us a bone. Oh, you're 20.
Ad 2: I can make those jokes, little aquarium schneef. The ops are on their way.
Robbz: You can suck my big toe.
Ad 2: Oh, yeah. A little bit of koi juice.