My shrimp is gone. My ship is going away. Yes, it has gone over to Joe Shrimpcheck.com today. Here at joe's tripe, we have all the shrimpy things for all your shrimp. You need tissue cultures, dwarf crayfish, kerodinia, neocaradenia shrimp king line of food, and most importantly, cho wood by the inch. Use promo code Aquarium Guys to check out for 15% off your entire order. Quit dreaming about the shrimp you should have bought and leave it blues to me. Welcome to the Aquarium Guys podcast with your host, Jim colby and Rob dolson. Hey, guys. Welcome to the podcast. So, Jimmy, you were telling me something about manatees dying or some some shit. That was tragic.

No, I was not talking about adam was talking about that.

Okay, I forgive you, Adam. I would have thought it was Jimmy, as well.

No.

So what happened, Adam, was the manatees.

I think, like, 664 died this year in Florida.

Holy crap. Yeah, I think we need to change the subject immediately. I'm rob zolson.

I'm Jim colby, and I have ran over no manatees.

I'm Adam El nashar, and I will.

Neither confirm nor deny that I have ran over manatees in Minnesota.

In Minnesota.

Minnesota.

In Minnesota. Well, today we have David boozer from the florida tropical fish and farm association. Thank you, David.

Glad to be here. And Happy New Year to you and all of your staff and the listeners.

Hey, we're all happy that 2020 can crash, burn and die.

Oh, man.

Yes, sir.

Never so happy to see something in my revermeir as 2020. What a crock.

I thought that was going to be, like, a dwi joke coming.

No, I did get the tequila virus this weekend.

You did?

Yeah, from New Year's Eve.

I'm glad to see that that's still making rounds in your house.

It comes from time to time. Yeah.

Clearly, there's no antibodies.

Obviously not.

Well, David, please join in anywhere you see fit. We're going to go over a couple items here that we're going to clean up before we get to your interview, but we have a few reviews that we haven't done. It's a new year, Jimmy, so we need to clean up our review board.

I know. I was thinking about we should do an extra podcast every week. Hate mail Friday.

Hate mail Friday.

Yeah, I think we should do that.

We need more hate mail. Clearly.

No, I'm just saying we'll just use the hate mail we got.

I mean, we're going to have, like, all two letters, not one.

It all depends how many your mom gets in.

Okay, we'll work on that. So, we got three reviews that we need to catch up on. So I'm going to go from the worst up. Right. So this is the title. Some good information. Three stars, and it's out of five. So I still think that's a pretty good review.

That's what I give the song some good information.

Right. So it says some good information, but sometimes the humor is too guy. I think he meant gay, and it was a typo. And itunes wouldn't let him type in the word gay. I'm not real sure. Guy doesn't seem to fit in unless he's just talking like we have macho humor, which I think we're just immature humor.

We have a lot of immature human immature humor. Yeah, absolutely.

It's all about farts and Nick ribs and diggeries.

We should talk about sensitivity.

Absolutely. We'll work on that training. In fact, we do have that meeting scheduled with HR already.

That is not going to be good.

Not going to be good. So hopefully we can get the recording of our HR meeting in one of a bonus episode or something for you guys.

I got a helmet and some shoulder pads to go to that meeting.

So humor is sometimes two. Guy, the fish hobby is broader than this. Three stars. So thank you, Chicago corey, for that wonderful review. The other ones are five star reviews, so we're at least back on, really, right? We can't please everybody, Jimmy, but you need to like, we never start you need to class act this up. We need to do the next interview in, like, a British accent or something just to change up the humor.

Hello, Governor.

Hello, Governor. anyways, next one, five stars. I came for the fish, stayed for the comedy. Just like those friends you barely know but has something in common with. You can tolerate them because they have nothing better to do. We keep it up, guys. All punt's intended. Wow.

Five stars and he tolerates us.

Yes.

It sounds like no, my first wife.

Didn'T tolerate that is all we can do.

No, she didn't.

Last interview. Interesting and funny. Five stars. I love the humor and really do learn a thing. Every single episode that I turn around and tell my family, then they promptly say, who cares? So keep off the good work. And more did you do?

He probably says, I learned something today. Everybody in Minnesota is retarded.

No, that's what he learns.

Yeah.

Can you imagine the people that listen to the turtle episode and be like, guess what I learned that turtles can breathe on their butt. Yeah. And then the mom just promptly went, who cares? That moved on.

That's good information, too.

To his girlfriend, his wife.

If you're trying to strangle a turtle underwater yeah.

Make sure his ass is covered.

Grabbed by the tail. Wow.

There's a lot to learn.

Yeah.

I will get an email about that, too.

It is. So we've answered a bunch of questions during the week, so it's hard to keep up the stuff we've done. We've had a few people thank us for some of the information that we found, and it really wasn't even ours. It was some of our guests. They thanked us, so they sent us pictures. Continue sending those pictures. We really do appreciate it. And I got to put a reminder here. We've done story time. If you haven't listened to Story Time, this is the first time listening to podcast. Go back to episode 18. Start on storytime one and work your way through. Story Time is requested by the fans. We have wonderful interviews, like one we're going to do today with David Boozer. But we have a lot of anecdotical stories, and the fans have asked to make podcasts of just those story times. So it's been very popular. And the next story time you want to do is your stories. So please submit them. Aquariumgeuyspodcast.com. At the bottom of the website, you'll find our contact information. We have an email phone number to call. Leave a text message. You can send us YouTube videos however you want to send your stories. We want to read your stories on storytime four.

You can take a coloring book, color some pictures, and just send that in.

We take that. Yeah, that's a good story.

We'll figure it out.

Speaking of which, little tangent. We finally did Christmas with my mom right now is like, what, the fourth after New Year's?

They're recording this january 4.

Right? So we finally did Christmas with my mother, and we got her like this. She loves adult coloring books where there's, like 400 pages of, like, early intricate pictures. You color.

I thought she meant, like, adult adult coloring book.

No, here's the don't be buying your mom that sort of stuff.

I bought her an adult adult coloring book for Christmas, and she didn't even phase her. She is always like, oh, I love these. And she's she's not actually looking at the picture. She's like, oh, I love these. And she just fans through it, not realizing it's an adult themed swear version of a coloring book. So I think she opened it up to, like, a dolphin flipping her off. It was it was a lot of lot of fun. So I hope that you guys all had a great holiday, as we did here at the Aquarium Guys podcast.

Rob, you're such an example of why some animals eat their young.

Are you saying I look delicious? No, I'm just saying you don't look bad yourself.

I'm saying your mom should have just ate you when you were bored, and then we wouldn't have this problem of you being so rude to your mom.

Well, before we go on to your news, we did have someone that found the perfect book for Adam on our Facebook page. They found the venomous and toxic marine life of the world.

I actually bought that book.

There you go.

There you go.

I bought it because they showed it to me. They literally mentioned him on Facebook immediately. He bought it, just so he knows. Now, there's actually the best part is in the bottom right hand corner, there's a first aid Fun Facts section. Fun Facts.

And the fun fact is you're going to die.

So I'm going to write into this person when they do, like, an X revision. We got to have Adam stories in there.

On a brighter note, I did find somebody that was going to sell me blue ring. octopus is really cheap, so when the.

Fish go on Aquabad to get your octopuses from Adam, wink, wink, nod, nod, wink, wink. Well, Jimmy, you brought your laptop. I feel like you got a little bit more news before we start an interview with David here.

No, I don't have any news.

You just brought it for sudoku.

Yeah. Basically, I'm just going to Google stuff in case if you get boring tonight, I'm just going to read some stuff on msn and stuff.

Oh, well, hopefully I brought you for.

Entertainment over the weekend. I had a couple of little elves in my workshop. And do you want to tell everybody what you did in my house, Rob?

All right, so we have this, like, new little podcast studio set up in my basement, and it's quite nice. TV in the wall. We have full lit studio. We're actually on twitch now. So if you want to see the videos of us Monday at 07:00 P.m. Doing the podcast slides, you can do it. Twitch Tvquaremguys. But we have this table that on the bottom of it actually says your ex wife's name. Yes. So we promptly drilled holes into it. So we can put Mike booms into it.

Yes.

So we can get rid of the evidence that we stole your ex wife's table. We need to buy a new podcast table. We found out how much podcast tables cost, shit our pants, and realized that we need to just build our own table. So me and my buddy were trying to build a table out of hardwood, and it really didn't work out for us. We burnt out a two horse drill.

And the funny part was, it wasn't my drill. So that's what's funny, right?

Just a little. It was a nice hot poof of smoke. It was a good time. So more of the story is we really need your donations to get that podcast table. According to podcast.com. Please donate. Are you okay, Jimmy?

Yeah. So, Rob, I had company over the weekend. I didn't get a chance to hear the help. Rob and him and his buddy were out of my garage, and my friend Wayne came out to ask him what they were doing. And then there was a 15 minutes conversation on tools and how as you mature, you buy better tools and stuff. So obviously, when you guys get older, you'll get a bigger drill.

Tada.

There we go.

Like pole. Start a drill or something. Make it like a chainsaw motor.

I think you guys probably should use one of those ice hoggers if you're.

Going to try to drill today that I can relate to.

All right.

So, Adam, you got any other news?

No, not yet?

Not yet. Wait, what are we waiting on?

Is your wife expecting?

Is my wife what?

Expecting.

Does she pee on a stick? No.

Just checking. Just checking more.

I think the government doesn't let you get any more money after the 6th or 10th or whatever.

What about, like a Catholic mandate?

No, that's why he can't live in China.

Wow. All right, so what are you not yet waiting on? I'm waiting I'm waiting on my room.

So I can get my blue rings.

Oh, okay. Adam is now working on his fish slash reptile room.

I swear to God, if we don't hear from Adam, you know it was blue ring octopus.

That's what his wife will tell us.

100%. I can see it happen.

All right, well, you can play with them.

I hope not. I'm glad to hear that, that you made that decision consciously. All right, let's get down to the interview. David, thank you for being so patient, sir.

Oh, no problem.

Well, David, we always ask everybody when they start the podcast, what got you into the hobby, and I didn't even check. Are you in the hobby for sure? Are you just in this for the career choices?

For the money?

Atta boy. Hey, attaboy. So are you yourself an aquarium hobbyist?

Do I have to tell the truth?

No, we lie all the time.

You can tell me whatever you want to tell me.

I have a very nice custom aquarium in my bedroom, but it's got plastic fish in it.

And a can of.

Anchovies floating on the bottom.

That is the best. We need pictures of this somewhere.

It's very nice.

Like, how big is this aquarium are we talking about?

It's about the size of a refrigerator.

So what you've done is you've got a picture window in your bedroom and you've taped plastic fish to it on the outside of your house.

No, I've got an aquarium that was custom built and it's in, I guess, an oxagon shape, has five windows around the shape of a stop sign, and it's about 6ft tall by about 3ft wide. And I just hung some fish in it that I don't have to feed.

So was there a plan to start fishing? You're like? Yeah, these plastic ones look real nice.

I'm tired.

I had a seven gallon aquarium in my TV room and that lasted several years.

Interesting. Well, then let's change the question.

Right.

You are the again, executive director of the Ftffa, the acronym for the Florida Tropical Fish and Farm Association. So what path did you take to become that executive director? Did you just out of high school take shop class and realize fish are more your thing?

No, I graduated from the University of West Florida back in 1972. And I came back to my hometown, which is Winter Haven, Florida, and I got a job. I had majored in communications and public relations, and I got a job in multiple association management. And one of my first associations that I was assigned as the account executive back then was the Florida Tropical Fish Industries Association. And from that over the decade of my career or the multiple decades I guess I've been doing it 48 years now I've worked with 16 to 18 Florida statewide trade associations and Ftffa was one of the first ones that I learned what a trade association was basically. And back in 1964 a group of tropical fish farmers from the Miami area formed the Florida Tropical Fish Industries Incorporated and it was a true cooperative. And for your audience let me say there's basically the irs recognizes two types of cooperatives. One is a purchasing cooperative and the other is a marketing cooperative. And the Florida Tropical Fish Industries was a purchasing cooperative. And at the time they bought, primarily their number one selling product that they bought was canned brine shrimp eggs. And then there were some other items mostly in the fish feed area, flake food and some other fish feeds that they would buy in bulk quantities and resell to their membership. When I came on with the association in 72 we were still under irs's definition a true cooperative. I think around 1974 irs knocked on my office door and said we'd like to take a look at your books. And so I gave them back then this was before computers so everything was in these handwritten column journals if any of you can remember those days. And several weeks later the irs representative came back, very nice gentleman, and he says you are not operating in the true means of a cooperative. Basically what they got us on a true purchasing cooperative. With the end of the year, if there's any profits they're supposed to be distributed equally on a pro sales basis formula to the memberships what they basically call a patronage dividend. At the same time, if there is any losses, those losses are to be assigned to the membership on the same page and it's dividend. And back in 74 the cooperative had a net worth of negative $37,000. And you can imagine if we were to go out and send an invoice to the members saying hey you owe us X dollars to keep this organization, this cooperative afloat. Well through some very long process we were able to with the help of some members and our management company we were able to reduce that $37,000 down to zero and then actually start making money for the cooperative. Now at the same time like I said, we were not filing or claiming a patronage dividend for the membership. So at the urging of irs they recommended that we just form a trade association. And since that time Florida Tropical Fish Farms Association has operated as a true trade association to promote and protect the interests of Florida tropical fish farmers and aquatic plant producers. Now also for the entire length of the history of the organization. We have in one way or another, maintained a cooperative store where we still buy fish farm supplies and resell them to our membership. And we've operated under various different formats. We've licensed our name to other companies to operate the business for us. We've had individuals that we paid a percentage of the sales to run the store for us. And then about eight years, nine years ago, we bit the bullet and took the whole cooperative back in our realm and put it back under the umbrella of the Florida Tropical Fish Farm Trade Association. And back in, I want to say in 2012 or thereabouts, we opened up a Storm store in waimama, which is just outside of Gibson riverview, which is in southwest hillsborough County, where the bulk of the Florida Tropical Fish Farms are today. We operated a store down there for approximately seven years. And then last year, actually two years ago, we formed a building search committee and we started looking for a building to buy and operate our store on our own. And I'm happy to say that last year, in fact, last December, a year ago 2019, we closed in a building and we now have our very own 10,000 square foot building in East Tampa. And I'm pleased to say that sales are strong. They're good. We've continued to expand our product line of available fish farm supplies to the industry, and we're looking forward to continuing to grow with the industry down the road.

Wonderful. So again, the entire idea of the cooperative is for a purchasing that you guys were originally doing is for the purchasing power to represent Florida Farms. For initially, you said brine shrimp and again went into other products and necessities as well.

That's correct. Fish Food branch, shrimp, eggs flake, food purina, ziggler. Those are just a number of different companies that we are distributors for bulk food items. We also handle a lot of chemicals and therapeutic compounds that are used to keep the fish healthy. Other items from everything from chopped to rubber boots to heat packs to rubber bands, shipping boxes, just about anything that a fish farm could use is available from our store.

I'd really love you giving that whole background, but the thing I think that needs to be clarified is now it's much more than just the co op. So what is the primary responsibilities of the Ftffa as it stands now that it's expanded so much more?

Well, right, like I said, the main purpose of almost every trade association is to promote and protect the interest of that industry. And that's what we do. We work closely. We have a keeper lobbyist in tallahassee to look out for our interests from a state level, primarily so that rules and regulations that are enacted by both the legislature and we come under the Division of Aquaculture, which is an arm department of the Florida Department of Agriculture, that all of the farms in Florida have a certification number and they're regulated. And be sure that they meet the best management practices program for that particular industry. We do some marketing. Our primarily marketing has been through for years, for over 21 years. We did a professional fish show that was held in Tampa every year where our members would put their best fish in a competitive setting and that were judged from judges from all over the world. I don't know one of my past presidents, Ross Sakalov, I don't know if that means anything to any of you guys, but he was basically the father of the professional fish show and we did that for 21 years. And then we became a part of now, the pida show and app of the American Pet Products Global Pet Expo that is held every spring in Orlando, where we have Aquatic Lounge, where we set up over 250 tanks and we invite our members to show the quality fish that is available from Florida. We also are involved immensely with the University of florida's research laboratory in ruskin, a tropical aquaculture laboratory. We have a dedicated research committee that meets two or three times a year with that staff to help work on new species that Florida can produce here, rather than import and tackle other problems such as lowering energy costs effectively, alternative to feeds, just basic fish health management programs.

So when you say fish health management programs, is that just done through? I'm seeing if this is you guys that are handling this or is that part of, I'm trying to see how that tied into the fish show or did I somehow mis grasp that?

Yeah, that's a separate thing. The fish show is part of marketing, of course, and the research part of it is something that our association is involved with, with the ifs, which is a part of the University of Florida. They have a number of different aquaculture related facilities throughout the state. And the one in ruskin is dedicated to primarily ornamental fish.

I have so many questions on the fish health bid. I think that's invaluable. So I'm trying to put myself in a fish farmer spot here. I'm trying to see what resources the ftfa would have for me and number one, the legal and political. So again, they're representing me in my interests and protecting me as a fish owner. They're helping with marketing, which again, if I'm a farmer, probably not the best person to make a website, take care of sao and seo, excuse me, and handle different advertising and even representing the specific people who are going to wholesale purchase my product. Then you help with, again, the co op specifically with purchasing. So you help me get my fish medications, my food and products that I need at a lower rate and cost. You're helping use the university's information to share information about fish health. Now, is this just their findings or is there some sort of like info swap between farmers on how to do things.

Well, they come out, of course, to fish farms and they're available on call for farmers having a Pacific problem, can call and have an extension agent come out and have a number of phds on staff. They can even ship or drop off their fish. If they have some species that they're having an issue with that can be diagnosed through their lab facilities, there recommend treatment. And basically, just like you and I go to the doctor and they tell us what's wrong and if you're scraping medications, therapeutic compound for us, just to.

Have that alone is amazing. Just to have access to that. And is this part of like you can contact them, they help the club and the club pays their way and you get so many hours or just having the access to them and then they get billed like a veterinarian.

They're supported through the University of florida's funding program.

Oh, that's even better.

Most of their services are free. They do do some coursework. Of course everything has changed in the last twelve months due to the current virus situation. But they would offer once or twice a year, an in depth two day hands on fish health management course, where you would spend 8 hours for two days dissecting fish, looking at them under a microscope, trying to help the farmers as much as they can to finding and diagnose their own problems. And there was a fee for that. But basically it covered just basically the cost of some lab supplies and stuff.

As much as this seems like enough, or should I say surprisingly more than what people would expect. What other things do you do for the association and the farmers they represent?

Well, that's an open ended question. Let me just say that our primary purposes is to promote and protect the industry. No matter the big farmers and shippers or the small guys, we do our best to play fair amongst all of our members. I'd have said we publish a little quarterly newsletter that keeps them posted. Lately we're sending out tons of emails about the various stimulus programs and other news that would affect them and their business that we dream from over the internet. And we're active. We got a board member that's on the pet industry joint advisory council play a part with the national aquaculture association and the two big organizations. Actually, there's three of them the world pet association, the american pet products association, and the pet industry distributor association. We work closely with all of them to further the interest of tropical fishkeeping and forget. For five years we participated in the aquatic experience and I think for four or five years it was held in Chicago, and then one or two years it was held in newark, New Jersey. And we played a big part in that by having the ftfa wall of fish. And again, it was just another avenue where we helped market our members livestock to both the public and distributors and retailers.

What does it take to be an upstanding and upright member? I'm a farmer. Let's role play here. I'm a farmer. I have rob's coy farm in Florida. What is my requirement to join the ftfa?

Very simple. We have a website. There is a membership application available. It's a pdf on that. First of all, let me say we have two classes of membership. One is a regular, which is a tropical fish farm or aquatic plant facility nursery in Florida. And your livelihood comes from the production and selling of tropical fish or aquatic plants. That is the definition of what I call a regular member. There is a one time initiation fee of $50 and the annual dues are $100. If you're not a fish farmer or an aquatic plant producer, you can become an Associate member. We take anybody who's got $100 as an Associate member. But primarily our associate members are distributors, vendors to the industry, jobpers retailers, pet store chains, some of the larger ones, and basically firms that are somehow involved in the ornamental fish industry.

So I'm already going to get already a bunch of pms from our fans listening right now. What does an Associate member get as far as that $100 entry? I'm assuming you guys have, what, monthly meetings, quarterly meetings?

Well, we did many years ago do monthly meetings. Then we went quarterly. And last year, and it looks like it, any meetings we have are going to be virtual over the internet or conference call or something like that. And we did do quite a bit of educational seminars with the University of florida's facility there in ruskin that I mentioned earlier. But everything has really come to a standstill since, I guess, March of last year. Hopefully things are going to change in the next six to eight months and we can get back to our normal, whatever that is, lifestyle.

So it's fair to say you're extending it out to members that want to be a part of a fish club. But the information and meetings that you guys provide and seminars are very much geared to the industry, whether it be farmers or part of the things that focus on the ftfa's farm members.

Correct. We are a trade association and I want to differentiate that from being an aquarium society or hobbyist club or something like that. Our number one objective is to promote the business of Florida tropical fish farmers. Is that simple?

Well, you hear to her first. If you guys want to become an Associate member, you can put in an application, spend your $100, and get true insider information when they do these virtual meetings wherever you're at in the United States, we're going to have to get in there.

Jimmy, you can go to our website and if you want to see the most, like I said, we publish a quarterly newsletter. But the only part of the newsletter we're currently putting on our website is the President's message, which is basically kind of a summary of what's going on in the industry. And every three to four months we kind of highlight what's happening, what's new, what's happening for Florida fish farmers. And that is accessible, like I said, from our website, Ftfa.com now for those.

Are listening, because I have a list of things to go over for those that are listening that want to purchase fish wholesale from farmers in mass quantities. Generally they have to go through some sort of distributor, like a cigarette farms or something else. Because pet stores aren't probably going to be doing thousands of fish at a crack, they're going to be doing hundreds, if that. Normally smaller quantities for smaller stores. But if someone's listening, that somehow qualifies for the amount of purchases you'd purchase from a fish store. How does one contact your members? Do they go through the Ftffa or do they talk to a rep or they just go directly and look through your list and contact the farmers directly?

Yeah, we have a membership directory on our website and again we break it down into the two classifications of membership types, farm members and associates. So if they go to Ftfa.com and look for a directory of regular members, they will see there's approximately somewhere around 75 farms listed there. And we do, let me say this, we don't make any attempt to keep priceless from the individual farms here in our office. I mean, they're constantly changing. What's available from each farm is almost on a weekly basis of what's available due to supply and demand and time of year, et cetera. But if they can meet the minimum purchase requirements, I'm sure most of the farms be glad that those that ship and not all farms ship. Let me say that most of them, a good number of them sell locally. In other words, they're a farm that sells to another farm that does ship. That's part of their business model.

So I want to get back into some more of our listener questions, and we already got a few on discord. Again, if you want to join us, we do these generally on Monday at seven Central. You can join us going to aquariumbased podcast.com. You'll find our link to discord. That's what we're using. And we also stream on twitch. But one of the questions we had here, there's actually a question that was pre done knowing this is from pagan swordsman, knowing that research for life cycle, particularly breeding habits and preferred breeding habits of any animal species that's expensive, have fish farm groups pooled their resources to fund research into species that are in the hobby. But we don't know about much in the wild. So we talked about a little bit about universities and fish health, but is there any other research going on, for instance, new ways to appropriate species or here particularly difficult breeding habits of certain fish.

Yes, that's another objective that we work closely with. The tropical aquaculture laboratory is that we're looking for them to develop basically, if you will, a cookbook on how Florida fish farmers can produce new varieties of fish that are typically coming out of, say, South America or Southeast Asia and what species could be adapted to be produced here in the Us. By Florida farmers.

Now, you guys have been an association for a long time. What is some of or maybe just pick one of the accomplishments that you guys have done that came out of just the Florida farms as part of the association? Something unique, something through the many years you guys been doing this.

I would have to say our biggest accomplishment was we helped pass the Florida Aquaculture act. And I think that was back in 1986. And it basically in the state statutes of Florida defined that aquaculture is agricultural. Prior to that, to have a fish farm, you had to go through as many as six or seven different state and local county agencies to get all the permitting done. What this basically did was put all the permitting under the division of aquaculture. So it was basically one stop permitting with the exception of water use permits, which the water management district still retains to this date. If you've got a well or if you're using surface water, which is not practical for fish farms, you have to have a consumptive use permit and the water management districts retain that permitting policy.

I live in Minnesota and I can't even imagine the paperwork I have to do here in Minnesota for any type of fish farm. In fact, can we have fish farms in Minnesota? We can, but there are so many stipulations, it's insane. And when we say fish farms, it's not like, for instance, jimmy and I going down, down main street, purchasing a warehouse and doing it out of a building. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about like the at scale fish farming that they do in Florida, which is a lot of like dirt ponds, huge facilities, stuff like that. And Minnesota is super aggressive because we have to be, we have over 18,000 lakes in Minnesota. Such huge natural resources that the dnr have to be super aggressive when it comes to invasive species. That's something we have to deal with. And it's not even invasive species such as fish. It's the plants to some of the biggest issues that Minnesota has. So trying to do that, just undoing the permits that I've seen with my friends that have a zoo, for instance, is an absolute nightmare. So that is a huge accomplishment to have a state that's especially in your area, you're the everglades in their tropical state with vast natural resources. To have all the permitting and everything in one place, that's astronomical. That's why, in my opinion, Florida is the heartbeat of fish farms in the United States?

Yes. And like I said, when you ask me what's our biggest accomplishment, I had to sit and think for a moment, but that really the onestop. Permitting has been a lifesaver for the industry. I just can't imagine having to go through all these little county and city environmental protection committees, especially in today's environment. I hate to use the word environment, but in political environment, with all the activists and everything, I don't know without it, if you could even start a fish farm or any kind of a damn farming operation these days.

See, I really expected them to say dodging the irs would be their biggest accomplishment.

We're working on that.

Fingers crossed.

Fingers crossed. I know a lot of our listeners are going, can I buy from you guys directly? And you do have a retail store that you can purchase from, correct?

Yeah, what we call the Ftfsa co op store. And again, I want to say that that is just a fictitious name, but yes, our website is Ftfacoop.com. You can go there. And again, primarily many of the products are in larger quantities, but we do have some hobbyists and even some aquarium societies that will pull their purchase together and make a big bulk purchase and then split it up. Kind of like a drop shipment arrangement and split up an order of something when it arrives at one members. But we've got also a few members, and I don't want to get into any names, but we do have some members who have some websites and some social media outlets that their primarily niche and business model is to sell to the public.

I've been down there many times in your retail store, and one of the most favorite things that I have purchased there is the stainless steel wire nets. Do you guys still sell those?

Oh, yes. Have you been to Tampa lately? Since we moved? We've actually moved in May the first.

Nope, I have not been there since then. I've probably been to your other location in that strip mall probably five or.

Six well, we've been out of the strip mall for six or seven years at least, and we're in our new location since May.

Yeah. And what I was talking about, for those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, like myself, they have these large stainless steel rim nets that last you a lifetime. And they have a very soft netting that's actually hand sewn on there. And if your net ever goes bad, then you can just send your handle in and they'll re net you. And these are some phenomenal nets. They're not cheap, but if you're handling large amounts of fish, they're just so handy. I can't even tell you. And I don't let anybody borrow my stainless steel nets. I've got about four of them and they're hanging. I probably use them twice a year. But when you need them. They sure are nice to have.

Well that and they have so many unique products that you can't get a lot of other places else. I have a bunch of people messaging me like, oh, how am I supposed to ship fish to the northwest and in the middle of winter? Well get styrofoam boxes. People just end up trying to build their own Styrofoam box. It lets a lot of heat through it's not necessarily the best choice. Do you guys have prepacked Styrofoam boxes that are rated and intended for fish for fair prices? Honestly now, is it going to be cost effective to ship eight boxes empty through the mail? Not as cost effective as you think. But if you can't get a hold of something in your area without building your own foam cooler, that's the best option you got.

You'll find that most pet stores will give you their sterophone boxes that they have in their back room just to get rid of them. Right now I pay anywhere between seven dollars to eleven dollars a box. And when I get down to that box, I keep a couple and I throw away the rest. So if you're ever looking for some boxes, just contact your local aquarium store, throw them a couple of bucks and they'll be happier than heck.

And Adam, glad you mentioned the, the box because actually we had a committee back in the, I want to say the late 70s, early 80s, that met with Styrofoam manufacturer and we actually designed the first netting I'm sorry, nestling box that's now used by the industry. Prior to that, these Styrofoam boxes were just square boxes, didn't have the nesting capability that they have now where when they're empty, you just stack one on top of another and you can have a stack of 20 boxes like 7ft tall or so. And the association has partnered with a number of different Styrofoam manufacturers to produce the box for us. And we received a commission to the trade association on the sales. We call it basically a box fee that helped us support our marketing and research priorities.

And Jimmy and I had a fun time making fort. Kick ass.

With all the foam coolers, our man cave.

Without a TV, you basically feel like it's an igloo, but you're not cold.

And it squeaks a lot.

Very squeaky. Very squeaky. And Wind will ruin the fort. Kick ass. You heard it here first. Well, Adam, you've been quiet this episode. You got any questions for David?

No, I was listening to the history and everything. It was really good. So I don't have any questions because some of the stuff may or may not be legal.

You know what, David reserves the right to plead the fifth, don't you David?

Oh yes, definitely. So if you don't mind, before I go, let me touch very briefly on a cooperative that was tried here in Florida and why I think it failed.

Wait, did you guys start the got fish campaign? Because I loved it.

We did the fish head campaign. Actually, we called it dive in. I did dive into aquatic fish, and we did that with the department of agriculture, seafood and aquaculture marketing division, and we were a partner with them for about three years. And there were some other big players also involved in that, money wise.

And why did it fail now? You got me.

Ran out of money.

Well, it didn't fail. We just ran out of money. It's a big country, and to do a nationwide marketing campaign takes a lot of money.

Well, we have a question now again from the audience. What is the current field of research that the association is currently sponsoring?

Well, right now, we're looking at there's five or six, and I'd have to pull up my spreadsheet, and I don't have it open. Five or six of new fish that we're looking at that could be successfully produced here in Florida.

Oh, you have to give us that sheet.

If you can give me a minute, I might be able to tell you a couple of them.

Oh, we'll hold as long as you need. That's golden information right there. You heard it here first, boys.

Adam goes blue ring octopus. Blue ring octopus, blurring octopus.

That's what he wants, actually. I don't know if you can breed them in captivity. That's kind of why I'm getting them that in liquor scorami is just to tell Rob to suck it.

I honestly do want those.

All right, here's our list in no particular order. High thin, branded, shark, glass, catfish, black brand sunfish, elephant nose, parrot fish whoa, whoa.

Elephant nose is bred successfully in captivity.

Yeah, I need to know about this. This is some of the new items that we're working with at the lab Herbird, and that's in our newsletter.

David, david, you're such a tease.

Send me $100 cash, and I'll see that you get it by fitting.

Hey, we'll see what we can do. We'll have some of our members join the association as a side hustle member. Well, David, I've saved the worst for last night, so that wasn't the worst. So I appreciate you went in detail. We got quite a bit of information. And again, if you guys want to join the Ftffa in any capacity, whether you're in the industry or you are a farm yourself, certainly go to ftffa.com to find the form to apply. And there's also Ftff.com for their store that they do allow public to get some of the prices at a little bit of a higher rate than the co op members. So certainly check that out. They have a lot of crazy good products that are hard to find elsewhere. Now, the difficulty, David, between you and me, I have a lot of issues with people coming up to me in two sectors since this podcast has begun that I did not predict number one, everybody in their mom wants to have a fish rescue. They see our friends, like, at the Ohio Fish Rescue and they see the amount of love and support and who doesn't want, like, as a kid want to start up a humane society to help creatures, right? That is a bar none like the introductory level of how people want to care for animals for a living. They find it rewarding. But people take advantage of this situation and say that I'm going to start up a fish rescue. And it's not at all what I would deem to be a fish rescue. They essentially are just a place to receive free items. Most of the time they don't even accept all fish. They deny some fish for other purposes or they just grab them for the sake of doing a quick resale and liquidizing on ebay for a profit. They're not actually filed as a 501 and I have a lot of issues with that and see a lot of these places pop up and come and go. We've tried to educate the public in our own means because we get messages on this a lot on what an actual rescue shop would be and should be. The other one that I get is a ton of people want fish coops. They message us saying, hey, you guys give all this great information out. You guys should become a fish co op. And I think that's an education issue that we have from a lot of different perspectives, from content creators, people in the industry. And this term has not been understood well. So you explaining it in the way you did is fantastic because the traditional coops, you see, let's take like a food coop, you have to become a member. Members get discounts and pricing that no one else gets or no one has access to because of their buying cooperation. And they either get dues or have to pay in based upon how that cooperative is set up. Fish co ops that are advertised, such as fish co ops, there is no membership. There is no special area where, as you said, the irs represents them as a purchasing cooperative, meaning they get shared prices between the members and only the members, or a marketing cooperative where it's showing the intent of its members. So I'm so tickled that you got to take the time tonight, explain this to us on what this actually is and that you guys no longer even qualify for those statuses due to some of the deficits you are protecting your members from. It's very hard to maintain and I think this is the education we really needed.

Well, I appreciate it. And let me add, although we are not a true cooperative, under irs rules, for the last five years we have given back to our farm members on a prorated basis just as though that we were a cooperative under irs, anywhere from $40 to $30,000 at Back Prorated annually. And we just did that this past last month, we returned $30,000 to Florida farmers.

That's fantastic. It's literally their money, their membership, their patronage, going into an association that really does represent all of their interests. And again, we only scratch the surface on the topics that you guys do and only give a couple of examples on each. Again, legal, political, marketing, purchasing, fish, health, fish research, product research. There's so much that you guys do for the farm associations and really are the heartbeat of the industry, thanks to you guys. So can't explain enough on the differences between an actual association or co op versus how people brand it or misuse it. Well, David, is there anything super important that we missed or any anecdotes that you would like to add?

I can't think of anything right off hand, but I'm sure on my drive home, back to home tonight, I'll think of something. I'll say, darn, why didn't I tell him about this? We did, but we'll save that for another time.

Well, I can't thank you enough again. And if you guys got more questions for him again, you can message us at the Aquarium Guys podcast. You can email us, text us, we will certainly reach out to David for you. David is a busy man, so don't bombard him. But again, if you guys want to become a member and help out the society, certainly go to the Ftffa.com and there's an application and a fee that you can pay and become of an insider group that clearly has figured out Elephant Knows on scale. So I can't wait to see this.

Well, thank you so much.

Thank you. Jimmy, you got the last notes?

No, I think that looking forward to this next year here. After last year, I think, you know, we've had this conversation, rob's and Adam, all three of us at one time or another, about people who are out there raising fish and stick with it. Right now, the attention that the fish are getting has never been any higher in the last ten years with this pandemic going on. So if you're raising guppies or plecos or whatever you're raising in your basement and stuff, get those things bred, get them out to your local pet stores. I would rather bad buy a locally bred guppy or pleco rather than an import item from overseas. Right out.

Go Florida Farms.

Thank you.

Thanks, Dave. Until next week, guys. 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 accent could be so sexy until I heard adam's voice. Go frank yourself.

Don't you know that's my boy? Don't you know.