#75 – Setup To Fail...

COMMON MISTAKES TO DODGE!

3 years ago
Transcript
Speaker A:

Hey, all you fish heads out there. My name is Smoke and Joe and I have some questions. Do you have fish? Do you love your fish? Do you love your fish enough to buy them their own song? Who needs another castle for the tank? And you can have a custom tune made for your favorite finned friend. It's easy. You tell me about your fish. You pick a genre of music, I make you a song from metal to Irish bulk, from EDM to funk to punk. I'd love to make a song for you. Visit www. Dot smoke and Joeonline.com to fill out your inquiry today. That's www dot SM okinjoe online.com today.

Speaker B:

I tell you what fellow going to keeping an ant tank.

Speaker C:

On Joe Shrimp shack and better say 15 on in order. I got cross gram shoulders and then.

Speaker B:

Even got the batwater now crying out.

Speaker C:

Loud a bit my spring around there.

Speaker B:

I got to tell you. What are you out now now bucket joe Shrimpshack.com. No translation needed. Last thing before we start the podcast is please submit your story time episodes. We do storytime and it's a bunch of fun stories about our experiences, good and bad, about the hobby of aquarium. Certainly submit those in. If you haven't listened to storytime in the past, go listen to some submit stories. Go to aquariumguyspodcast.com and the by the website you'll find our email address, phone number, send your stories in any format, video, written, other, we'll take them and we're going to select our favorite ones to play in the story. Time for let's kick that podcast now.

Speaker A:

Welcome to the Aquarium, guys. Podcast with your hosts, Jim colby and Rob dolson.

Speaker B:

Jimmy holy shit. We're in the worst luck ever.

Speaker C:

Wasn't for bad luck. We'd have the luck at all.

Speaker B:

We lost our guests. Right? Guests had internet issues. So we will have the plant specialists in another future episode. But also our backup plan was you were stuck at the Schmelta Lines airport.

Speaker C:

Schmelt. Don't even get me started on this.

Speaker B:

Okay, Jimmy, now that you're ordering fish more and more, can we actually plan this where we have a live podcast where we just discuss things back and forth while you're waiting to pick up fish at Schmelta?

Speaker C:

I think I should be miced up and go into Schmelta Airlines and stuff and I don't think nobody's going to catch on until the police arrest me and find it on me before they put me in jail.

Speaker B:

I will appel your ass. I'm not even kidding. But I'm Rob Zulson.

Speaker C:

Hey, I'm Jim colby.

Speaker D:

And I'm Adam ella Shire.

Speaker B:

And today, joining us, we have again, since there is no normal guest scheduled, we decided to bring one of our moderators from the discord, which you guys should be on. Sunny, how are you doing?

Speaker E:

Good. Fantastic.

Speaker B:

So, Sunny, thanks for coming on and just a little bit about you, can we get your age, location and what fish.

Speaker C:

You keep social security number, and if.

Speaker B:

You'Re available no, wait, no, guys, don't put that in the chat. That was inappropriate.

Speaker E:

I'm about 29, working on restarting my aquariums because I recently moved across country. So currently I have two shrimp tanks and some sparkling guruami on the way.

Speaker B:

Sparkling Guami are pretty awesome. Well, Sunny, you've been with us for a long time as a moderator of the discord. This is our selfish plug. Come on to the discord, guys. Go to aquariumguyspodcast.com, join the debauchery, and come see what we have to offer here. It's a whole lot of fun, for sure. We have live questions. It's actually really booming. We even have tonight people from the UK. It's like 02:00 a.m. Their time that we're recording this, but totally worth it. So come see the discord, meet fun people like Sunny, and join the debauchery 07:00 p.m. Central mondays on the aquarium. Guys, discord would be this and also twitch TV, which we're not doing tonight since I had an issue with it and our guest has canceled. So this one's just for the discord people. Got to give some love to you guys. But the topic of the evening that we're going to talk about is doom to fail.

Speaker C:

Doomed to fail if we don't have.

Speaker B:

An expert to come on the podcast, because we can talk with our expertise on a lot of different fish. But what would you rather have? Would you rather listen to essentially three guys and a fanboy?

Speaker C:

I'll talk about fanboy.

Speaker B:

Well, we're going to have Will. He's known as the plant daddy of our discord. Will was supposed to come on tonight and tell us all he knows about the wonderful of the plants. He is so busy doing it, he's almost ready to go full time selling plants. So I figured who better to have a wealth of knowledge? But no, if we don't have an expert on, we could talk about something, but let's get the expert on for the topic if we can help it. But no one's better than us. Jimmy failing.

Speaker C:

Oh, man, we suck. No, actually, we're great at failing.

Speaker B:

PhD, baby.

Speaker C:

Yeah, I've got an eight year degree in sucking.

Speaker B:

And that's why we have Sunny on here, because she hasn't done it wrong yet.

Speaker C:

No, but we're hoping to spend a lot of her money tonight. sonny, if you could just give us a blank check for about $500, we will show you how to lose it in about half an hour.

Speaker E:

Oh, I think I've already lost it all. But, you know, I could give you some tips on losing money.

Speaker C:

There we go. Without even leaving the house. You don't even have to go to the damn casino. Just go buy some of these fish that we're going to talk about here. And Adam is going to be talking a little bit about things that he failed at. So that should take three minutes because he's perfect. He's perfect.

Speaker B:

Picture perfect.

Speaker C:

He's a beauty. He is.

Speaker B:

Okay.

Speaker C:

I look at him and I just go, he's a pretty man, isn't he?

Speaker B:

It's those dashing eyebrows with lee.

Speaker C:

It is. It's just basically one eyebrow that goes all the way across this for you. It's called a unibrow.

Speaker B:

It's a unibrow. Look at that is a chiseled eyebrow.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

That is not a brow. How dare you?

Speaker D:

That's my glasses, jackass.

Speaker B:

Oh, okay.

Speaker C:

Thank God. Never mind.

Speaker B:

Okay. Yeah. It's so much better now.

Speaker C:

I think we hit a nerve with malibu can there.

Speaker B:

Well, we should notify people on the state that we're in, since we give people updates on our lives. I woke up this morning and saw it was 37 below outside.

Speaker D:

I missed that cold.

Speaker B:

When did we wake up and realize that this land is forsaken oh, my God.

Speaker C:

I was late for the podcast. I apologize to everybody. I left fargo, North Dakota, which is 1 hour, ten minute drive, and the sun was just going down, and it was one degree above zero in fargo. And by the time I got home, an hour ten minutes later, 16 below.

Speaker B:

And then falling fast, that was like, what, 08:00 730? Yeah, right? For those that are in other countries besides the United States that uses fahrenheit, let me help you do a conversion. Right. So negative 37 degrees fahrenheit is negative 38 degrees celsius.

Speaker C:

Is it really?

Speaker B:

It literally meets there in the middle.

Speaker C:

Wow.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

We suck.

Speaker B:

We unilaterally suck. No matter where you're at and how those measurements go. And wait, I have to do this now? Weather in Antarctica, according to oceanwide expeditions.

Speaker C:

Antarctica is colder than the Arctic.

Speaker B:

All of these factors combine to keep antarctica's average coastal weather around minus ten degrees celsius to 14 degrees fahrenheit and inland around -55, degrees celsius -67 degrees fahrenheit. Right. So did you did you catch that right there? Right? It fluctuates normally between 14 negative 14 to negative 67. So what is it right now in Antarctica? In Antarctica, right? It is literally they're negative 33.

Speaker C:

We're colder than Antarctica right now.

Speaker B:

The penguins are sitting there chuckling warmer than we are in Minnesota.

Speaker C:

Yeah, they're just chuckling their ass hostels. Stupid penguins.

Speaker B:

All right, so thank you. jealous.

Speaker C:

What? What's your temperature down there in southern Minnesota?

Speaker D:

It is, I think, two below right now.

Speaker C:

Oh, no.

Speaker B:

That changed 100%. Wow.

Speaker C:

That makes me feel much better about myself.

Speaker B:

Right? That changed 100%.

Speaker D:

I don't know. We didn't even get above zero last yesterday, and I was fine with it because I'm used to it. Oh, negative six. I lied. Sorry.

Speaker C:

It's just going to get worse. This is kind of the highlight of the week. It's going to get colder in the week. Anyway, enough.

Speaker B:

Piston and mona, we just want to tell you that that way, if jimmy's Dick falls off, you know, by his.

Speaker C:

Own practice no, it's not going to fall off.

Speaker B:

That's the one part that will remain on frostbitten.

Speaker C:

I will say this. My wife hurt my feelings last week on groundhog's Day.

Speaker B:

Oh, no.

Speaker C:

I came out of the shower, she looked at me, she goes, oh, didn't see your shadow, huh? Not very nice.

Speaker B:

There's nothing better than a good penis joke. Thank you, Jimmy.

Speaker C:

Yeah.

Speaker B:

All right, so we got that mission accomplished. So to dive in the subject of today, we're going to do this in two different formats because we have a wide range of listeners. So we're going to start with the beginners. If you guys are joining the podcast and somehow this was your first podcast, number one. Stop. Go back. All right, go back to episode 18. Get out.

Speaker D:

18 is the best.

Speaker B:

118 is our favorite. That is the in house favorite. What is it, story time?

Speaker C:

What did you say?

Speaker E:

I said, arguably, what is your favorite, sonny? Mine is the bait Guy you had on.

Speaker B:

You like hoot. Jimmy loves hoot, too.

Speaker E:

I love hoot.

Speaker C:

Wow. That is who was great. You need to give me the name of your drug dealer. My goodness. Yeah. hoot was quite a hoot. That actually is his name, hoot.

Speaker B:

We got a lot of feedback on that. We didn't even come back to the podcast to talk about it.

Speaker C:

Is he a Minnesota cajun? How do you describe him?

Speaker B:

Honestly? So Minnesota has their full on oh, don't you know? Now try to match that with a full on French cajun. It's like a French Canadian mixed with a cajun. That's kind of what you're getting with the hoot.

Speaker C:

Compare a hoot to swamp people, and the swamp people are like lesbians. They're like shakespeare people compared to this guy.

Speaker B:

As far as the accent goes, who doesn't live like those people on Discovery Channel? He's a classy, upstanding gentleman, but there's a whole demeanor. That's a very flavorful demeanor. 100%. Absolutely. He cleaned it up for the podcast, but first time Jimmy met hoot, he literally looked at me, and I had to translate word for word on what was going on because you were 100% clue.

Speaker C:

I was sober, too, and I was like, what is this guy talking about?

Speaker B:

It is really fun if you ever get Jimmy and parties, he tries to imitate. Who.

Speaker C:

Yeah. I can't do it right now.

Speaker B:

So shout out to Mr. becker. But no, start an episode 18. Kick it off. Have some fun. Get a good taste of the aquarium, guys. But we're going to dive in first to beginners to talk about species, mainly that are doomed to fail and why they're doomed to fail. So you if you want to attempt them as a new aquarist, either make the correct decision not to or at least know generally why they fail. So you don't have to make that original mistake because we've already made it for you.

Speaker C:

Yeah. It's a lot cheaper to let somebody else make the mistake. That's what God dang sure.

Speaker B:

And then we're going to cater to the advanced hobbyists and tell them how to lose even more money and tell them what's doomed to fail as far as wholesale, because Jimmy has tons of experience. Adam and I all on what fails when you buy them in bulk. So to start off, pick on the biggest thing. It's doomed to fail. Goldfish. Goldfish. Goldfish are doomed to fail.

Speaker C:

Jimmy how is that? I don't believe you.

Speaker B:

Well, Adam, why are they doomed to fail?

Speaker D:

Because people stuck him in little goddamn tiny bowls.

Speaker B:

I feel like this is going to be adam's going to be much anger. Adam my good custom flares salt boxes.

Speaker D:

That I get when they go and they try to buy one of those 25 cent goldfish and then a Beta bowl, and then they go, this fish can live in that, right? No.

Speaker B:

Excuse me.

Speaker D:

At my pet store, they would do that all the time.

Speaker B:

Adam it's COVID they're $0.60, okay?

Speaker D:

60 cent goldfish. They were a quarter.

Speaker C:

Isn't that amazing? People spend $6 on a damn bowl, but they only spend a quarter on a freaking goldfish.

Speaker D:

But they don't stick the goldfish in bowls. They need filtration and they need space, and they're carp, and they're just dirty fish. Don't throw them outside. Don't use them for fishing bait.

Speaker B:

All right? So number one, let them live with.

Speaker C:

Another dirty fish, and Oscar just say.

Speaker D:

That they get eaten, right?

Speaker B:

So number one alex Adams.

Speaker C:

Problem solved.

Speaker B:

Doomed to fail. A cheap fish gets stuck in cheap things, and people don't really do it because they're just trying to I don't know, meme, the hobby. They're not taking the hobby seriously. They're not treating it as a normal pet. Would you want a puppy? Are you going to put a puppy in a crate and stick them in the corn corner and see how long he lasts? No, we're going to treat the puppy like we care about him. Love them. So I don't know what the detachment is with it. I think that if you sell something for cheap, they're going to treat it like a piece of shit. I think that's always a big thing. It looks like bait, smells like bait. It has more color. Let's treat it like bait. Don't do that. And then also, if you have the same 25 to 60 cent goldfish, you need to know how big they get in long they live. Common goldfish go up to 45 years. How long do you want to be stuck with a fish? I would love to be stuck, personally, that long. Most people don't know the commitment, and they don't know they grow ten to 13 inches.

Speaker C:

I don't want a woman along that road.

Speaker B:

Right. You have to have a 55 gallon tank to keep it, and then you have to have that tank forever. I'm confused. What was your goal? And people are like, oh, it lived for two years. It must have lived a long and healthy life. No, something went very wrong. Or it only held on for two years. Stop it.

Speaker D:

It became koi that I read about. That was 120 years and going, what?

Speaker B:

It was in Japan.

Speaker D:

It was in a pond. And this family takes care of it. They pass it to the next generation and it's the same koi. I want to say it's like 130 some years.

Speaker B:

Let's talk about a little tangent, because I went on another podcast, Myth Story, and they wanted to talk about the fish that crosses over the river, turns into a dragon. It's a Chinese myth story, right? So I was there to tell them a little bit about the real deal. And Hannico is the oldest recorded koi, which follows that exact description. Adam 226 years old.

Speaker D:

Yeah, they'll live for a long time. If you take care of them.

Speaker B:

That's a coy.

Speaker C:

It died in 1977.

Speaker B:

Yeah. They have, like a whole history on what it lived through and all kinds of crazy shit. Honestly, it's just one of the craziest stories if you ever want to look into it. Hannakocoi.com again, two centuries, two decades and six extra years. It was more of a red koi. There's a ton of things are you james Cook discovered the Australia in 70. All the way through elvis in the beatles. Think about that. That's a lot.

Speaker C:

Was this fish just frozen like an iceberg and people just thought it was alive?

Speaker B:

Well, if it was still alive, walt Disney would have captured it. And frozen ice.

Speaker D:

I thought walt Disney was frozen in ice.

Speaker B:

He is, but he wants a fish with him just to show how I.

Speaker C:

Thought they cut his head off or something. I don't know. Maybe that's somebody else.

Speaker B:

Well, before he gets sued by Disney, we should continue on. All right, number two secret monster fish. I'm just going to put those and lump them into a category secret like nobody knows. Right? So let's pick on a few paku. You just go right to the best one. So number one fish that is picked on that I think that is most abused for tropical fish, quote unquote, in the Ohio fish rescue opinion, is the paku people are always like, oh, wouldn't it be cool if we got a piranha, Jimmy? And they're like, oh, but that could bite my kids fingers. Do you have anything better? And they go, we have a vegetarian piranha for you and it only cost you $3. How great is this after COVID.

Speaker C:

That'S too much.

Speaker B:

Too much.

Speaker C:

$3 is too much for freaking paku.

Speaker B:

So they don't tell them that those things get bigger than a garbage can lid. We're talking the big boys, too, like, take your hand as big as me.

Speaker C:

It's not possible.

Speaker B:

Fat jokes.

Speaker C:

No, I'm just saying, shamu looks at you and goes, I probably could take him, but probably not, right?

Speaker B:

If you want to have some fun. Go on to YouTube, look at the Ohiofish channel. betty the paku, sitting in 125 gallon tank so big it couldn't turn around or swim right. Living in there for 18 ish years and just suffering. Essentially they brought it back and it couldn't swim right because it never really swam for years and didn't have the exercise and was hyperventilating because it was out of breath, just swimming, holding its own body mass up. How horrible.

Speaker C:

And they named this betty.

Speaker B:

Betty. The paku.

Speaker C:

Betty, the pacou.

Speaker B:

Okay, still in a while, afar, still doing great. Older than hell. Massive, massive paco. So that's just one of many stories. But even normal fish, right, you see a knife fish that was three inches at a pet store. Those things get massive. Clown knives get absolutely record size. They're game fish now in Florida that are invasive species. So do your homework and always start by measuring. How big do these get and how long does it take to get there.

Speaker C:

Even like bala sharks? Huge. If you want a torpedo in your tank. I've had people that have spooked their bala and they've cracked the tank.

Speaker B:

I spooked my bala and it cracked its head open.

Speaker C:

All your bala? I'm not sure what you said there.

Speaker B:

Spooked my bala, cracked its head open and now it's dead.

Speaker C:

Not funny.

Speaker B:

I mean, what do you do? It had the space, it had a great place to live and it just happened.

Speaker C:

You do the same thing we do with all of our special friends. You put a helmet on them. That's what you do.

Speaker B:

Put a helmet on them, put a.

Speaker C:

Helmet on your special little pacobe, whatever it is.

Speaker B:

All right, so under the beginner fish line, the next in the list is discus. Generally, people go in and they'll either see something that's cheap, like a beta goldfish, something that's easy, and they'll throw in a bowl. The other spectrum is people walk in and just assume that they want the best fish. That's the most colorful thing. I want to throw money at a problem. They want to do no homework and they want to just have it look cool and look the most amazing. So they go in and say like, oh, discus. Yes, it looks like salt water. Great, put it in my cart. I'll throw it in my tank and set up my tank tonight. And it's just a really bad symptom of taking money and burning it. Burning it right in front of you. So, Adam, why are discus not a good idea for beginners?

Speaker D:

They're finicky as hell. They need specialized heat requirements. They are very touchy. They need their aquarium set up for at least eight to ten weeks minimum. I mean, I wouldn't even do it unless the tank was aged a year personally, but that's just me. Well, okay, I could do it.

Speaker B:

But you're looking at a fish that has an equilibrium slime coat more prevalent than most fish. They actually feed their young off of their slime coat base. They have uber temperament issues where they have to have at least some company or they'll literally, potentially die of loneliness. They have to have hiding places that are tall enough to cover the entire fish. Otherwise they will stress out to the point of turning deep black and die. You have to have pristine water quality just for the slime coat but also low enough PH to handle them. Because even a perfect discus that's been acclimated forever in a high PH environment will give up.

Speaker C:

I know this first hand extremely warm water.

Speaker D:

Yeah the most important is the water.

Speaker E:

Yes, that was my first fish that was difficult to take care of that I got and I'm very lucky that they all survived and did great but it was a lot more work than even the internet made it sound and the internet makes it sound like a lot of work to keep discus.

Speaker C:

I know it's hard to believe but some things on the internet are true. Just a few.

Speaker E:

That's one of them, yes and sometimes they're under exaggerated even right?

Speaker B:

Like those Christmas photos from last year. No to do your homework throwing money at something just because you think it's cool not a good plan either if you're a beginner.

Speaker C:

And the other thing about Discus that drives me insane is when people go into a pet store and they buy one or two discuses then pretty soon they want to get these special colors and they see something on the Internet and it's called flaming Orange pumpkin or something. And then they go in and try to order this through the pet store.

Speaker D:

And it's a mart Row red.

Speaker C:

Yeah there's 100 different godding names for every color of discus and unless you know who you're dealing with I mean it's very hard to get the colors that you want unless you actually deal with somebody who has them in stock and you can see pictures of them such as ken's Fish. Ken Fish does a wonderful job selling discus to people but he's got pictures of the fish in house. I mean they're here. This isn't what is coming, this is what's here right now. And so if you want to see some beautiful discus check out ken's Fish. kens Fish also turquoise discus are some.

Speaker D:

Of the hardiest discus strains. Every blue diamonds are a little more finicky and they don't breed as well but I've never had really that many problems with a blue or red turk. They just seem to be a heartier fish. The wild caught ones as expensive as they are if you can get your tank set up and everything perfect they'll do pretty good. But if you want like a good just a basic discus and you want to try it don't throw money at like marlboro reds or the solid white ones or the solid yellow ones just try a red or a blue turk.

Speaker B:

So I got a message here from someone discord. They messaged me. Why that? There's so much name differential. Like isn't there a naming scheme to discus? Well, here's the problem. Everybody wants to be creative and have something that they believe is unique, even if it's just a couple of generations down the road, may change colors. And discus, honestly, they change from breeding habits, food. They're a very temperamental fish and they'll change just from their own mood. If they're stressed out, they'll go dark. If they're breeding or chase, they'll go light. I mean it's incredible just seeing the color in your own tank and then you have to take pictures of these and sell them online. So let's just say Jimmy buys what they call peach discus from a wholesaler. He gets 20 peach discus. Well then Jim wants to corner the market because he thinks that he has something that's unique which he may he may have bred him a couple of times, but then he'll go online and say, we'll tell him jim's Scrotum Discus and he'll just say their skin color okay. It's not only comical because they're huge. It's not only comical, but it really depicts the accuracy of people trying to be creative. Like, oh, they're dragon's breath. When it's just something red, it's just Jimmy taking a pink fish, calling it a scrotum discus because it's something that's skin colored. It's literally that example.

Speaker C:

I mean, what was the name of that particular coral that we saw over at that home record?

Speaker B:

Coral. They had home record. Home records. spiderman. Angry birds.

Speaker C:

Coral.

Speaker B:

Everybody does this shit.

Speaker C:

Yeah. And he says Home Records one of his best sellers because people want to go, that's a home record. Why is it home record? Because it's so damn expensive and my wife's going to kick me out. Just say for instance, Joe from Joe Shrimp Shack was here with us a couple of weeks ago. He's helped me out tremendously purchasing different shrimp. And I'm getting him from the same area where he's getting them and I go, why can't I find red really shrimp from this particular country? He goes, it's because they named it something different. So what's it called? He goes red glaze. And then what's the blue really? Blue glaze? Black really black glaze.

Speaker B:

Everybody wants to be unique, right?

Speaker C:

And like he says, when you're over in Thailand and you're trying to sell to the United States, you can't even sell them because people are going to me your red glaze would be something that's kind of got an opaque glaze color. Kind of an opaque and I wouldn't buy those. I want something with a solid color or something bright.

Speaker B:

So this is my time to plug something in the episode. You guys can go to jim's Scrotumdiscus.com no, you can't. And see they might be out of stock. But certainly check it out. You can check it out after the podcast. Now, next on our beginners no no list is loaches. So not all loaches. Adam, what loaches do you not recommend for beginners?

Speaker D:

I would not recommend clown loaches for beginners. Clown loaches, you look at them wrong and they get ick. And then people go and they go, oh, my fish has ick. What do they do? They go and they get the quicker and or the copper medicine, dump it in the tank and then they go, my loaches died. Why did they die? Because loaches are scaleless and they can't handle copper.

Speaker C:

Every time I import clown loaches, I'll bring in 200. Here's the way I treat them. I bring them in into a really hot tank. I don't turn the light on. I give about 25 pvc tubes for them to hide in. And I put them in there for three days. I don't look at them because if you have the light on, they freak out. Not day one, not day two, but day three. Every single time they get freaking ick. So if you're going to purchase a clown load from somebody, make sure that something that hasn't come in in the last day or two, make sure it's been sitting there for two or three days or two or three weeks before you purchase it.

Speaker D:

I wouldn't even sell them for the first two weeks at my shop whenever I get them in.

Speaker C:

You just can't yeah, you're just setting people up for failure and they're going to come in and it's always somehow your fault and well, can you give me a better deal on the next cloud loach so I can kill that one, too?

Speaker D:

But if your pet store is selling you cloud loaches the same day they get them in or within a week and not warning you about the IC thing, they just want your money for more medicines and shit.

Speaker C:

Yeah, clown loaches need a place to hide for the first week or two before when they come in. Most of these things have been raised in ponds, but a good chunk of them. There's a nice article in amazonas magazine this last month that just came out talking about the majority of the clown loaches are still wild caught. And check that out in the new Amazon Us. It just came out.

Speaker D:

The other thing that I was going to say is that most people only get like one or two loaches do way better in groups of at least six. So you're not going to get six minimum. Don't even get them. They're just like tetras, in my opinion, where you need a larger the more you have, the better they do.

Speaker C:

And the problem with getting six is it gets to be pretty damn expensive, doesn't it, Adam? I mean, because most stores know they're going to lose them and so they put a pretty good premium on them.

Speaker D:

So whatever the wholesale price was, I times it by eight. My normal. Fish, I would go times three. But clowns, you always do times that much because they just don't do well.

Speaker C:

Yeah, so if you pay a wholesale price of $3, you're selling them for $24. And the average person can't walk in and buy six clown loaches at $24 apiece. You can always ask if you get a discount if you buy more. But some some stores will work with you, some won't. But the other thing that I used to have problems with or never had problems with, and now it's nothing but problems is coolie loaches. Cooley loaches. I'm talking about the multicolored cooley loaches that are two or three different colors and they used to be kind of bulletproof, but now they used to be now they're horrible. And the only thing I carry is the black cooley loach. And for a store to try to sell a black cooley loach or a regular cooley loach, you need to buy a hunt. You know, a story needs to buy 100 so they can sell four so they can find them. Because most places have a tank that's got gravel in and they bury themselves in the gravel and see them next.

Speaker D:

Year and then they never come out except at night.

Speaker C:

Right.

Speaker D:

Although we did find out that the salt did help when we talked to Dr. Fish, remember?

Speaker C:

Yes.

Speaker D:

Keep them in brackish. And that was my thing because I bred them in brackish water and I think that was the trick that we didn't know about.

Speaker B:

Yeah.

Speaker C:

For those of you who are new to the podcast every month or so we have Dr. Fish, Dr. Jim, who's from Secrets Farms comes on and gives us great information and stuff. So if you're new to the podcast, go check the Doctor Fish episodes. If you have any questions, please get them to us and we will ask Dr. Fish on our next episode.

Speaker B:

Sonny, you have any bad luck with loaches?

Speaker E:

Can't say that I've kept loaches yet, but they're on the to do list.

Speaker B:

Well, now she's not going to do it with copper.

Speaker D:

Never copper. Okay. I know Dr. Fish thinks I'm a fluke and idiot.

Speaker C:

You are a fluke and idiot. We all think that. Not just him.

Speaker B:

I will sign that.

Speaker C:

All of us.

Speaker B:

I will sign that petition at Whole Foods.

Speaker C:

I'll start it.

Speaker D:

I'll start that is use the garlic guard. It helps trigger them to eat. And I swear by it. I don't know, you guys can all call me nuts, but I swear by it.

Speaker E:

And I swear by that with my discus because I swore that when I started mixing garlic with my discus food that it completely changed the game with how often my discus freaked out.

Speaker B:

Well, that's because you bought your discus from Italy. No.

Speaker C:

The italian discus.

Speaker B:

No. She got vampire scrotum. Discus from Jim Scrotumiscus.com.

Speaker C:

Talk about my screw on it.

Speaker E:

Most of mine I actually got from Jack watley discus. Highly recommend Jack watley discus. They also have really great articles on their site on different carekeeping methods, food, whether you're making it yourself or buying it.

Speaker C:

This may seem kind of crazy but if you go on aqua bid you'll see there's a gentleman selling discus that he raises himself, his name is Joe gargus.

Speaker D:

Oh gargus and discus are good too.

Speaker C:

And anyway he talks about the first discus that he bought was Jack watley Discus and he always says buy the smallest discus you can get because they ship so much better. They don't freak out, they do. And Joe garga sells his discus and I bought discus from him and they come in about the size of your thumbnail.

Speaker E:

They're pretty cute.

Speaker B:

They are very cute.

Speaker C:

And you used to have to be ready to feed them some library trip when they come in and to get them going. But check out Joe gargas. He's in Florida. The man is phenomenally smart. He owns seven or eight what do you call those, Rob?

Speaker D:

Patents.

Speaker C:

Patents, there you go. Seven or eight patents just on water quality and he actually has a water quality book, I do too and he designs water quality systems for cities and so the man is very knowledgeable. He's worked for a lot of different companies like Tetra and that over the years. So if you're looking for discus and you want to go on Aquabad, joe gargus is the way to go. And I can't say good enough good things about him.

Speaker E:

And unless you really want to be doomed to fail when it comes to discus and a lot of the really pretty freshwater species, you have to keep in mind you need to feed them three to five times a day. And if you're working 40 hours a week, that can be challenging.

Speaker B:

All right, next on the list we're going to roll through this a little faster. Hatchet fish.

Speaker D:

Adam why they jump and marble hatchets are like the worst fish for getting ick I've ever seen. They stress out super easy. They're a top water fish so even with you need a lot of top water cover so basically take plastic plants, rip the base off of them so they float on the top of the water and have it like a mat so that they can't jump out of the tank.

Speaker B:

Even then they're going to jump out of the tank. Yeah. Now when we talk about fish like oh, it has the potential to jump out of the tank you're like, well, probably not me. These fish will jump. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of every day.

Speaker C:

And they're so thin they could go through dang near any little crack on the aquarium hood and I have found them stuck to the wall I have.

Speaker D:

Found them stuck to the wall 5ft.

Speaker B:

Away too literally you'll have a hood and you'll see that crack and you're like, that couldn't happen. Tape your tank, take some tape. That's the only way you're going to stop it. They will jump. It's a matter of do you have any whole seam or anything whatsoever?

Speaker C:

If we can't talk you out of a hatchet fish, start out with a silver hatchet fish. They're at least a little bit more sturdy.

Speaker B:

I would call them darn right. hardy.

Speaker C:

They're hardy, but you just got to keep them in the damn tank.

Speaker B:

Next.

Speaker D:

And they're cooling fish also.

Speaker B:

Right.

Speaker C:

Need to keep them £10.

Speaker B:

Next one is picked as cats. And the reason that we pick them pick this cats is because it's so prevalent to see them in department stores. They were in Walmart for years. walmart's closed down. That's still everywhere for the more traditional box stores and picktis cats are aggressive. People think that they can mix them because they're part of the quote unquote, bread and butter fish. And they're always put as semi aggressive. Well, people don't understand what semi aggressive is. And a pick, this cat will show you what that means.

Speaker C:

I had a three inch pictures catfish eat 40 neons one time in a night. In one night. That was an expensive snack. And I didn't think he was that damn big. And here's the thing. I thought I had all the pictures catfish out, but he was back in the corner hiding somewhere and he just helped himself. And the other thing about pictures catfish is absolutely suck is trying to get him out of a net.

Speaker D:

You have to cut them out of the net, not the fish. Cut the net.

Speaker C:

Yeah. So if you're going to be handling your pictures fish, the only thing I can say is get yourself the most fine net. Even a brine shrimp net will still catch those darn things.

Speaker D:

Would those stainless steel nets work, Jim?

Speaker C:

I think those would probably be better. But, I mean, still, when I used to catch them when I wholesale, I'd keep 40 or 50 in a tank and stuff. And I had a piece of pvc that they all hid in. And I'd reach in and grab the piece of pvc and pour them out of that piece of pvc pipe just because I was so tired of throwing nets away. It's costing me four nets a week. Just net.

Speaker D:

No, that actually makes sense. They're also nocturnal, which people don't realize. And then they think they go, why does my pick this cat not move around? And then they look like they're just all nice. But yeah, they eat everything and they're nocturnal and they get bigger. They're just a pain in the ass. They also are schooling.

Speaker C:

What else you got robbed on the list.

Speaker B:

Next up is oscars. Okay, that's just because we hate oscars. Honestly, oscars are a great dope fish. They're the Florida sunfish. And here's what's going to piss people off.

Speaker C:

Florida.

Speaker B:

They taste wonderful.

Speaker C:

They do.

Speaker B:

They taste great.

Speaker C:

Do they?

Speaker B:

Yes.

Speaker C:

They are a huge delicacy in the Amazon.

Speaker B:

Literally. It's just like a sunfish around here. It's not too far off, just a delicious whitefish.

Speaker C:

So if you ever get stuck in your house too long, you have an Oscar. Eat it.

Speaker B:

We hate them because they're retarded looking, they're slow, they shit like a monster. So when people have them, they're like, oh, I want five in a tank. Shit. Have two in a 55, and you're lucky that are going to shit out your world. But otherwise they're a hearty fish. They grow huge. Most people make mistakes because they're shit.

Speaker C:

Monsters and they live a very long time. And I see a lot they're boring and I see a lot of them. People would always say, cake, I trade down this Oscar. I won't give you anything for it, but I'll take it because he didn't eat my dead fish. I used to keep a couple of oscars in a 55 gallon tank, and if something died, I'd throw it in there. If nobody died, they didn't eat. But almost every big Oscar that somebody gave me came with a hole in the head.

Speaker B:

Yep.

Speaker D:

I did find out that when I did not put activated carbon in the tank, they seem to do better with recuperating from the hole in the head. Not always, but they seem to do better. That's the question I want to ask Dr.

Speaker B:

Fish.

Speaker C:

There we go. Write it down for next time.

Speaker E:

I've heard that for several different species.

Speaker C:

About the carbon, we need to do.

Speaker E:

A doctor with us, like with viscous, angel fish, oscars, a few others. The tanks with activated carbon seem to have more cases of hole in the.

Speaker D:

Head versus ones without saltwater fish, too. I never put activated carbon in my saltwater tanks after I had a couple of the saltwater angel fish. They got lateral lying disease. Really bad.

Speaker B:

All right, keep on rolling with this list here. glassfish.

Speaker C:

Glassfish.

Speaker B:

Glass fish are technically brackish fish. They're super delicate and simply disappear when they're just not doing well. You won't really see a symptom or sign. They'll just be poof. There it is.

Speaker D:

And they also get ick really bad.

Speaker C:

Yeah, people think they're really cool because you can look at them, you can kind of see their insides and you can kind of see their bone skeleton. The other sad thing about glass fish is they're not a great seller. So then they'll take and they'll put paint on them to try to put like a fluorescent paint on them.

Speaker B:

Yeah, there's a couple of different types there's. Like the Indian glass fish are more of tetra based and they'll put paint on them to try to do them up. And then, of course, they're injured or they all have long term effects and just crap out for no reason. Then you have the normal glass catfish, which are the ones that just disintegrate and disappear, but you can't really put any lines on them because they're too delicate.

Speaker C:

Yeah. You know, the gloss catfish, you're going to have trouble with them because they start turning white and then they're dead in about 6 hours. And so or less. Or less.

Speaker B:

Next one, the common pleco. Go ahead.

Speaker D:

Common plecos do not belong in a fish tank because everybody buys them. And they go and they go, oh, this eats shit. And they don't feed them. They eat algae, they eat some dentress, they eat driftwood. They do not eat shit.

Speaker B:

And they eat tons of protein. Thanks to what we learned from the.

Speaker C:

Placo king, they eat lots and lots and lots. There's another fish you could feed all day long and they're never happy. They don't have enough to eat. So people that when they feed their placo, they just assume they're going to get whatever is on the bottom left. And if you have a busy take with a bunch of neons and there's not a lot of food that hits the bottom.

Speaker B:

Now, I'm six foot two, six foot three. I have seen placos come from about, let's say, the middle of my bicep to the tip of my finger. You, Jimmy, have seen them from my shoulder to the tip of my finger.

Speaker C:

Yes.

Speaker B:

Literally feet, multiple feet long.

Speaker C:

Yeah. We were in Tampa Bay and norton tapa Bay fishery. I said to Paul norton, he said, Paul, how big do they actually get? And he took off his shirt, he waited in the pond and he felt on the side of the pond for the holes because they, they burrow in the side of the, of the dirt. And he reached in and he pulled out this pleco that it had I mean, he held it over his head to show me and it had to have been 3ft long. And he said, these things lay eggs in the riverbank. The day we're there, actually, he was buying eggs from a couple of young guys that were collecting eggs out in, I want to say the wild, but in the river system, they're in Florida, they have a really cool pond system for their fish. But as they pump out the ponds to get all the fish out, they pump the water into the river system. And of course, always a few fish get loose. So if you ever in Tampa, Florida, you can go down and if you stand by, just stand there in a river, you'll see an angel fish go by. You'll see sore tails that are five, six inches long go by. And the whole place is full of plecos. And these young guys would come out there, two young brothers, and they would gather pleco eggs in these holes in the river system, especially like we're underneath branches and stuff where there's some cover. And these kids would go out waiting in this river waist deep. And they would poke a hole or poke a stick looking for the holes. And then once they found them, they'd reach in and grab the eggs and egg mask of a plea. Go could be the size of a golf ball all the way up the size of a softball. And they would sell these clusters to people. So most people, they're getting a pleco eggs brought to them down at the Florida fish farms. Now they're quit breeding them themselves.

Speaker B:

They get too big. If you're going to get something, stick with a Bristol nose plato. They get no more than four and a half inches.

Speaker D:

Apparently Jim can't breed them, but Rob can.

Speaker B:

Yeah, I kill you. I have the gift, the gift of the marvin gaze.

Speaker C:

I kill you both.

Speaker D:

You've got the gaze part right.

Speaker B:

Last two, right? We have scarlet battis, and these are becoming more and more prevalent in pet shops because they've remained decently priced during COVID for some reason, not sure why. They're a fun, colorful, very, very small fish. And the popularity of rays because of nano tanks. Now, when people get fish, especially when you're new, do you want to stick with one fish? Are you okay as a new hobbyist with one fish in your tank? And I'm talking not talking one single fish, one type of fish generally you want a community tank. You're going to get some neon tetras, you're going to get a few mollies, you're going to have a community tank. And oh, scarlet Baddes definitely seem like a fun fish. Do not put them with other fish. scarlet Baddes are extremely timid. They're very small and they're tiny, tiny micro predators that have their own social structure. If you're going to have them, keep them pretty well alone. They have trouble eating normal traditional food that are not live. They will eat it. But given any other fish in the tank, they will starve to death. They will hide, run, and they'll literally just disappear. You'll no longer see them because they cannot compete for food, sadly.

Speaker D:

What if they do good with shrimp?

Speaker B:

They do pretty darn great with shrimp, actually. It's got to keep the temperatures high because normally shrimp tanks like solo shrimp tanks like Neocardenous cardenius, not heated. So make sure to have heat with a scarlet bertus. And the last one is puffers. Now puffers on the rise. We have youtubers Ohio Fish Rescue that they just lost Pittsburgh. Rest in peace. Puffers are absolutely on the popularity rise. And puffers are extremely hard to take care of. If you're going to start with the puffer, the only puffer to recommend is the pea puffer, which technically you should have the brackish water. If you have them in fresh, it's going to be really difficult to keep them long term. Short term is fine. You'll easily have puffers long term. But as they age, add salt to the water. Don't be afraid just to sprinkle some salt in there. Add it as additional. It doesn't have to be completely brackish, but if you don't do without salt, very tough to do. And then all puffers have to crunch hard things. So if you're going to feed a pea puffer, even all the way up to the mobile puffer, which is the massive puffers you see on the celebrities YouTube channels, and they're getting more and more prevalent, you can get them for about $400 retail. You have to have hard foods because their beaks continue to grow. So again, we'll pick on the mobile puffers, right, jimmy clams, frozen clams, even anything to help keep that crunch going on is really recommended. And clams aren't cheap. It's very expensive to feed your fish and to continually do that to grind down their beaks. Pea puffers. I literally have a rescued pea puffer that someone sent me because all their others died in the tank. And he is in a tank essentially by himself with a hoard of snails. Just because they're crunchy, it's going to keep his beak down, he's going to hunt, and it's going to be the more environment for him. If you don't have something that has that crunch like a snail clam, something to suffice the puffers natural behavior, it's not going to work for you. And then even if you have these mid grade puffers puffers, imagine you're a fish and you're in a community tank. The only way you have to communicate is small amounts of aggression. Like you quickly nip someone to let them know you're coming too close to my territory, and then they go away with when you have a puffer, a nip is taking a perfect circle chunk out of that fish. I've had friends that, oh, my cigarettes are doing great with them. And then one day, literally a round hole in their head because the puffer just decided to whack them because they got too close one day because they're delicious. So there is a plethora of reasons not to start with a puffer ever. And if you do pee puffer. But no, you must have snails on hand before you purchase that puffer.

Speaker D:

Will they eat trumpet snails? Because I've never found a puffer fish that eats a trumpet snail.

Speaker B:

They absolutely will devour trumpet snails once.

Speaker C:

They burrow six inches under the gravel and find them.

Speaker B:

They literally you can dim the lights on purpose because trumpet snails are nocturnal. You can dim the lights on purpose and watch puffers devour trumpets.

Speaker C:

Hey, I want to recall I said earlier about discus saying Ken's fish, that was wrong. It's kenny's discus.

Speaker B:

Kenny'S well, I mean, that and I don't know why you're trying to wrap all these other places when you can go to Jim Scrotis.

Speaker C:

No, we're not doing that. kenny's discus. Check it out.

Speaker D:

Website.

Speaker B:

Now, Jim, Jimscrotemiscus.com, Jimmy, it's a live website everybody can go to. I don't know why you're undercutting your own market.

Speaker C:

I'm going to undercut you right where you sit.

Speaker B:

I'm just waiting for someone to actually check that it's a real website.

Speaker C:

It's a real website now that you've set that up. I plead the fifth but yeah kenny's discus is probably the best place to buy discus for crazy colors and he's got all kinds of discus. Check it out. kenny's discus. Not ken's fish. Sorry I screwed up.

Speaker B:

How dare you.

Speaker C:

What else you got?

Speaker B:

Well I think we should transition over. That was a good spotlight for beginners. sonny. You got anything add to that?

Speaker E:

It's apparently debatable. The only other thing I can think of is that I and many others have had issues with German blue ram specifically but it's still up for debate whether that's a beginner doomed to fail or just something missing in the environment. And I could keep discus but I couldn't keep German blue rams.

Speaker C:

Yeah, I agree with Sunny. I am team Sunny on that. If you can get good quality rams to start with you'll be just fine. But the stuff that you're picking up everywhere else sucks big time. Yeah, Rob showed me that. He just started a gym's discus.

Speaker B:

I did not. It's been up for a while. You've been selling these fish forever.

Speaker C:

Forever. But yeah sonny you're 100% right. You've not had luck with German rams also?

Speaker E:

Yeah I've gone from two or three different sellers online, had them ordered, followed all of the parameters I could find and still all were dead within like a week or two. And at that point I just kind of went I'm going to stop wasting my money and go to something else.

Speaker D:

Well Jim literally gave me wild caught ones. He sent me wild caught ones. Remember, I'd order the wildcard.

Speaker C:

Yeah you can get some wild caught bolivian rams. They're not a German blue ram, they're a bolivian ram.

Speaker D:

No, I don't like bolivians. I'd order the German rams but they're the wild caught. The wild caught German rams and then I'd breed them.

Speaker C:

Yeah if you can get wild caught that's the way to go. But the majority of the stuff is coming out of farms out there in Taiwan and they are just so juiced up and you get them here and you get them in different water quality and they just kind of fall apart. And I've had them breed two or three times and I thought it was going to be easy and just had no luck. But there's a lot of youtubers out there that talk about how, how ram suck and how you have to get good quality stock and we're just talking earlier about guppies, how import guppies are so terrible can't get any babies on them. I just found a gentleman in our area that got me some guppies. I've purchased 900 guppies from him in the last three months and I've kept every female and I'm getting somewhere between 80 to 150 babies a night and I'm not even trying that hard right now. But before I could bring in 900 import guppies and end up throwing them in the garbage because they just fall apart after about a week. So very interesting.

Speaker B:

All right, so Rams for the wholesale list can certainly be an issue. Guppies also, because when you import them for wholesale purposes, they're radiated.

Speaker C:

A lot of them are radiated and a lot of them are sterile.

Speaker B:

Not always, but most of the time get them completely sterile from putting under gamma radiation, sterilizing the female, so they don't get their, quote, proprietary intellectual property from the guppies spread across other countries.

Speaker C:

Right.

Speaker B:

We also have here elephant nose. Why is that, Jimmy?

Speaker C:

Elephant nose are very sensitive to water quality over in some countries. Actually, I want to say it was Germany. I read an article where they're actually keeping elephant nose in a big aquarium, and they've got the water coming in from the processing plant, going through the aquarium and then out the aquarium, and they actually watch the alpha nose and they can actually watch from their behavior. If they start having issues with the water quality, they're not treating it right or something like that. A lot of fish are being used overseas. glow fish one of them. What else was there? atom. There's another fish, too, they use for keeping it checks on water quality in their water systems in their city.

Speaker D:

Oh, the glow. daniels glow. daniels elephant Nose And then they used with the type of catfish. I don't remember off the top of my head.

Speaker C:

Yeah, elephant nose are just very susceptible to all kinds of problems. You net them too hard, you scrape them out. They're kind of another scaleless fish. They need to be fed. The only thing I've ever had good luck with them is they've eaten a lot of frozen blood worms. They'll eat and stuff. They like to dig into the gravel. But if the gravel is too sharp, then it screws up their little nose. Same thing with sand, same thing with a baby whale.

Speaker B:

So fun deal. Baby whales and Elephant Knows are also going to begin to be bred in Florida. The ftfa have been working on that and they believe that they crack the code.

Speaker D:

Before I forget, a little tip for.

Speaker B:

The kiddos, for people that keep them.

Speaker D:

Yeah. Get a titanium grounding probe, because Elephant Knows and baby whales in that family, they sense electricity in the tank and they also emit electricity. And if you put, like, a group of elephant nose in a tank, they will adjust their frequencies so that they don't mess with each other. That's how they find food. But you put a titanium grounding probe and it absorbs all the stray electricity in the tank. That's when I found that I've had the best luck with them.

Speaker B:

So. You hear that, Jimmy? No more tens units on your balls before playing in the aquarium.

Speaker D:

Aren't you in the throat, Jim?

Speaker C:

No more sugar for you before the podcast. You're naughty tonight, but I'm sorry I had eminems. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker D:

All right, diabetes.

Speaker B:

Next things on the list we have are, I mean, obviously leaf fish.

Speaker C:

But why leaf fish? People don't know how to feed leafish.

Speaker B:

People don't know what leaf fish are.

Speaker C:

Jimmy leaf fish are fish that look like a leaf.

Speaker B:

You just stop people from googling it.

Speaker C:

Congratulations. Google it. Then there's three or four different varieties of leaf fish. You don't see them available very often.

Speaker B:

Wait, let me guess. There's brown, there's tan, there's off yellow and green.

Speaker C:

I want to punch all of you in the throat, each and every one of you. Starting with you, Rob.

Speaker B:

All right, but seriously, why is it because I fell off the tree that they're not great to import?

Speaker C:

They are just very hard to get on food. They need small food. They need live food. Yeah. They just don't do well. And the thing is, usually they are almost starved to death by the time they get to your store, and so it's very hard to get them to.

Speaker D:

Eat brackish water, too.

Speaker B:

Next one on the list is piranha.

Speaker C:

Piranhas? Why would you want a piranha when you could have a paco?

Speaker B:

No, I'm sorry. I want to be circumcised by a fish. So why are these bad to bring in?

Speaker D:

Ross has issues by a piranha.

Speaker B:

I've had way too much free time this evening.

Speaker C:

I was going to say we can't even find a small enough piranha to do that for you. Sorry, buddy.

Speaker B:

Thanks.

Speaker C:

First of all, it's very hard to import piranha to find somebody who has piranhas. There's only a couple of two or three people in the United States that raise pranas. They raise them in cement vats. They're very skittish. They're very hard to breed. They're very hard to ship. And if you get a collection of piranhas, usually if you have 150 piranha imported, I'll sell 40 with two eyes, and I'll sell another 40 with one eye, and I'll sell the other 40 will be dead. So that's 120. I don't know where the other one is. When they just disappeared, they kill each other.

Speaker B:

How dare you? It's like the Thunder dome in a box.

Speaker C:

Yes. You have to ship them when they're about the size of a dime or smaller, because they go right through the goddamn bag. You have to put probably three times a four mill bag, and you have to put layers of newspaper in between each layer. And I can't tell you how many times that we brought in piranha and they sent a bag of piranhas with four gallons of water, and we get a quart of water and a bunch of piranhas laying there flopping around. So very frustrating. But if you know somebody who's raising prana, that's where you want to get them from. Somebody locally. But there's very few people that are doing it.

Speaker B:

All right, so I'm going to pick.

Speaker D:

On they also shred the plastic bags. I've always seen people, when I'd get them in. Groups. They take shredded plastic bag and throw it in there.

Speaker C:

Yeah. Just to try to keep them from chewing on each other. We used to take plastic black plastic bags and just put them in the bat so they'd have places to hide and stuff. But you've always got so much aggression going on in that tank, which is interesting because people want them because they're aggressive. Then you get a couple of them in your tank at home, and you throw in some goldfish or some feeder guppies, and they don't do anything.

Speaker D:

They hide.

Speaker C:

Yeah. They won't eat until after dark.

Speaker B:

All right, two more to pick on. One is the one that I put on the list is Black corridor's. Black corridors are not like your traditional corridor. They are a much different species. So essentially, as long as you're getting a full black corridor, you can treat the majority of corridora species relatively the same. They have the same behavior, the same schooling habits, more or less the same PH requirements, generally speaking, the same food. The only difference is between like, if you get an assorted skew from these wholesalers, you'll get the brown, the peppered, and the albino. The albino will always be weaker, but more or less, these corridors are kept the same. Am I profiling Jimmy? Jimmy just wrote me a note because he didn't want to say something racist. Yes, I'm profiling the Black Corridors, Jimmy. How dare I? These particular fish, not only are they absolutely acidinely expensive to get black corridors, but they require some of the softest water I've ever experienced. They are not nearly as active socially with each other. They don't school properly, and absolutely a mistake to import. They stress out, die and crap all the time. All right, next one arijuana. So I'm sitting there with Jimmy, wait a minute. No tissues required. We figured this out together. This is not my one arijuana that got eaten by a catfish story. We've been there, done that, if you haven't heard it. And it's still hilarious. You'll know, the meme, it is funny.

Speaker C:

Because it cost robs a lot of freaking money, right?

Speaker B:

I'm sitting there with Jimmy, and Jimmy is, how do we say, cynical. And I'm like, hey, I know some people that want some marijuana. Oh, my. Are those arijuana? $10 on your wholesale list.

Speaker D:

Jimmy don't buy those.

Speaker B:

He's like, yes, they are, and they will die. You wouldn't give me any other information, not tell me how they die, why.

Speaker C:

They die, how they die. They quit breathing.

Speaker B:

I'm like, Jimmy just had a bad batch. Maybe Jimmy gave him to the wrong person. Like, $10? Shit, I can waste the money. So I bought a bag. He bought $100 worth of small of small arijuana.

Speaker C:

Yeah, right, you big dub.

Speaker B:

So they came in like you just said, Jimmy, and broke the punchline. They have their yolks still hanging out of the central part of their body. So you get them and they're about, what, inch, two inches long, give or take two inches. That's about all it is. And they are freshly hatched marijuana, and they have about an inch of yolk hanging below them, a full on inch that they're dragging behind. Of course, the first bag I got all crapped out like, what the hell is going on here? I'm like no, never again. Well, of course I did it again. I bought like one or two more. And like, there's got to be a way if they ship these to people, there's got to be some sort of secret. So I studied up. I tried everything I could. You couldn't get him to eat. But then, of course, I wasn't thinking. So after me wasting a ton of money with Jimmy, finally figured out how to get these small arijuana shipped in and taken care of. And let me tell you, it's still a gamble. So if you ever decide that you're going to get a wholesale some marijuana and you want to do it cheaply, know that this is a risk but a method. You get these in, you float them in silk baskets, and you do not let them move until they absorb their yolksack. You do not feed them. You do not let them move. You keep them stuck in there because if they move, they tear their yolksack and they die. If they get against flow, they break their yolksack and they die. If they decide that there's a bug that decided to move in the tank, they go after it, crack their yolkshack and die. It's unreal. Keep them away from light, keep them in silk hanging baskets. And the moment the yolk is 100% gone, the only way you can keep them alive is crickets. You have to buy copious amounts of live crickets to keep these things going.

Speaker C:

And and plus, you have to, you know, try to get a pair of silk underwear out of your wife's drawer in order to keep them in right, without getting busted.

Speaker B:

Because I even have a hanging basket right there in my 90. Jimmy, that basket is too rough. When they move and brush their yolk against the basket, they tear it and they're dead.

Speaker C:

They get a breeze. Yeah. It gets abrasive and it gets some sort of, I don't know, fungus on.

Speaker B:

It or whatever, and then they're dead.

Speaker D:

Fungus. You know what I've done? So what I did was I kept them in a ten gallon tank and I crank the heat up and I had a sponge filter, and then I methylene blew the shit out of the water. And that works just fine too.

Speaker B:

I did that as well, but still broke the yolksack continually. Still didn't do anything. And also, did you have more than.

Speaker D:

One in the tank?

Speaker B:

No, actually that I had one in the tank and it died.

Speaker C:

That's what was left after $100.

Speaker B:

Yeah. I'm telling you that it's just continual. I tried to quit quite a few times.

Speaker D:

Never had that much problems. When you catch them out of the when you put them in the bag, you have to use a cup to catch them because any pressure on that yolksack, they die 100%, which is a.

Speaker B:

Miracle how they even ship correctly.

Speaker C:

Yeah, spend the extra money. If you really want an arijuana, spend the extra money and get yourself a small or a medium arijuana, which are going to be six or seven inches long. And those problems will be behind you. Yeah, you're going to pay three times as much, but you're not going to be throwing it down the toilet either.

Speaker B:

Now, the benefits, if you can successfully take an arijuana and raise it from yolk and it's eating crickets, you can easily, with training, transfer that marijuana to pellet food. Super simple. You take the cricket and the moment it hits the surface, it's trained that you come over, you feed it cricket, and it knows it's food time because it sees the moving cricket and associates you with food. When you do that a few times, they learn quickly and then you put a pellet in there, they're not going to recognize or just see that you came over. Something hit the surface and now it's in their mouth. That's literally the association and literally like that, they're on pellets. They want to ask questions and you can put them on when they get bigger. You can put them on shrimp or bigger pellets, massive or pellets, whatever you're looking for. Super easy to train a baby marijuana over something else where that process doesn't really translate well without bigger live food.

Speaker C:

Is that why you call your mom buffet?

Speaker B:

Yeah, I keep going over to my mom's house. I just put down some taters and gravy and poof, and then I slowly switch that to salad. But she's not quite there yet.

Speaker C:

Not there? Is that her last one?

Speaker B:

I mean, that's my last one.

Speaker C:

Here's another way to lose money. If you just want to send us like, $100, we're not going to send it back. Yeah, I've got a friend who likes to go to the casino and he always takes like a couple hundred bucks with him and he'll come home with 40 from his 200 and say that he won 40. And my my thing to him, I said, how about I save you gas money, you give me the $200, and maybe tomorrow I'll give it back to you. Maybe I won't, but I saved you a lot of time down the casino.

Speaker B:

So what you're saying is we gave them an episode to try to help them with pitfalls or The beginner or a wholesaler, and now you're saying that we're just going to help you and instead of you potentially wasting money, just give us $100 at Aquariumgeist Podcast.com on the website. You can support the podcast, right? And then, oh, Jimmy, you're a genius.

Speaker C:

And that way they don't have to waste their money on fish.

Speaker E:

Or you can go buying these fish. Just buy some robs.

Speaker B:

Right? Or you can go to I think.

Speaker D:

Rob is worth a lot less than.

Speaker C:

$100 if he sold them by the pound and a nickel a pound. Let me do the math.

Speaker B:

They band well. blubber all right, for a use for fuel. Or you could go to Jim Scrotumdiscus.com and see if he has any stock market.

Speaker C:

Yeah, and let me give you rob's cell phone number and you can call it and he'll get it.

Speaker B:

If you like the podcast, go to it. Support our sponsors. Quarrybagspodcast.com. Love you. See you next week.

Speaker E:

Bye.

Speaker B:

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.

Speaker E:

I never knew that a Minnesota accent could be so sexy until I heard adam's voice.

Speaker D:

Go frank yourself.

Speaker C:

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

Episode Notes

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