Hey, guys, just want to take a minute for our sponsor J four Flowerhorns. If you are sitting in front of your aquarium wondering why you're no longer enjoying it, well, number one, you may not see them so clean the glass, but two, you know, bring a piece of the extreme to your tank. Have some fun. Go to J. Four Flowerhornsnut.com. He not only has amazing awardwinning flowerhorns you can get nowhere else, but also extreme fish like Bashirs platinum, Bashirs albino, arowana, even his blue eye bristle knows placos, king Kong parrot cichlins. What do you guys want? Go there. Go now, find yourself some extreme for your tank and get 10% off while doing it. Go to J four Flowerhorns.com and use promo code Aquarium Guys at checkout for 10% off your entire order. Also, to celebrate J Four and flower horns sponsoring the show, we put out a little love. Go to our merch store. You'll see it in the show notes. It's the aquarium. Guys. Merch line. And we have added a new line of merch saying I love cock. Now cock kok is the ball on the front of a flowerhorn. So certainly check out the silly new merch line. Love for you to pick some up. It certainly helps the show. And certainly at mention J four flowerhorn on social media just to let him know that you love cop guys, keep the stories coming in. We want to do a user submitted story time for storytime four. Certainly send those in. You can send them to for you Guys podcast website. At the bottom of the page you will find our contact method. You can email it to us. You could send it a text message, whatever is most comfortable for you. Hell, you could even send us an audio recording of you telling the story. But send those in and let's kick that podcast. Welcome to the Aquarium Guide podcast. Jimmy, did you bring a pound of nuts with you?

Excuse me?

Is that a whole pound of nuts? Where did the bag go?

I already ate them.

You said you'd share. Damn it.

No, I just went to Las Vegas and I took some salted peanuts with me and I thought wait, did you.

Steal those from Schmelta Airlines?

No, smelter Airlines does not even offer anything anymore.

Well, that's because people are allergic to peanuts and they're not assholes, right?

That's right.

Peanuts. Peanuts, a pound of nuts. I mean, that's a lot of nuts.

That's a lot.

Yeah.

Well, on that note, I'm your host, Rob Zulson.

I'm Jim colby.

And I'm Adam Alan.

The Shire.

So we are happy to have Alexander Williamson from The Secret History living near Aquarium check out a link to his YouTube channel. If you're not subscribed, do that right. You already get our notifications for the podcast. To subscribe to him, you got to follow Alex.

He is wonderful.

Also my only fins.

Let's talk about that.

Can we start only Fins together.

Only finn.

Can we do that? I would be all for that. I'd do a couple of few nudes. Wouldn't you, Adam?

No.

Such a buzzkill.

Everything looks bigger in pictures.

Adam, you don't understand how much money we could make doing only Fins.

Only Fins.

Yes. Well, we'll think about that. But, Alex, thanks again for coming on, man.

Oh, yeah, thanks for having me. Of course.

Now, before we begin, I just want to make sure that you have the clear understanding that I'm not taking this down off the Internet. I'm using this recording.

Wait, this is live?

This is live. You asked for it to be live, sir.

I trusted you. I don't know why you're so but hurt, but I trusted you.

Past tense.

I'm very but hurt.

So what is this third time Alex has been on with us?

Fourth, I think.

Fourth? Yeah, fourth time is if you don't.

Know better by now, that's your problem. That's the way I see it. Have your lawyer call my lawyer. My lawyer is in prison so far. You'll have to dial to one of those numbers.

Well, today's topic is getting burnt out in the hobby. That's not really what a clickbait podcast. But I think it's something that desperately needs to be talked about. Not a lot of people talk about it. And you dive in head first. You get wowed. And then you sit back and you hate saying it because you feel like a bad pet owner, but sometimes you just get sick of it.

Like marriage, I hope.

Not like marriage.

That was a special case.

That was a special case. That was more of abuse. Right.

Also, did you think for like, six or seven months yeah, you get over.

Wow, this is going to be one.

Of those podcasts, I can tell.

Oh, it's getting hot in here, ladies and gentlemen.

We're fish for six or seven months.

Well, I mean, we we need to get into it from all perspectives. So I'm glad you guys are coming out with full honesty on this podcast, because Lord knows we need it. But for those that are listening, if you haven't listened to our podcast, Live Bottle, the website, you'll find our link to discord. That's where we do this. We have the new staging studio. People get to ask questions live. Join the debauchery. It's a lot of fun. And find us on Facebook. And you can even find alexander's page. Is it the secret history? Living in your tank on the aquarium? The aquarium group on Facebook. Or what is the tag for that?

Yeah, it's actually the secret history living in your aquarium. It's my instagram. That's super screwy. And my title on here on discord it's all screwy, too.

It's all right. We just prefer the secret.

Yeah, the secret. Just the secret.

And you are the answer.

Yes, indeed. Well, for 14 low, low price payments of 29 99, you, too can know the secret.

Do I get a second one free? Do I get a second secret for free? With just extra shipping and handling?

Yeah, you have to ship it. But you sure? So before we get happens to be 29 99.

Also, darn that tech damage before we go too far down the rabbit hole. Normally we do questions, but guys, we're going to change up the podcast. From now on, we're getting so many questions that we're just going to do full on episodes with just your questions. So if you haven't had your question answered by the time you listen to this, know that it's been red, it's been queued. We're going to answer it good or bad?

Did you say red or ignored?

Oh, no. We're going to answer them.

Oh, we are?

Yes. Even some of the inappropriate questions will get answered privately.

One more night. I have to show up sober.

Absolutely.

Wait, we get inappropriate questions?

Most of them bought you, Adam.

Oh, my gosh. Yes.

We just can't forward them.

I have a whole letter that I actually got sent in. Someone sent me a letter in the mail, and I swear to God you're talking snail mail. Snail mail. Someone found my address. Two sides and handwritten. I don't know. Like, we go beyond our podcast is label explicit a lot of times, right? Because we go way too far. I don't think I could read it on here.

Really?

Yeah, it was something else. It's legitimately a fan of the podcast. Really? And it creeps me the hook out.

Was the return address, like some state penitentiary or something? I mean, I just want to make sure we don't miss no people.

No, it was Florida. Florida lawyer right there.

Florida people are insane.

It's everything about that was Adam just said that.

So if you want to hunt and kill Adam, he's down to southern Minnesota.

Right? Remember, we have to pay our new editor for each time we censor stuff. So we got to do the sparingly. We have a budget gentleman.

I want to let anybody know that I have not killed a person yet. But it is on a bucket list.

Yes, but that's the gingerbread man because you're fat. It's not fat. Yes, it's your fat bucket list. It's right next to eating stroodle.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

He wants to eat a gingerbread strudel. Here is Robbie wants to eat a gingerbread man. Well, okay. So we have a couple of questions before we begin to our topic because everybody's excited to have Alex in here. How many of those nuts can you no, that's the wrong question.

I just want to know about the letter now.

You should say next episode. I promise you. Tune in, subscribe. We will get to it during the question and answer episode of the podcast. I got to keep people wanting more. Absolutely.

The lawyer reads it over.

I am Florida man. I'm seeing a lot of good ones. So I got that message, you know, what secret stuff does Alex have brewing at home? Is a question I got asked like three times already from people like meth Lab or what? That's what I was going to say, but apparently this is a fish podcast. I didn't know that. And they want to know what fish topics that you're brewing coming up or projects that you haven't told people about.

Oh, they want a trailer for the new movie.

Well, so I had been trying to finish up kind of my general coverage of loosely like I'd go back in and plug back in history topics and people and when species were discovered and stuff. But I've loosely covered the history of the hobby going all the way back to neolithic times and fish weirs and aquaculture by indigenous groups. And I want to someday could be five years from now, don't know exactly. Write a book on the definitive history of humans and reproduction and captivity of fish because it starts as food and then transitions to fish as pets pretty much seems to be the way it goes in every culture. But we're finding now like I had a recent episode where they have evidence now and archaeological evidence and textual evidence from astila or stella. However, we'd like to pronounce that a big rock carving that Morridge fish were kept for religious ceremonies in pins in ancient Egypt 4500 years ago and bread. And they hadn't found any bone in the refuse dumps. That workers and priests and the upper class. They know that they had this one part of behind the temples and things where they would get rid of all their food scraps and feed the dogs and dig a hole and put it in there, basically. And they had every fish present from the nile, the Blue nile, the White nile, the Mediterranean, and everything you could imagine was in there, but no mormourids. And so for a while biologists thought, well, maybe the weather was different and they just weren't in the river then. But they recently found a tomb with over 1000 mummified mormoorates that had been basically dried out. And then they found evidence of laws saying that if you kill an elephant nose fish that you will have your nose cut off or later on that you will be killed. They also found that part of their alphabet was one of their characters in their phonetic alphabet later on. So like around 1500 years ago, after classical Egyptian period is actually based on the mormons. It looks like a Jesus fish, like you see on a car but with a nose drawn on it. Like a kid drew it with a crayon. But that's the symbol.

No kidding.

And it's a fanboy? Yeah.

Why is this not on CNN? I don't want to hear about some rich dude that made a tomb. I want to hear about his pets.

Right? Yeah. Are you sure? crocodiles and all sorts of crazy stuff from subsaharan Africa, too.

I feel like millennia from now, jay leno's tomb is going to be filled with cars and all they're going to talk about is Jay leno for some reason.

I'm just wondering if all these fish, whoever builds monuments, right?

But I mean, if you think about it, if you're a rich dude in a pyramid or in some sort of tomb, what's a better thing than take a flat fish that's already flat? Make it into beef jerky for a snack for the afterlife.

Delicious, right?

Adam, you agree, right?

Well, yeah.

I feel like the mormoids were not necessarily food. They're probably there for who can fathom that?

No, that's just it. There's no bones found in the food piles anywhere. And we know that they're an electrical fish. Right. Well, around the same period as this. It's coincidence and it's whatever, 800 miles away, 1200 km or whatever it is away in babylon, in mesopotamia, in modern day, basically baghdad. But they have what we call the babylonian battery, which are light in jars, they're copper with citric acid in them, that they knew how to basically get a nine volt battery worth of energy out of these terracotta jars and pots. Well, mormorids are the only real electrical species in that part of the world there. And they are also I mean, you're able to sense them discharging their little sonar. It's not to stun or hurt anything, but it can produce in the larger species up to 25 volts. And so there are pictures of a pharaoh in a throne with his feet in the water up to about his shins and all these warmer it's there's this one picture that they found. And so some hypothesis, literally this was just published like a matter of months ago. hypothesis would be that they thought maybe something medicinal or spiritual was going on with the tingling. So could be their magical tingling fish.

Now, have you talked about this on your YouTube channel yet?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, damn. I was going to say we should do like a special where you just cover that wholeheartedly and then I'll just show up with mascara and a feral outfit.

Well, if I am happy gypsy.

Never mind. We have we have him. I would just be insulting. We actually have a real Egyptian here.

Exactly.

My dad, I think, is giving me my passport, actually.

Is this input from the peanut gallery I'm hearing?

No, I'm literally half Egyptian.

Adam is half Egyptian.

I'm half Egyptian, a quarter Irish and a quarter Norwegian.

I feel like I want to get something poisonous if I'm going to have Adam on, though, because he's got real good track record with them venomous and poisonous animals.

He does, exactly.

Octopus. Blue Ridge.

Yeah, he does. Because would you like if you mean.

Well, somebody sent me a story they wanted me to cover about the Mediterranean dolphins. I think it is that are eating puffer fish to get high. Like, they get freaked by them in their mouth and then they get all tripped out.

I would do that. I would do that.

Please come back on to talk about that with us.

Oh, yeah.

I always wanted to try fugu pufferfish.

Yeah, I mean, I think that would straight up kill them. But then again, I mean, dolphins are big, so I need to look into what species it is. But they literally gather on them and get tricked by them and inventimated on purpose. And then they pass it to the smaller dolphin or to their children or a female that tends to be smaller than the males that start the process. And they basically pass it down. Like puff, puff, passer, pass.

See, I would impression that they squeeze them to the point where they release a toxin and then they pass it around.

That could be it.

Also, that is a whole puff, puff, pass thing. I mean, that's just being a gentleman.

That sounds like the last concert I went to.

Yeah, I guess I kind of got a focus, but so, yeah, my main thing on the channel is I'm trying to do four episodes a week. I'm trying to do one on a historic topic or scientific breakthrough. One on a species profile or like unboxing or adjustment to the fish room. A live stream that references either one of those videos on usually Tuesday and then on Saturday is a general Q and A thing. But my main research right now, I've got two big topics. One is clear fish and why. We have, like, x ray catfish. We have crystal tetras. How did that evolve and what are its purposes and biologically, what's going on when a fish has a clear body with no organs in that section. And then the other bigger project I've been working on for a long time because it's starting to actually compete with the title of oldest fish in captivity is betta's. So they found brand new information in the mitochondrial DNA from genetic testing. So through the mother's lineage, bettas have been bred at least at least 1000 years. That was assuming that a generation is only four months old when it is ready to reproduce, which is the quickest it could reproduce. And so it's likely older than 1000 years. It's probably more like 1500 to 2000 years that they've been bred by humans because of this one mutation. That's just extremely unlikely. And it's been passed down and it's recessive. And the reason they did that was to fight them. And so there's also been rumor for a long time that fish fighting and bird fighting and human fighting, all sorts of fighting. The buddhists in the area of Myanmar, Thailand, laos, cambodia, all throughout about a 500 year period, over and over. They say no gambling, no animal fighting because it leads to human fighting and murders and stuff. So they've gotten that text as a reference, but nobody knew for sure what fish it was or what was going on. And it seems like wrestling haspeaks are also implicated, and that the betas. It appears now that most beta splendids in the wild are in fact related to domesticated lines and have either been released or escaped in floods and so forth. Now, they do have some quote unquote, pure genetic wild lines still, but there's a bunch like most that we thought were just these colorful fish. Naturally, they actually have a history with that same mitochondrial DNA that's shared from domestication.

Man, I can just feel the pompous social outcast people on these fish forms just shaking in their boots right now, saying that fish fight.

Oh, yeah. I was also going to probably start, like a Fish Fight Club with that episode, so I might back off on that.

All right, you just broke the first.

Rule of Fish Fight Club.

Yeah, don't talk about it.

Don't talk about Fish Fight Club. Yeah. What's really sad is that people don't want you to talk about it. But it's part of history, and I don't know why now in this new generation that we think that we can change history. We're not changing. History is history, people. And if you don't like it, I'm sorry. But that's what he didn't say.

I don't like it, but that doesn't change it.

I love you in North Dakota. I'm sorry.

Listen, I'll get my gun and shoot you right in the head.

See, just like in North Dakota would say yes. How could you? Well, we should get back on topic here. We are here to talk about a depressing subject and uplift some fish keepers.

Jimmy, I want to talk about something that happened in the news this week real quick.

Okay, you do that and then we'll get it on topic.

Well, I just want everybody's input.

I'm going to go to the bathroom.

No, you're not.

Okay, wait, you should bring us to the bathroom so we can get the audio in the background while Jimmy is talking.

Oh, yeah.

I wasn't actually going to go to the bathroom. I just wanted to hurt jimmy's feelings because I'm a beautiful creature.

Good. He's crying on the inside.

Yeah. If I'm crying on the inside, there's going to be blood on the outside. No, I just want to talk about the poor man in Cape cod. It was in the news over the weekend. That poor guy that got sucked up by the whale people. Do you want to talk about this? Do you want to talk about how whales are mean to us?

I haven't heard any of this.

You have not heard this.

It's like a real deal story.

It's actually happened over by where was it?

Hashtag not fish.

Cape canaveral.

Yeah, it's Cape cod somewhere. Cape cod.

Cape cod Off, Massachusetts. A guy was out just grabbing spiny lobsters. He dives and grabs lobsters off the boat. And as soon as he jumped in, all of a sudden he gets knocked around and everything went dark and a huge whale had swallowed him or got him in his mouth. And he was in the whale's mouth from 30 to 40 seconds. And finally the whale breached and shook his head violently and threw the guy out.

I see in the picture apparently saw him getting thrown out of the whale, so there's no doubt. Was he in the mouth? Did he just make it up? The crew on the boat saw that his dive apparatus went out of contact for a minute and they were like, what the heck's up with that? And they were trying to figure it out for a few seconds and then the whale came up and spit him out. Yeah.

All right. So I pulled up an article. The gentleman's name is Michael packard, 56 years old, and again, lobster diver. He has false quotes of saying I could sense I was moving. I could feel the whale squeezing with his muscles in his mouth. I was completely inside. It was completely black. I thought to myself, there's no way I'm getting out of here. I'm done. I'm dead. All I could think of was my my boys that are twelve and 15. Wow.

So here's a question. Would he go down the esophagus no.

Of the whale too big.

You think?

Well, I already did research, so I.

Knew you were I knew you had this under control.

Their actual esophagus is not near big enough for a human. It's like nine inches or something like that at Max on like, a full grown humpback and a sperm whale. Now, a sperm whale could eat a person, they theorize. But a humpback has a very narrow esophagus for the reason that they don't want them to swallow. I mean, it would be bad if they swallowed like a seal hole because they have claws on their fins and stuff and they can teeth and all that, and they could really do damage in the stomach. And so they purposely they eat smaller things. Or if they're a whale with teeth, not baline, then they would take bites out of those things. But most whales, they do the filter feed thing, but these do lunge feeding, and they've got a ginormous mouth. I mean, plenty of room for a person in there or a few people, but there's no way that it would have gone down into the esophagus. Plus, there's a sphincter there that I'm sure the whale would have been constricting, which they do whenever they close their mouth. Like to swallow, just like we do when you swallow, you constrict your sphincter in your esophagio area. I guess you have like two or three.

Okay, so we now can confirm with science largest blow job of all time.

Wow.

You probably have to pay the editor a little bit extra money for that.

I'm just saying that's facts right there. hashtag, not a fish.

You've gone this far. Think about this.

You've gone this far. Just say it. He's a spitter. He's not a swallower.

Clearly, the way it was. Yes.

Edit that out.

They're refined creatures.

All right. That's the nail in the coffin there.

But see, I knew that Alex would have some crazy information about the Soviet. I just knew he'd have something on this.

I mean, this is his job. He's good at what he does.

Yeah, it was the first thing I wanted to know. I was like, wait a minute, why would a whale swallow him? So it was clearly just completely accidental. And actually, a biologist discussed it in the Atlantic, and they were like, it's probably the equivalent to a human eating a fly with a bite of soup. And you'd be like, oh, what the heck, and spit it out. Or roach or something. I don't know if it would be alarming.

Did he have any scuba gear on or was he just snorkeling? Because, I mean, if you had scuba gear on and you had that metal.

Yes, he had scuba gear.

So, yeah, if you got scuba gear and you're banging around inside this whale's mouth with all this gear and it's metal and it's scratchy and he's blown bubbles up, he probably just want to hack the luggage out.

Well, and the other problem was, so he had jumped in, but he was at 47ft down when he got swallowed. He was, like, on his descent, so he was going down. And so when he got brought back up to the surface that quick, they were a little worried. They didn't know exactly how deep he'd been, and so they were worried about the bends. That was their primary concern.

They had him in the hospital. There's pictures of him with all the wires across his chest and all the shit.

I think he tore up a knee, if I remember right. I think he torped a knee pretty good and stuff. So, yeah, they had him in there for a day just kind of watching them. But this guy needs to go out and buy himself a bunch of lottery tickets, actually.

Yeah, man. ahab, exactly.

Okay, back to whatever you wanted to bore me with Russia.

Okay.

This is a real subject that our listeners need help with. Jimmy, it was getting swallowed by whales.

Come on, now.

Damn right.

Okay. We did cover the essentials first, so I think we should all take a moment and tell people a time where we've been burnt out in the hobby. You want to go first, Jimmy?

I tell you that the first time that I almost was suicidal is I imported one 8000 hundred dollars worth of fish and some airline that rhymes with schmelta. January, they came into Minneapolis and they said, we're probably not going to get them there until tomorrow. I go it's 30. I think it was 31 below actual temperature. And I said, Is there any way you can take them inside at least? Because in Minneapolis, they have a warehouse, but the doors are open because there's forklifts going in and out. So it's very, very cold. I've been in there several times. So normally they sit there for maybe an hour or two before they get on the airplane to come in. fargo, North Dakota but this particular time, I called them, and apparently I hit a nerve because they froze them 100% solid and sent them the next day, oh, $1,800 worth of fish. And that's a point where I said, you know what? I think I'm done with this. And it took me over four months to get my money out of this airline. That grimes with smelter. That was the point. I was just ready to throw in the towel. You have this great grandeur. I mean, all this stuff was pre sold. It was going to go, I lost all that money, but worse yet, killed all these fish for no reason whatsoever.

Get rid of the tanks, flip out the fish room, start drinking. Just no more. Find another hobby, right? Play canasta at the vfw.

Exactly. And so I totally get I mean, there's times, too, especially this time of year in summer, when all of a sudden we decide there's an outside, especially up here in the northland where we're stuck inside for six months out of the year. You finally go, oh, jeep, I can go outside again, and you kind of lose touch with your tank.

How about you, Adam? What's the time where you got burnt out again? jimmy's, a background wholesaling. You got the years of owning a pet store. Ever wake up when you had the pet store and be like, I'm done?

Yeah, but it wasn't the animals. It was the people. No, seriously, I do not understand how constant it is with people. And it's the same stupid questions, even if you tell them the answer two minutes before they ask the same questions. And I got burnt out from the people way faster than I did with the animals. Like the people kind of ruined my day.

Well, how about being a hobbyist on your own? There's got to be times where you're just not in the effort to do some water changes. It's just becoming a chore, and you're losing touch with your aquarium. What does that happen?

So I went. And I bought discus. This guy in hibbing was moving, so I drove all the way to hibbing. I picked up dinner plate sized discus, these massive, beautiful discus, right? I had true L 46 zebra placos. I had a pair of those with my discus in my 75 gallon tank. My discus were starting to pair off, and there was a crack in the heater. And the heater electrocuted every single fish in that tank except for one goddamn sword tail.

The 185 cent fish lived to tell the. Story.

Yes.

They're always the ones who do.

Yes.

Why the sword tail, though?

I don't know.

Other than terrible luck, are they just I know. electrified.

I know. Because a sword tail's tail groaning probe. What Alex think about it?

Funny story. This is actually a female sore tail.

Oh, damn.

That dropped a litter of fry because I kept her without a male for so long and then turned into a male, grew a sword and everything. Grew gunnapodium and everything.

The drugs are good in northern Minnesota, aren't they?

So are the women, apparently.

All right, before I let Alex go, because I feel like Alex is going to have, like, a really finely detailed story of I'm going to go to the bathroom. What's the comedy plus or no failure equals comedy. Failure plus timing is comedy. I'm losing it. But you guys have heard different stories about me having spent so much money on stingray and a black arowana and trading in favors. And if you haven't heard that story, go back and listen to some of our old episodes. They're pretty golden. But I watched my favorite Pearl blonde stingray that I spent so much money on years ago, just eat a piece of food, choking it and die right in front of me.

How much money?

It was way too much money.

Jenny, you've never admitted how much money. I know how much money you spent.

But I don't need to. Right? Just know that it was a lot of money and it's detrimental. But I'm talking about instead of just these horrible situations where you're just ready just to close it up, I'm talking about the day to day. Just recently, a couple of months back, I just burnt out. It's summertime. I have a 1952 Ford. I get bombarded with fans all the time because Jimmy doesn't go on Twitter and front the questions. No, I'm busy. The storefront people. I have people coming with me. Hey, that's a nice aquarium. They won't connect with me other than just giving me a blank compliment and then going home and telling their wife how weird I am, which is true, honestly. I mean, we're a unique group of people and it just gets battering. I look at my aquarium and look at the overgrowth of too many plants and then just get uninspired.

It looks like you haven't shaved your pubes in a month.

I mean, nothing bad happened in that time. It's just I just frankly get burned out. And that's common occurrence for aquarists. It doesn't have to be that one catastrophic moment where something takes a shit. It's just the day to day and you're looking at the same thing. And I like to go over things of number one. This is now an aa group for fish people. One, we're going to confide in each other on stories that we may or may have. It done.

My name is Rob and I'm a fish. A holic.

But you know, we want to give some tools to you guys that have or maybe newer to the fish hobby or or long term hobbyists are listening to this on how to refresh and get out of that burnout cycle, because it's inevitable. Regardless, if you had $1800, you know, a crazy nice discus or your pearl ding ray, that craps out. It's it's inevitable to happen. But I really want to go over the topics of how do you get back in after you've been burnt? So, Alex, what's a couple of times where you just kind of felt done with this?

Can you hear me okay and everything?

Sure can.

Okay. I put on speakerphone because I hate you guys.

We'll get you a mic someday.

Someday I'll afford a mic.

When you get serious about your life, you can get a microphone.

Yeah.

You're only doing this five days a week.

Go to his YouTube place.

Somebody buy him a microphone subscribe, throw.

A few bucks his way, get a giant super chat and say, this is for a new microphone.

Yes, please. You know what? Get him a six pack of beer, too. He's too uptight tonight.

So I get burned out, like, on queue every six months on queue. I tend to lose my for whatever it is I'm doing in the hobby. And it's because all throughout my life, I've had hobbies where I'll go really hard into them like woodworking, and I'll read up all about it, and I'll get really into it, and then I'll just put it aside. But with living things, I feel like I can't put them aside. I have to at least keep them healthy and happy. And because of that, it makes it that the hobby, I feel like, hangs on through those downturns. And the plants are a whole other element, like, kind of giving you a barometer to how well you're doing. And I switch between what I'm working on, though. If I was obsessed with breeding a line of endless, then that's what I'll focus on for, like, six months in my personal time. Now, my channel also helps kind of diffuse, like, the topics and what I'm learning about. But I really do believe that this is a hobby that you could learn all day, every day for the rest of your life and still never get close to knowing even a fraction of what there is to know. But can you guys hear me okay still?

We sure can.

Okay. The other thing is, of course, I've had some times when, like, everything in a tank dies, and, like, I had, like, four leopard frog plecos die that were just mature after three years of, like, raising them. Two and half a years of raising them. That was rough. I raised them from the time I had like 20 of them. And they were tiny, tiny little babies that I paid $5 apiece for. But I had a bunch, and most didn't make it that first month. And then beyond that, some died. And then in the long haul, I had like, four or five, I think it was, at the time. I can see how, like, when you're shipping fish or you have a tank collapse or maybe you get pulmonarys or something, like in all your tanks or in a bunch of tanks, how that could be really rough. But I think the more common burnout is just people having things they need to focus on in their daily life and having video games or their spouse or their kids or maybe they're in a soccer league or whatever. Just something else takes up time in your life and begins to take up the focus, and you're just kind of tired of the same old, same old with the fish tank, and that's when it's time to try a black water tank or try salt water, god forbid. I've never had to go that far.

Well, I think it comes down to being predictable in yourself as well. If you see how you yourself on other hobbies, understand that you're sampling life, you're trying out. Like I bought a 52 Ford. I'm not known to be a car guy. This is an adventure that I decided that I wanted to get into, much like when I was a kid and saw my grandma's tank. And I'm like, I really want to do that. I am now a 30 year old kid that saw a pickup and be like, I really want to do that. It's just how life is. Be brave enough to be brave enough to suck at something new. I think that's the best way to put it. Be brave enough to suck at something new. But when you do, do it smart. I see so many people like, I'm going to get a 350 gallon aquarium.

Nice start.

Nice start, right? I'm going to get piranha because I know nothing about it. And you see intro failures, and we even did a pool podcast about setting yourself up for failure. But in burnout specifically, you could do something and not understand that in six months, growth on that and understand the feeding habits, understand the growth of the fish, and you burn yourself out. Just trying to maintain and adapt for something. You didn't do research for that's one thing, but just the mundane water changes, making sure that you're keeping the glass clear, making sure you're doing filter cartridge changes, just daily upkeep. It's not a lot of work, but when we're busy and get distracted, like you said, by other things, we forget to take care of that ecosystem that we just absolutely loved six months ago. And we know that in probably a couple more weeks we'll be on track. But you have to keep yourself on a schedule. There's so many times where I see people neglect a tank because they just feel burnt out. And I'm guilty. I'm very guilty. I'm literally looking over on. I'm just coming out of a burnout phase, which I think is why this topic is so fantastic. I'm looking over my shrimp tank rack where I have half of them no longer running. I just let them shut down. I'm just keeping a sponge in. There a cycle, and when I rip those apart, it's going to be an adventure going, oh, there's my car keys.

Right?

So don't feel bad. Just set yourself up for maintaining during those times.

Well, and I think that we're going to see this pro tip right here, guys. In about two more months, we're going to see so much free aquarium crap on craigslist because Pandemic is wrapping up. And so many people bought tanks because they're like, well, I guess I'm stuck at home. And they say that 95% of people in our hobby like marketing research that they do petco and petsmart, big places do 95% of people keep a fish tank for six months to a year and then quit? If they have a tank within three years after buying it, they will most likely have fish tanks the rest of their lives.

That's some fantastic numbers. I thought that was, like, way above the norm, but yeah, good for the three months. It's like a podcast. If you're in a podcast, the numbers on it is you won't make eight episodes.

Really?

Yeah.

In fact, we I bet against us, right?

We you bet against us? We wouldn't make eight episodes. That's the average. If you can go over eight episodes, you have beaten 75% of all those that attempted it.

So we can quit and thank you and good night.

Ring my house.

No, go get some dolphins and some poker fish and we'll call it a night.

Right? I mean, just think about how many people try to do YouTube, right? And that's what people believe to be competitive. I have a firm belief that no content creator takes away from each other. All we do is build each other up.

I believe that's true.

People have believed that's a competitive thing. They're competing for views. I disagree. But you know how many youtubers have started something out and try to like, hey, guys, this is my new YouTube. I'm going to start doing this. And you see two videos and it's over.

Yep. yep. You know who's the worst at that, honestly, are, like, professors that specialize in fish. They proclaim. Like, they're going to like, oh, I know so much more about whatever tetras I could. All the information online is wrong. I hate all these videos. And then they're like, I'm going to start a channel. And you go there, and there's like three videos from, like, 2009. And that's it.

Yeah, absolutely.

That's what I love about the Internet. Internet is forever.

Internet is forever.

You failed ten years ago and you're still failing today.

Right? I told this pump joke on one of our episodes, and now that's my nickname.

Good old butt pump hack for your average viewer listener. I don't know, they could be viewing the radio, I suppose, or their phone. But try to get into I mean, here's a challenge. If you're really fed up with your tanks, like you think you might be getting out of the hobby level, tired of it, try going filterless, depending on your fish. If you're fish or discus or something, don't do that. But if you've got community fish, even like Angel Fish and Tetras and Gurami's and bettas and daniels and whatever, try going completely filter lists. Let it get clogged with your neglect and plant the heck out of that tank. Add more and more plants until you think there isn't room for plants. Let it look like a jungle where you can't even see your fish. And honestly, if you've got a good substrate base down most of the methods I've seen, whether that's there's people like Father fish, there's diane walstead, there's dustin's fish tanks, there's Lucas Brett, all of them have different ways, different substrate combos that they've gotten to work without filters just fine. But essentially, if you have a place for the waste to settle down and out of the way, and you have plants to deal with the nitrates and nitrites and ammonia, and you can bring yourself to feed fish that are over a certain size. I mean, I have certain tanks where I've gone four or five months without feeding, like little son De daniels or cpds, because they can live off the little copa pods and things in the tank. And so before you give up, sometimes you'll find the magic in the hobby when you realize that tanks aren't supposed to be this, like, crystal clear, hermetically sterile area of perfection. Like any body of water you go to other than, like, a hot spring or something, is going to be a mucky, muddy, transitional zone of weeds and junk. Our tanks can look like that. That's okay. They don't need to look like takashi amano, like desktop books.

I'm going to one up. That what helped for me during one of my slumps, was transitioning away. And it wasn't just the fact that I was sick of tanks at the moment. It wasn't the fact that it was inconvenient during my super busy times of my life where there was transitions or stressed and I didn't want to think about my aquariums. It was the fact that I opened my monthly bill for my electricity, and it was just during that weird COVID peak we had, and I had a $500 electric bill, then it became no longer a burnout of tanks. It made me look at it going, that piece of shit isn't paying rent. Honestly, it was resentment at that point. So it wasn't just going to filter this. It was me unplugging the aquarium. So instead, I got creative, and I found a nude way to enjoy some of those things. So they're no longer costing me rent.

So you took the money, went to the casino, and doubled down, right.

So what I did is I went filterless in some of the tanks, completely filterless. I went heater lists on everything I possibly could. Shrimp don't need heat, right? White Cloud Mountain minnows don't need heat. Rice, fish, most of them don't need heat. So I just started going down the.

List, honestly, even if you heat four or five tanks in a small bedroom that are like 40 gallons, they'll heat like two to three times the amount of tanks around them. They act as heat sinks, so that room will stay whatever temperature the majority of the tanks are.

Now, that's true for most places, but I'm in the ass crack of Minnesota and everything gets cold, even in my basement, my rooms, yes, it does heat up the room quite a bit, but I'm paying a lot for that heat. Having cold water species is a real knockout for me.

The other thing that worked out for me, one time, or one time I still do it, I have a rack of tanks. I'll have six tanks, and I will do every other tank with a heater because my tanks are so tight, they're touching each other, and that heat will radiate, and that will keep it maybe six degrees warmer than it would if it was actually just room temperature. And so if my tank there is 82, that one's probably 76. So that works very well for me, and it helps when you get that big guiding bill. The other thing that Rob did, too, that he didn't mention is he put in one pump and ran the airline all the way around his room and unplugged all the other pumps that he had.

It was somewhere around like 14 air pumps that I pulled. It was incredible. Not to mention the heaters and the hang on the back filter right there at the end of the table. Jimmy, the canister filter has been unplugged for a while now, because that was the moment where I pulled it out, put some plants in. I'm like good luck. Good luck, buddy.

Now, Adam, you did the same thing, too, didn't she, at your store?

Yeah, I when I bought the store, there was hang on the back filters on every single tank. There was 46 tanks on the wall, and they also had undergraduate filters. So I basically unplugged all the hang on the back filters, put in sponge filters on top of the undergraduate filters. Everything was cycled, basically, because the undergraduate filters and I want to say I dropped my electric bill $600 in a month.

And who came to visit you after that happened?

Oh, the electrical company did, because they weren't sure why the hell my bill went down.

That's right.

After being the same consistent ish every month for almost 20 years. Then all of a sudden, it dropped $600.

And I go.

That's what I did.

I have to come break some knee caps to make sure that they still got you?

Well, no, they were wondering if I somehow bypass the meter.

Wow. The other thing that sorry, old timers, but getting leds, honestly, the Led versus like silver halide or silver oxide or any of the nickel, whatever, it doesn't matter what it is, any light other than an Led is going to just drain energy compared to the new Led. Just nothing compares. I went from having old T Five kind of lights, ended up switching them out with even getting a highlight, like a Fluvall 3.0 Planet Plus, which isn't a cheap light, and it does use a good amount of electricity for an Led, but it puts out near, what, like 200 watts or something? And it's only 18 actual used watts, like being used. That's crazy. And you can do a whole rack of several cells if you mount that high enough. And that highlight setting will also, one, heat the room just slightly, but it will heat the room a little, and it will allow plants in 4ft by 3ft of space in a rectangle to grow. If you get the big size, that's actually, I think, 36 watts if you get the big one, but it's a huge difference.

Now, I have heard and I have no idea I think this is totally baloney, but I have heard that they're trying to develop an Led heater, which I have no idea how that would even work. And I've heard this a couple of times and I thought, this is bs. And I just start recently hearing about it again. Has anybody else heard about this?

Or is it just bs that's its sole function or it's a light that happens to also use the excess ballast of heat for your square.

No, I heard about this, and it is actually the Led like little cathodes that they're putting in essentially like a tube. So it's supposed to and this is like some of the weird designs I've heard of, supposed to like a uv light where they put everything condensed around and they pump over top of the light to sterilize. This is supposed to pump over top of high powered Led cathodes so they produce the heat and then warm the water as it goes through.

Wow.

I thought that leds don't put up a lot of heat.

Well, they don't traditionally, but there are some that do, and there are some now that they're using tungsten and other metals in the diodes that can take a lot more heat than the way they traditionally have been made. But, I mean, it's kind of like lasers, too. Like a laser can be very bright without using that much energy, but a laser can also be strong enough to burn holes and stuff if you do want to put the energy in. The thing. To me that is interesting is that a light bulb. Like, literally, the whole reason light bulbs, old fashioned ones, work and are bright is because they're so inefficient with energy. They vibrate so much, they radiate so much in both the form of heat and light that it glows. You know what I mean? Whereas an Led is so very the opposite. It's a very compact, condensed form that they're using much less energy in to get that out. So I just would have assumed that the electricity from your wall could heat up a piece of filament, whatever that might be, metal of iron or, I don't know, aluminum, whatever it is. I have no idea. Material wise, I just would have assumed that something would be better than having to make a whole diode and everything. I mean, like a toaster works by just heating up a piece of metal wire from the wall. Essentially, your burner works that way, and that heats things up real quick, electricity wise. So I'm just surprised that leds are up there. But maybe there's also like a sterilizing or some other component to it that makes it a plus to do that. But I just don't know enough about the actual material science of it. But now I'm going to look into it.

Yeah, I just thought it totally was bogus when I first heard about it, and then it kind of went away. And I've heard of the ganger here just recently. But in today's technology, things continue to get better and better and better. Just read an article today which has nothing to do with aquariums, but a lot of countries now are starting to take all the waste plastic that are getting dropped in our oceans and getting dropped in our landfills, and they're putting it into roadways anyway. The United States is just starting to do that, but it's been quite common now over in Europe. And they'll take all the recycled plastics and they do something, and they mix it in with a pavement, and the pavement is lasting longer. It's more durable. It could take higher heat, doesn't buckle, potholes don't form as fast and stuff. So there's somebody where somebody did the research, somebody took something that filling our landfills and filling our oceans and doing something good with it. So, I mean, anything's possible.

So what you're saying is you're waiting for like a recyclable source to heat your aquarium.

I'll take whatever I can get, man, as long as it's cheap.

All right, Jimmy, you and I have to come up with to help these burn out victims. A manure fueled aquarium meter.

Yes. And we'll do that in your basement.

Absolutely.

I'm sure you're wife will.

Have you guys seen Rocket stoves?

Rocket stoves?

What?

Yeah. So they're like these little stoves, these little camp stoves, and you basically start with twigs and you feed twigs into them. And then you can add these little billets or you can buy pellets, but they actually will fuel a USB charger and stuff, too. And they're just like a little teeny coffee can size camp stove. But it's wood fuel and you start it with a normal little wood fire with kindling, and then you want to get some dense hardwood to fuel it. After that, just because it burns hotter, that it's more effective. But I was wondering, what if we did that with duckweed? Because I bet you I could grow enough duckweed to power a heater in my aquarium. No problem.

Like a boiler that's it sort of kickstarter campaign. People will throw money at them.

We'll have to look into the actual physics. We'll have to get a physics professor to figure out the biomass, the heat, the burn rate, all that stuff. But I bet you I just look around at the amount of duckweed I produce just without lights on tanks, and I think you could easily have something there. It's things like this that stopped me from getting burnt out is coming up with stupid ideas that don't work. But then I find out why they don't work, and I learned something new.

Hey, Alex. So I've been following a guy on YouTube I just love, and it's goliath farms down in Texas.

Oh, yeah, down in Texas. Yeah.

He is working with somebody in Texas there to figure out if there's any type of oil that they can extract from duckweed in order to make some sort of energy source. And he talks about it quite a bit, and here's the thing. He says, so if tomorrow we find something that duckweed is so valuable, he says, then duckweed will quit growing in my tanks, and I'll be a happy man. Think about it. If you find something useful, then all of a sudden, this crap we have will no longer be available. But I mean, just if you can get these crazy people who do this stuff. I mean, look what elon Musk is doing. Sure, he's landing rockets back down on his base. He's burrowing tunnels underneath cities so they can shoot subways through it. I mean, it's just incredible stuff that he's doing. And then the man's half crazy. But you know what? Sometimes half crazy is all good.

I blame you for my recommended videos on YouTube. I get all these people that try to show me how to make duckweed recipes and how to cook it. So you jimmy, look, you know, everybody.

That I've ever tried their duckweed smoothie crap, it is god awful. I don't think you can make it, palatable.

Why the hell would you want to eat duckweed?

I would love it.

It's like 56% protein by weight.

Yeah, it's really packing.

It not going to eat it.

It'll make you poop like a goose.

All right, back on.

I hear you. What about my special algae? There's lots of algae that are being used as fuel already.

Well back on point. So back to the burnout victim. So if you're in a state of burnout. Here's some recommendations. do's and don'ts. To start off at least my dos and don'ts do. Add plants to your tank. Make your tanks affordable. Make it easy on you, the pet owner. As far as maintenance glass, keep a species that are meant to be together as far as, like, cleaners shrimp, do a great job. ramshorn snails, keep that aquarium prepped. Maybe rehearsals, you don't have to.

If something that eats like prawns that you have to devin every day for them, like a puffer or something. Unless you truly love that fish and that's like what's saving you from total burnout. Those kind of things can be really draining, too. I just throw that out there.

I've actually gotten messages back because puffers are so getting so popular, thanks to a particular youtuber with bad dental purposes. And I'm assuming he mentions it on there. People should mention more often, really, what it takes for that, that you have to, like you said, prep with the prawns, you have to prep clams. You have to do the diet, a lot of it multiple times a day. Some people have to hatch live food. It's such an effort when it doesn't have to be. You can select bright, beautiful, fun species. A communal tank. You were even saying, like, how they're.

Living off of monkey or something, or a parrot as a pet.

Right.

The problem with the monkey is they'll tell you when he's mad and he's hungry.

Your fish can't yeah, at least fish don't fling. Feed these yeah.

They can't throw poop at you when they entertainment.

Some fish would try.

That's why there's more MERS in the Egypt tomb.

That's right, yeah.

I think guppies are doing the same equivalent with their babies when they're mad at you.

I would think, like, antler guppies would probably be the ones that throw feces.

Just guessing 100%, they probably would.

So set yourself up and then as far as maintenance goes, because that's the hard part, you set yourself up for success, but you still have to do it, even if emergencies come up. Keep yourself to a schedule. Create in a schedule on your phone, alert yourself that, hey, it's been three weeks, it's time to do a water change. It's been a couple of days. Does your fish get fed? Have you inspected them to make sure everything is going okay? And we're not saying that over feed them. Keep a schedule. If you're not feeling it, the schedule will at least help to guide you to not forget about them. When it's so easy to do, when it's not on the top of your mind and you feel drained on the hobby.

I have to say, too, that I've made some of my craziest discoveries in our hobby. Just personal epiphanies from when you're burnt out, from when you're just like, tired of it and you keep going through it. And the other thing is, if you're breeding fish, that's a. Whole other level of stuff. And I think a lot of people, especially because of, I mean, I've contributed to this problem, I'm sure, by showing people like, oh, you can breed for profit and obviously that's true. But your average person, you have to be passionate about fish first, then want to breed for profit and then have somewhat of a knack for it and educate yourself and do it smart. But so many people go by like ten tanks and then they've got like an extra tank for this and they've got a grow out tank and they've got 100 angel fish that aren't, quote unquote, doing anything for them for a few months except eating food. And I think that when you are feeling burnt out, it's also a time to scale back on your breeding, unless that's what really gives you a kick in the hobby, is breeding, then obviously stick with the things you love. But for the most part, a lot of people think that they're going to get into this hobby and make money off of their shrimp or make money off of this or that. And it's possible, but it shouldn't be. Why you're doing it.

Pretty much ever we talked about some do's, right? Those don'ts that people don't like to talk about is, I'm going to put an automatic feeder in the back of my tank. That's a huge don't in my mind. The idea of automatic feeder is you're not going to address issues, you're not going to see when that filter is clogged, you're not going to see when you have a dead fish in your small tank which will crap out the whole tank. You're not going to see growth issues, aggression issues. If someone's pinning someone, it in the corner and you should readdress or move that fish to a different tank, you're not connecting with it and it's not going to help you get over the burnout, it's going to help you disconnect. And then in three more months you're going to be like, you know what, I'm just done with those fish. I had a gentleman, right before the podcast come, drop off three of his precious shabunkin goldfish that he loved and has had for years, but he's just gotten to the point where he's so busy and he hasn't got over the burnout, did the automatic fish feeder thing and lost connection with his fish. Until one day his wife comes and talks to him and says, hey, one of the fish is having an issue. And he saw a bit of neglect, felt his own failure and then reached out to me because he knows that I would have the time to take care of it. It's not something that and what do.

You do with those fish, Rob?

They're in your pond.

That's right. I come out of my house tonight, hops. Don't put them in my pond.

They're in your pond, so they're friends. People are going to take care of them. Jimmy and I taking a ton of rescue fish. And don't shame yourself for getting to that point, but there's stuff to help prevent it. It's going to happen when dad said to you, dad, can I please have a dog? Well, it's going to happen when you get sick of them in six months. That's a real thing. It's going to happen in everybody's hobby. It's just you have to prepare for it and set yourself up for success.

Yeah, well, I think a lot of people get this collectoritis thing. I go through it, and honestly, if I didn't have either friends that were breeding that I swap with or YouTube affiliates, like aquatic arts that send me, basically, my commission for advertising is more fish, which allows me an ability that a lot of people don't have in that that's like new fish. So I can give away my old fish to friends and then try something new. And I fully realize that not everybody has that luxury. I'm so grateful for that. But it's something to know about yourself, too, like whether changing up the fish is going to help. But a lot of people get into it and they're just like, I need every plant for aquascaping, and so they go out and they buy the expensive gear and whatever. And I think sometimes the more you spend and the faster you grow in a hobby, the less you value it. I've been in this hobby 27 years, if you count, like, being a kid, breeding guppies. And, I mean, I've never owned a tank over 100 gallons. I would love to, I want to, but I know realistically that there's a good chance I would get burnt out on it and not keep up with it if that were, like, a show piece tank that needs to look immaculate all the time.

The other thing that comes to mind, and I think Adam probably going to test to this, if you're feeling a little burnt out on a Saturday afternoon in the dead of winter, stop by your local pet store where everybody is hanging out talking about what they're doing. And it doesn't take long before you get excited about it again because you're going, hey, I didn't know Bob is doing these laser beam guppies, or somebody's doing these platinum angels and all of.

A sudden platinum rice fish.

Platinum rice fish that Robbie took from my house. So, yeah, there's so many things that just having somebody there to talk about it helps tremendously.

And don't be afraid there's another don't be afraid to rotate your fish.

Yeah.

Alex yeah, you you hit the nail on the head when you said swap meets. Find places where it's okay to swap out your fish and it's accepted. It's okay to take that fish you've had for six years that might have a long lifespan, or even a fish that you've had for a few months and find it at a better home. You can find friendly swap pages. You can find different clubs to go off of. You can even find a group that you can create at your own local fish store.

Yeah, a lot of people think that they're failing if they there's this taboo. Some fish keepers, I've felt it before, like a stigma of like, oh, they got a fish and it got too big for their tank. idiot. And sometimes that's not the case. Sometimes you don't want a two foot long pleco, but maybe someone with 150 gallon tank, that's exactly what they need, you know what I mean? Or want or whatever. And so if there are people out there, especially a pleco is an extreme case or a Red Tail catfish, those are kind of obvious type things. But when you talk about silver dollars or, like, pacos or the real monster tank buster that sometimes people do get into deep, there's no shame. Like, if you can't take care of it or aren't taking care of it because you don't like it anymore, you're burnt out. Yeah, you're burnt out on it. Then give it to someone who's not that fish deserves that, especially those long living fish.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard about, quote unquote, this asshole fish. And I'm done with the aquarium hobby. This asshole fish did this, this asshole fish did that. And you'll hear about the crazy Jack dempsey that someone got. No one told them about their pet store. And now I'm done with the hobby. Don't let that asshole fish get between you and having fun with this. Find a place because there's people like me that love assholes.

Yeah.

Wow.

I do. You're just talking when we started the podcast about a dario that you bred yeah. That was just beaten down fish, and I want that pretty bad.

Yeah, I mean, speaking of, yes, I created an asshole. I created a baddest. It's an asshole and hybrid species like flowerhorns or black haitians that have been crossed with green tears and stuff are some of the meanest fish out there. hybrids get this thing called hybrid vigor, and sometimes they get both bigger and more aggressive, or sometimes they can be more docile. It can go either way. But, yeah, I created recently some battles that are hybrids, and they're terrorists. I can't put anything in with them. No shrimp, no I mean, not even guppies can go in with them. They attack them. But I learned my lesson on that one, and I know I'm never going to, like, have a tank other than those guys. Sometimes it's a pair, but mostly alone. They can't even get along with each other right now. They're all in 2.5 gallons, all lined up. So know what you're getting into. You can have a lot of fun with even just one fish tank or species tanks, like, tear it down if you got too many fish or if you have a fish die off or something. Like all your angels die. Maybe you give it a couple of shots, but maybe angels aren't your thing. Maybe they're not good for your water. Maybe garamis are better.

Find your niche. Don't be afraid to rotate around, but just find ways to ethically handle that. Find those outlets. Find those swap groups. Find the Facebook group. Create your own group if you don't have one. And worst case scenario, you need a group and you really can't find one because you're that one dude in Canada that no one will talk to. Hop on the website quarantineguyspodcast.com. Go to discord. Find yourself a new friend or secretary.

Bud they're doing there's almost guaranteed to be someone who will even pay you to ship them fish. If it's some fish that you're tired of that was an investment or that's of a certain age, there are so many caring people in this hobby that want to see fish taking care of that. If people say they can't find a home for a fish, I just don't believe that they tried very hard most or that they just don't know where to look, I guess. But with Google these days, the answer should be like, if you don't know, go to Google. And then within, I don't know, ten minutes, you should know there's a reason.

You don't see how do I put this gently? You know what? I'm going to be an asshole. You guys come here for the honest truth. I'm going to give you honest truth. There's a reason that you see legitimate rescues like the Ohio Fish Rescue, only taking monster fish because all other fish have a home. Jimmy and I rescue fish all year long, mostly in the winter, because it's something like mass amounts of goldfish out of ponds, and people just get rid of them because they consider them disposal. There's always a home for fish within reason, unless there's the size of a garbage can lid. And then you can call these wonderful people in Ohio that have a mullet. Yeah, you see a ton of these fake rescues. All they are is looking for free fish, ladies and gentlemen. We'll be open about it. It's going to go to stores. It's going to go to a guy that's looking for a fish that will give away for free. We're not doing it because we want the fish. We're just here as an outlet. We're not advertising. People just come to us with buckets like they did this afternoon. There's always a home for fish, and if it isn't, it's big. I mean, that's the honest truth.

It's the rescue that drives me insane that want to do an adoption fee. Okay, now my blood spoiling. So I went to my local big box store and they have oh, no.

We can say their name. It's not slander like we do with schmelta.

But I mean, you go in there and thank goodness someone's trying to find these cats at home, but they're asking for an adoption fee of $250 for a one eyed ten year old. tomcat seriously? $250 for a used cat?

But it doesn't have that many miles.

Well, it looked like it had a lot of miles on it. But what I'm saying is, if you got somebody who's legitimately trying to help out, they're not going to charge you $20 adoption fee for a fish. They're selling you a fish and they're trying to be a want to be pet store, and that pisses me off. And there are great people in this place helping out pets, don't get me wrong, but there are certain people that are just trying to pretend to help out, and they're trying to make a profit.

So rotate your fish, keep it fresh, and if you want, keep yourself in the schedule. If you feel like you haven't had them long enough or haven't learned enough about them, hold them for a year, two years, three years, whatever you need to explore and learn in your hobby. And don't be afraid to have a reset schedule. You'll see youtubers doing it all the time. People have their fish rooms. Alex, you got a nice fish room. And I guarantee you come back a year on your YouTube channel and it's going to change that's on purpose. It's not just for your viewers. That is for you growing in your own hobby.

Yeah. And literally, it's part of why I have a channel, so that I realized early on, like, man, I want to explore a lot of things. And this is even if I had a channel with 500 subscribers or whatever, 100 subscribers, that would be 100 people that might want to trade fish with me. Because the other thing is, I don't know about most people listening, but I don't have the money to go buy retail price fish all the time. Anytime I'm excited about a new fish, I'd be broke all the time.

Yeah, not when your Doctor pepper costs $10 a case.

Yeah, exactly. Come on. Priority, people. But, yeah, there's no shame in it. And if you look at my channel, people will say, what happened to those macrostomas that you had? Or what happened to the burrell pistols you had?

Or whatever.

And some people will kind of say, it almost like, ha ha, I caught you. You killed them or something. And it's like, no, I traded them, and that's why I've got these giant Haplochromis now, or whatever. That's a really great way to benefit two people, is swapping fish out and changing things around my channel every three months. It looks like a new fish room, with the exceptions of a few fish that my pandeal oaches, my shrimp, and a few guppy lines and nanos of choice, everything else kind of changes.

The only thing that doesn't change is those feeder guppies I'm staring at in my 60 gallon. I'll take them all back then. No, I'll give you half. That way they can have room multiply again.

The front half or the back half?

Oh, no. Get ready for, like, 200 fish at.

Them if that happens.

No, I think your tank yeah, it's happened.

You're cutting my fish in half?

No.

Wow. You are a dick.

What do you think it's called? chum, gentlemen.

Good names. chum, crappy mullets.

See, there you go. Any other recommendations that help get you guys at a burnout? Honestly, I think what helped Jimmy is having fun with his fish room. He likes to challenge himself by trying to do things he just can't seem to ever do. Like, he'll get a bug up his butt, and he'll decide to rearrange his fish room and then start trying to breed placoes. So get a bunch of caves, have a good time. And even if he's flipping me off right now, but even if he fails, he's having fun with the challenge. I think that's how Jimmy really enjoys his fish hobby. Is everything's just a new challenge for him? And he doesn't really realize it. He makes jokes like, oh, how much money did it make me? And all this. But it's his adventure in his basement.

Well, I think that my entire channel is based off that same concept. It's the secret history, living in your aquarium. And the idea was, if I was in a goldfish bowl, trapped the rest of my life, what would I think about? And so then I kind of extrapolate that aquarium.

Hold on.

You do have a meth lab in your basement, don't you?

That's like, the people if I was on a tropical island, I have nothing better to do.

Yes, home arrest makes you do crazy things, but no, it started with the thought of, like, okay, so say you're sitting in the aquarium, and then you wonder, okay, where did this glass that makes up the actual aquarium come from? China. Okay. What economic issues are impacting the price of glass right now? What's impacting the price of silicone and putting those pieces of glass together as aquariums? Oh, skyscraper construction is causing us to have less aquarium glass available. That's low iron. Why is there low iron glass? Why is there iron and glass? Period. What's the metallurgy behind that? Oh, egyptians kept fish and worked glass, and then we lost the technology. There's an endless trail, and some people find it. I found it in history and science and biology, but some people do it with carpentry. I swear. Some fish channels, like serpa Design, for instance, like tanner, is a half fish and reptile channel, and the other half is like, a DIY craft and carpentry channel. Maybe that's your fix. Maybe you need to build mahogany or tear faces for all of your critter cages or your aquariums. Or maybe you want to restore Victorian era or art deco or whatever, Euroframe aquariums. There's just so many different things in our hobby that you can branch out and still that way at least get out of bed and cover your basics of feeding your fish, changing your water every couple of weeks. And really, if you have like 40 aquariums or 30 aquariums or 20, whatever it is that's beyond doable in a few hours, then you really should think for a few years before you get to that point. In my opinion, I'm at 24 now and this is the first time I definitely feel like, wow, vacation is going to be different. I can't just leave these fish, but even when I had like ten tanks, I could still leave for a week. It was doable. And I think those are important things, like just don't overexpand yourself in the first place is important if you're listening to this, and new because it's so tempting to go get a free 90 gallon tank that's right up the street and free, but are you ready for the work that's involved with all that? So, I mean, just scale things as you go and then that way your workload should be, as we've already talked about, as efficient as possible. And if that's the case, then you can put in as much or as little time as you want and it shouldn't be much more work than like household chores or any other kind of that you may keep.

So the moral of the story is tell your dad that, yes, you'll take care of them in six months and it will be your responsibility and then follow through.

Yes.

Adam, you got any last remarks?

You know what, I always did, as dumb as it sounds, whenever I was starting to feel burnout from pet store.

Or whatever, you became a burnout? No. Okay.

I just would sit back and look at the simplest fish and just watch it swim for like five minutes and then I try to get that childlike wonder back. Or watch a pair of green and olds because those are one of my first lizards I ever had and I was breathing. And just watch the behaviors for five or ten minutes. Just take five minutes and zen out with your stuff and then you'll get it back. That's what I've noticed at least.

Or go to nature and get some inspiration from trout or koi or whatever, get some references for what made you love those things in the first place.

I love that going back to basics. Think that first time that it captured an aquarium, like, I remember where I was at. I was sitting right at the base of my grandma's fireplace looking at what I thought in my little brain, a massive 55 gallon aquarium with this amazing community. It was literally a zoo in a square box. And I sat there hanging off of a chair that they propped up so a little old meek could reach up there and watch it until I would fall asleep. Go to Grandma's house for the evening. All I remember was being carried to the car. I would lose track in the fish just watching Cory dora's attempt to breed. It was so much fun, so relaxing.

With the of that little air pump and everything with you at all times.

Now I get flashbacks from nam, but, yes, that it was very relaxing, soothing, and I can almost smell grandma's burrito bar.

Oh, you know what else? What else would help me at my shop whenever I was having a really bad days? When a little kid came in or to see the lizards or something cool. That's when you can get to their level and see things from their level.

They just laugh in their face that they can't afford anything or decide to buy anything without their parents'help. I gave him free fish every now and then. Oh, okay, you can go that.

How dare you?

If the kids got the tank ready, but he doesn't have some. I had a couple of kids come in, and they didn't have enough money for everything, so I was like, here you go. Just take them. Enjoy. And those would be your lifelong people. Maybe get the younger generation interested in fish. If you want to tear down, give a younger kid a free fish tank.

This is what Adam learned how to do business practices. He learned from his local drug dealer. Just give them a hit. They'll be back.

Wow.

Give him a little bit.

That was so heartfelt from Adam.

But it's the truth. It's not supposed to be nasty. It's the truth. He got kids into the hobby. He knew that they're going to get lost in this natural wonderland, and he knew that those people in odds, if they keep it for three months, according to the stats we just got from Alex, are hooked. He's a genius.

And so did McDonald's give you your first free hamburger? And that's what happened.

I mean, they did give me some free clothes as well.

I bet you did.

And it smelled like fries.

Yes.

So, Adam, you reign supreme as a genius in that. Honestly, that should be the whole thing. Like, Jimmy is like, oh, they should still have fish at Walmart because it helps get kids. No, they should have pet store owners that have a free section just for six and under.

Okay. And maybe we should give away free candy in the back of a van.

You weirdo.

See, now you're getting it.

I have to say, though, so, like, aquarium co op cory said it on his show, and I remember when he used to do this. I don't know if it's still their practice. I think it's probably not practical now with the size of their company, but he used to give a pair of guppies or any live bear that a kid under ten wanted, and then he would buy back those fish. Like, back in the day, and I always thought that was really cool. And hence the name aquarium co op. It kind of made it that way. But he did that with just kids, for instance, but in a smaller town, like pretty much anybody who other than corey, because he's in a place now where he's so big that he'd probably have a million people coming and begging for their kids to have free fish, and he'd have to buy a billion guppies. That will suck. But other than that, for your average fish store, I think that's such a cool program to do that.

Another thing that you can do out there is something that I've done in the past. I know Adam, for a fact, has done this in the past. People come in and say, I just don't want this aquarium anymore. And you take that aquarium and you put it down in your back room, you kind of forget about it. It grows a little bit of dust on it and stuff. Give that aquarium and a pair of guppies to your local elementary school. Give it to your local church for their daycare area. Give it to somebody in prison. In prison? You don't know who you're going to inspire.

No.

In prison, they're going to break the aquarium glass and they're going to shank you with a glass.

Yeah, that's that's going to backfire.

It's going to backfire.

That's why it's tempered. So it breaks in tiny pieces.

Exactly.

Right. But yeah.

Anyway, I really think that to give back to the community is essential and like what corey used to do, or maybe he still does good job. I think that's a great thing to do. And I know Adam has done it in the past. I know I've done in the past. I know robbie's done in the past.

Yeah. It's the classic old family local run. That's what made local fish stores great, those kinds of things. That community that you can't get anywhere else. And you can get a little bit of it online, but you can't get that you can't get actual trading fish. I mean, you got to meet somewhere. So why not support your local shops while you're at it?

We should do a make a fish campaign.

What would we do?

So to make a wish, it's make a fish. Make a fish and then just have some money.

Dying kids fish.

Yeah, just to get no, not dying kids. We heard how dying kids fish doesn't really work out. Last time you were on the podcast yeah.

That was pretty sad.

Yeah. No, just getting kids into fish. That's the whole thing. Make a fish campaign.

So give them the fish, free the first one.

Right. Give them a few first ones, and then they'll come back for more. Then they'll be in the hobby.

They'll be full price.

Next thing you know, they'll be at aquarium clubs. Next thing, they'll do seminars. And maybe, just maybe, they'll start their own YouTube channel or a podcast and get to episode eight or they'll be selling their house.

By the way, I do have an episode called you May Be Suffering from mts. If and it does have the clear progression. There's about three routes that you could go down of how people end up with too many fish and then get sick of it and then drop out. So I just wanted to self promote shamelessly there because it's a video that not that many people have seen.

Oh, no. It's going to be in the show notes.

It's all about you, Alex.

If you are listening this, check them out at the bottom of the podcast. The link to that episode will be there. And check it out and then leave a comment that heard it here. Yeah, it's saying where you heard it from. Just make sure to fill up his old YouTube videos with really nice comments. spamming the aquarium, guys. You know what I mean?

Yes, please do. Seriously. Thank you. Well, Alex is the only shameless plug other than all the self aggrandizing and cutting off, and I'm going to blame it all on the phone delay.

Yes, because we're going to get you a microphone soon enough.

Please, everybody, send in a nickel. Everybody. And we get 10,000 people nickel. How much is that, everyone?

Male robs a nickel, please. I would love to see this.

I'm going to take your nickel.

I'm going to take your nickel, and.

I'm going to make $0.07.

How much is it?

$0.07.

Why $0.07?

Because it costs to make a nickel is like $0.07. That's how much metal is how much metals in a nickel that metal is worth.

Well, no wonder we're having economic problems in this country.

Well, if we get 10,000 people to send in a nickel, that's $500.

That's $500.

We can buy him a dang microphone for $500, can't we?

Come on, let's get every okay. It's a nickel. Make a mic foundation.

That's right. We're going to buy Alex a microphone.

Yes. Alex, you got any closing from someone.

Who'S burnt out on podcasting?

Say that again.

I'll just get a used one from someone who's burnt out on their 9th podcast.

Oh, that's brilliant. sf seven. Seven.

Okay, sorry, I misunderstood your your stats. Okay, got seven.

He's just making shit up.

I'm going to hunt down, like, someone on their 6th episode. I'm going to follow, like, 40 podcasters on their 6th episode that seemed to be doing it kind of slow. And then I'll hit them up in like, a month for their microphone.

I'm not even going to lie to you. There is a group that has been reaching out to me, and I'm like, hey, I'll help you with hosting. I'll host your podcast for free. I like what you guys are doing. Here's a few tips. If you guys need any help, here's some help. I have contact with some editors, and episode three. Came around and I haven't heard from them since. Honestly, it's been months. Sad deal, but yeah. If you guys want to start a podcast, just message me. I'll help you out. I'll do free hosting for a while.

The first one's free, guys.

First one's free.

Second one, you got to give us a microphone for Alex. It's just a deal.

There's, like, a restaurant over here called paradiso Chips off, free dinner extra. They know what's up. anyways, Alex, any last notes?

I just gave a whole bunch. I'm going to shut up.

Okay?

Thank you for having me.

Check out the channel.

Oh, you've been had.

Check out the channel. Get this damn fool a mic. All right, do it.

A nice mic.

A nice mic.

Not just a shitty mic.

And get your kids hooked on fish.

There we go.

Until next time. 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. Subscribe. And make sure you get push notifications directly to your phone so you don't miss great content like this. So we now can confirm with science largest blow job of all time. Would you like if you give me.