Hey, guys. Normally we do a comedic ad at this time, but just want to give an update. Joe, from Joe Shrimciak. Joe tyson has actually been having a bit of an emergency, so I want to apologize for any delays on orders and let him know I'll let you guys know that any specials that we're going during this time will be extended. He is out due to complications with kidney stones, so please pray for Joe. And it looks like he has successfully been able to deal with that at the hospital with surgery. So I have a request of you. Please go on Facebook, find Joe Schmiche Facebook group or Joe tyson himself and message him a bit of love. Let him know that you wish him the best and that he is loved. And above all else, when he comes back to his shop, I want there to be a ton of orders, so go to Joe. Shramshack.com. Order something, though there'll be probably a day or two delay on getting it shipped out, but put in the order notes that we're happy you're back. Get well soon, and don't forget to use promo code Aquarium Guys at checkout for 15% off everything in the store. And, Joe, get better, buddy. Welcome to the Aquarium, guys. Podcast with your hosts, Jim colby and Rob Golden. All right, guys, welcome to the podcast.

Whoo. I'm excited.

Is that why there's powder on your nose?

Yes. I'm not eating a powdered, donut. I'm excited.

You're just excited because it took you.

Like, 45 minutes to get this all figured out.

You found your grandson's baby powder. That's true. Definitely not. The other stuff are you really live.

In the 80s again, Jim?

I've never left the 80s, dude.

He's never, ever left. anyways. I'm your host, Robbie olsen.

I'm Jim colby.

And I'm Adam on the shark.

So today we're doing episode two of Dr. Fish. We have the doctor in the house, ladies and gentlemen. James, how are you doing today?

I'm doing very well. how's it going, fishy folks?

Fishy folks.

Fishy folks. See that? We got to do, like, fish people. We got to have some tagline. He likes to interact with the audience. He's showing us up already. Tag lines, something.

All right, cool. Cats and kittens.

Okay, never mind. Moving on. So, James, thanks again for being a trooper and joining us. And again, just want to put this out there that it's. Not only thank you to you, James, for saying yes, because that's a big one, right? But also thank you to seacrest Farms for allowing us to steal you from their wonderful facility. For those that don't know, Segres Farms is one of the, if not the largest wholesaler of tropical fish to pet stores and other establishments throughout the United States. And more and more absolutely thanks to them. Go to Segregfarms.com if you're a pet store and like to purchase high quality fish. So what, Jimmy?

Yes.

I'm here when we start the podcast out about hearing about details of the week.

Details of the week.

I know you got something. You've been sending me news articles and shit.

I've been sending some news articles. I ran into a local celebrity today, which was pretty funny. And you won't have any idea who he is, but I thought it was pretty funny.

I thought Jerry Lee Lewis is still alive.

Jerry Lewis is dead, dumbass.

No, he's got to be alive.

I think he's dead.

He's like 102, isn't he?

You make me feel like a movie.

Who would you see?

Well, for those of you who like country music, which I am not one of those people, by the way, there's a gentleman from North Dakota.

Well, then why do you wear assholes chaps of the podcast?

Why? Because of all the trapeze work that we do later on after the podcast. Exactly. You know what? That no, the back. And I think it was 2015. 2016. On The Voice, Blake shelton picked out a gentleman from North Dakota named Blind Joe. And for those of you who don't know who Blind Joe is, you can go on there and giggle. It on your inner tube or Google it on the Internet, however you want to do it. And him and his wife were just happened to be at the local convenience store when I went in today. And Blind Joe is blind and not making fun of Blind Joe at all, but he has a wonderful sense of humor.

Wait, how do you really know? Did you jump in front of him and dance or something? Or did you try to trip him in the aisle?

No, I'm not that big of a jerk. No, he was in there and they were getting soda and piece of pizza, and somebody said, excuse me? He goes, Are you blind, Joe? And he kind of turned towards me. He goes, do I owe you money? And the gal went, no. He goes, yeah, I'm blind, Joe. And so he sat and visited and he took some pictures with people and whatnot, which is kind of fun. And then as I went outside, there were several people that stopped to take pictures with him. And he said to his wife, he goes, I'm going to drive. And she goes, you know what happened the last time you drove? And he goes, yeah, we got pulled over. So he was just kind of making fun of his blindness and stuff. But pretty fun guy. And if you look him up, he's got a new album out and just.

To have of a nice guy.

He's from North Dakota. Check him out.

I looked him up, and I'm not going to lie, he's got a pretty awesome hat. I'm not a big fan of the country.

Look, he had on that black hat today.

Did he?

Yes, he did.

I mean, that is you got to have your style. Look like you can't see was it dude, Edward scissor fingers. Help me out. Johnny depp.

Johnny depp.

You can't see him without bracelets.

That's correct.

You got to have your stereotypical accessories.

Or your eyeliner.

Or your eyeliner.

But the interesting thing is that he has a new Coronavirus video out that he just did about Coronavirus, which is pretty fun. So check that out.

Maybe we can play a little bit here.

Maybe a little bit.

All right, so the other news, right, because we're going to save our questions for next week is we have all the questions this week saved for Dr. Fish. So our normal questions will be answered next week. But in the news, right, I heard that they have genetically mutated and crossed two species, the Russian sturgeon and the American paddle. Fish are now the sturtle.

Fish sturtle.

It you know more about this, clearly.

I I read about it, and first I thought it was something they did, but it sounded like it happened on on its own. Is anybody aware?

It was an accident?

Wasn't an accident. Wasn't it?

Yeah, I read the article. They only had, like, 65 fish because and they only and they only lived to, like they were at 65 days and counting. It was actually pretty interesting because apparently it's like a mouse breeding with a human, what they said genetically, which I thought was interesting. It just seemed pretty cool.

You can look at the article. There's, like a few different versions of how they came out. They have essentially ones that look more like the surgeon, ones that look more like the paddlefish, and then ones that are, like, perfectly 50 50. So you got a nice array, but they're expecting that they're going to be sterile, much like mules liggers other crossed animals. bigfoot Adam, I blame you. You did this.

Oh, I would have if I could have. That sounds like a cool little project.

Because Adam never asks if we should. He only asks if we could.

He never asked permission. He just apologized.

Life finds a way, right?

Finds a way. hashtag four children. So do you know any details about this? James, you're giggling. I know you're holding it back. This is not a podcast. Hold it back, man.

Actually, no, I hadn't heard about that. I missed out.

That's because you work too damn much. If you have as much free time for us just to be on the Internet, you would know a lot of stuff you don't even need to know.

You got to do it. Go ahead.

Could you cross breed, hypothetically, in quotes, angel fish and discus. Has anybody ever tried that or no?

I don't know anybody that's ever tried that. Typically, yeah, cross genus doesn't typically work, but there are times that it has.

I mean, you assume that it would happen in nature somewhere, especially because they're supposedly in the same river systems, you know what I mean? But who knows? I literally googled it just to make sure I can't see any crosses online. Posted. Now, after this, we're going to get like every cross species known to man from all of her fans. So we started a craze that's probably.

For all those toad liquors.

Well, you got to do me a favor. You have to go after the podcast, James, and reach out to Sandy Moore and tell her that we need sterle Fish on the seekers list.

I will tell her that.

Excellent.

You know what? That wouldn't actually be that bad of.

A thing to mind. Thank you.

I know Adam doesn't get a lot of sleep. He's got four kids.

Not at all.

What else you got, dude?

Well, if I go through my messages here, I said I wouldn't do too many questions, but I just want to give a shout out because mainly because if you have to talk to me back. But they sent us out an email I think I forwarded to you, Jimmy, that an aquarium club in New Jersey called the skylands Aquarium and Water Garden Group. Right. I looked this up. It's not some sort of like a group for a business. It's a private aquarium club in northern New Jersey, northwest New Jersey, specifically because they have to section it out. There must be a lot of clubs there. And they've reached out to us to see if we would during COVID they're doing online presentations for the group to see if you and I, Jimmy, would go and guess for them.

Oh, we love to do that.

So the problem is, Jimmy, what are you going to pick as a topic?

What am I going to pick as a topic?

Well, because I'm messaging back saying we certainly would. I haven't got a message back since I didn't think they were maybe they didn't think we're going to message back.

Probably not.

That's why we're doing a shout out. So if you listen to this, I think her name is sue message us back. We would totally do that.

Give us a holler. We'll make stuff up if we don't know anything about it. Kind of like everything else we do.

I mean, what topic, though?

What topic?

Yeah.

This is an aquarium club.

Absolutely.

I would say how to maybe make more money for your club by selling pedal sturgeon fish.

Oh, now I'm getting the name wrong.

Turtle fish.

I love it.

There we go. Have a turtlefish giveaway.

I think that's the only way you can cross that name, though. I don't know. Who knows? But I just wanted to mention that because if anybody else has an aquarium club or group that they would like us to speak at Time willing, and we're not completely booked up, we'd happily work with anybody that wants to request we're here. Not just for the podcast, free to anybody that wants to listen, but if we can help out a group in some way or somehow let us know we have our contact information. Aquariumgistpodcast.com. It's on the bottom of the website. And we'll do what we can. No promises, but we'll certainly do our best.

Take a look.

Where is this?

Aquarium Club, Northwest, New Jersey.

Never been.

Okay if I go with you guys, I'm flying separately because I know Jim and rob's will have me randomly selected for airport security.

That just happens on its own. Adam, just looking at you.

If I was in an airport line, I'd be like, you got to check that dude. I bump the dude.

I think he's got something in his groin.

I would just walk by and really loud go, hey, thanks for taking my luggage, and just walk away.

Yeah, definitely going by myself.

I'd be like, did he just take off the turbine?

Is that what and then I would say my favorite song as I walked away.

For those that aren't able to see, we are actually on discord Live. We try to do a podcast live on mondays at 07:00 p.m.. It was a little late today, but it was still close to seven and Adam is sitting there covering his face. So if you'd like to join the embarrassment of picking on Adam, come join us. Grahamcastpodcast.com. See the link at the bottom of the page.

There we go.

But that's my news. That's your news.

What do you got, Adam? What do you got this week?

Well, I was going to talk about the sturdy fish, but Rob kind of.

Took the shots fired sun.

Right?

That's all right. I don't have much else. I'm good.

How'S the masks industry that you're in?

And the duck and we just move on.

Moving on. So, James, before we get started, all right, we only get to talk to you like every few episodes or so. We're going to be continuing to do this in the same schedule.

He's wondering if he wants to do it.

I don't think he wants to.

It's been a while. I know you were sick before. Are you feeling better? Did you catch the covids?

Yes, I had the covids. My wife and I did.

You did?

Yes. It was horrible. It was absolutely horrible. Low grade fever for twelve days, whether we took medication or not. Total loss of sense of smell and taste. It was really crazy.

Hey, at least now you can eat taco Bell and actually enjoy it.

That's not funny, but it's true.

What was that?

Did you get your sense of smell and taste back?

Yes, that's all back now. everything's back now, I would say, and probably 95% physically. It took a considerable amount of time, though. It was the sickest I've ever been.

And my wife is a nurse and we get all these updates and stuff and you talk about the olfactory sense, losing your sense of smell. They have found out why it attacks the olfactory sense and the reason it doesn't do any permanent damage. So majority of almost all the people are getting back to your sense of smell, which is great because you don't really realize how much you rely on that.

Yeah. And the reason that you're losing your sense of smell is that a zinc deficiency is linked to that as well. And your body uses zinc to fight infections and to create new healthy cells. So this infection is so heavy that it's depleting you of that. And so you're going to have some of that loss of taste and sense and smell, just like when you have any other infection or a cold or whatnot.

All right, little story. And James, number one, we're glad you're healthy. You're almost completely recovered, correct?

Yes.

Wonderful. Is your wife's good?

She's good.

So, best of news, but I have a small tangent. So one of my dear friends now he's like one of my dear, dear friends.

Is this your imaginary friend?

It's not.

Is this clarence?

If I was stuck in a jail, he'd be able to bail me out because he's a sensible one. He wouldn't be there with me.

No, a true friend doesn't bail you out of jail. A true friend is in jail with you.

Right, but I'm saying he's that he's true friend, but he's still responsible.

A responsible friend.

That's what I'm trying to point out.

So it's your make believe friend.

So I was a prior manager at Walmart in yesteryear. Right. And one of my new employees that was underneath me. He was at work on time, work harder than everybody else, great attitude and work ethic. Just loved the guy to pieces. But he always seemed a bit like he was fearful of me. Right. And I wanted him to be able to tell me things like, it wasn't him. Not necessarily lie to me, but not necessarily give me the complete truth, because he's intimidated by me.

Like marriage.

I'm a big dude. I wear sunglasses. I'm not the easiest person to be like, no. So I wanted to see if he'd tell me off, but I don't want to be mean to him. So instead what I did is ate shitty food for like, two days, and then every time I go because at Walmart, you have these, like, little cellphone islands, right, where people go and check out the new iphone and shit. He was in charge of that. So I go over there and like, how are reports? And he handed over the report sheet because we do audits daily on our inventory and new contract sales, the whole growth measurement, the whole thing. He gives me reports, and then I just basically shit my pants right then and there. I mean, we're talking the most foul shit, like, just farted. And I managed to squeak him out where there was really no sound, but I gassed it.

Where'S this going?

Well, because of the sense of smell. Right. I kept doing this. He wouldn't say anything. He wouldn't say anything and I was getting him mad.

Maybe he is, because you're training your best.

Maybe he is just a brown noser. Maybe he's just really intimidated by me and won't tell me off. And every time I go into their fart, he doesn't have the will to tell me off. So every day I go over there and just carpet bomb the cell phone section to do my daily check ins with him. And this went on for like a couple of weeks until I found out that he has no sense of smell. He lost it at a very young age and permanently gone. So I've been carpet bombing his spot for like close three weeks probably. And people would walk by, he'd be like, oh, how can I help you, ma'am? And they get upset, yell at him, maybe swear, and then walk off because of the horrible stench wall people would walk into it the cell phone booth.

Yeah, I'm surprised for friends you're a dick.

He wasn't intimidating.

Giant wiener is what you are.

Just know that there's a lot more people out there without a sense of smell, and that's very important when you.

Are so you're saying you're in a place of work, you're very excited about this COVID thing because people aren't finding you out.

Yeah, I'm stuck. I can't just run into jimmy's bread island carpet pump.

Don't do that. So just a quick question, Dr. Fish. Off the fart subject.

That was five minutes.

I'll never get that back. People right now are just you're welcome.

That's going into bear. That's why people come to this podcast. Come on now.

Right now I've got one of my wife's friends and her husband both have COVID over in Colorado and they're talking about the body aches being so tremendously terrible. Did you have the body aches also? What did you have for it was brutal.

Yeah, lots of that. Also. We both slept for twelve plus hours every day. And I mean, just walking from the living room to the bedroom was damn near exhausting. No shortness of breath or anything like that. So we're fortunate in that a lot more people have had a lot worse problems than us. But I will tell you, it lasted so long that the first day I went back to work was two thursdays ago. And I think if I had been out of work for any longer, I would have probably needed physical therapy because the muscle atrophy had already set in. I was completely shot. My hamstrings were killing me. I mean, my cast, everything was sore.

That is tremendously horrible about all the people having COVID. But thank goodness you didn't have any of the respiratory issues. This was a year back on the men, so that's fantastic.

Yes, absolutely.

The first question we have is I have a Beta that suffers from finrott on the regular. I'll treat him, he heels up over a period of time and then inevitably returns to melting, my water parameters stay relatively stable. Is he just old, or is there no point of return when a fish has been sick too long, often, and can no longer recover well enough? What's the word?

That's a tricky one. It really depends what the root cause of the fenrod is. More than likely, if it's coming back and coming back and coming back, it's probably a systemic bacterial infection. Not a whole lot you're going to be able to do in that situation other than water quality.

So even so, if something has a bacterial infection, is there like a point where the beta gets permanently damaged and it's just more susceptible to that? Is there something that we can do to boost the immune system? Like salt?

Yeah, salt feed. Good feed, probiotic feed.

New aquarium.

New aquarium.

New aquarium.

Can always get another aquarium. That's always jimmy's answer. All right, next question. Can larger sharks like zebra, nurse, and black tip sharks get ick?

I do not believe those have I can't say for sure, but we've had nurse sharks for years and years. We carried nurse sharks. We carry up all that. Sharks. wabi gongs. I've never seen cryptocurrian irritants on those fish.

I hope not.

Shark get sick?

No, I wouldn't say that. I've not seen it on those that we've carried.

Okay, what's the common parasite that sharks carry?

Lots of flukes.

Okay.

Lots of intestinal parasites as well.

Okay. Just like the lice Adam had in the 90s.

What lice I had in the how the hell do you even know if I had lice?

Fluke, you see?

Fluke me.

Fluke you.

That's what we got to do from now on. Forget ducks. We're replacing the word with fluke.

Fluke you.

Fluke you.

Where'S that shock collar, Jim?

I'm going to put it around his mind.

Hey, I'm going to report him to HR for being all snm, wanting me to get whipped and shocked all the time. It's creepy, bro.

Most people pay extra for that, so just be happy you're getting it for free.

Well, next question on the list. I had a female flowerhorn that came into the rescue with duck lips. Really bad. She didn't make it. What would you have treated her with?

More than likely that's a viral issue. Not a whole lot you can do for it. Really good water quality, really good nutrition. Other than that, not much you can do now.

Jim, a couple of times I've seen angel fish come in with huge duck lips. Is that the same thing with them?

Correct.

Why are you laughing to robs?

Because people say it has duck lips. I just think of, like, the retarded.

Millennials going, I'll send you a retarded millennial.

You are a retarded millennial.

See?

Can we even say retarded? I don't know.

It's our podcast. That's why we're not on YouTube.

We say retarded mentally challenged millennial.

Not better. Adam, not better.

The ones that are mentally challenged are born that way. You have no excuse.

Oh, my God.

Yeah. Like we said before, close the microwave when you're running it. Close the microwave, close the door. What else you got?

What kind of issues can come from losing the water alkalinity?

Well, your alkalinity is going to stabilize your PH, not necessarily control it, but it's going to keep it stable, it's going to keep it from crashing. And another side effect of that is in freshwater, typically, once your PH goes below around 5.5, you're not going to get any biological filtration. So on another level, it can also affect that. But primarily, just as you'll lose your buffering capacity, which will cause a PH crash.

I totally don't like using just the buffers, but PH up and down because when that stuff oxidizes and leaves the water system and you're not doing changes enough, I mean, there's not a lot of forgiveness. I just love this dude's name. Lobster dinner at cracker Barrel.

Do they have lobster dinners at cracker Barrel?

They do now.

I hope so.

They do now. To what extent does temperature instability lower a fish's immune system and invite opportunistic diseases such as ic, for example, an outdoor patio pond, when outdoor temperatures yearly go as low as 45 and as high as 95?

Yeah, lower temperature is going to slow down. A lot of things in the fish immune systems are going to be one of the last things to slow down, but it can slow that down. Fortunately, the cooler water is also going to slow down the parasites at the same time. In fact, for bacterial infections, that's a way that you can try to fight that and get the fish in better health by actually lowering the temperature so the bacteria doesn't spread as fast. Not raised temperature, not for bacteria. For bacteria, raising the temperature would actually exacerbate the problem and make the bacteria grow quicker.

I didn't think that bacteria necessarily I knew it grows in hot water, but I didn't know that lowering it helps a bacterial issue.

It just slows down the progression. They're not going to multiply as fast in a cooler environment as they are.

In a warmer environment, so it slows it down.

And of course, salt. Speaking of salt, is there any benefit of using epson salt versus basic rock salt in the aquarium? I know Africans like harder water, and the added calcium elements from epson can help them, I've heard. Any advice for that?

Yes, actually, there's quite a few Great rift Lake formulas out there online. Lots of different people have done a lot of work on it. And epsom salt magnesium is definitely included in that. A lot of people also use it sometimes to help with bloat and goldfish. They can do an epsom salt bath.

So what's the difference between epsom salt and regular salt?

Well, your regular salt is magnesium chloride. Your epsom salt is magnesium sulfate.

Okay, so there's completely two different things then.

Correct.

Because epsom salts is used a lot by the medical profession for soaking feats and sores and different things like that, right? Yeah, that clears that up.

Have you noticed that different salts will do different things? Like, say, marine salt, adding a little bit of that. Or even, like reef crystals to hospital tanks will do different things. Or no, you were talking about the different epsom and versus regular salt, but like, say you wanted to put in, I don't know, himalayan pink sea salt. I'm just throwing that out there. Does every salt do different things? Have you noticed or no, it has not been really experimented with.

Yeah, I couldn't say on that. That wouldn't be my area of expertise. But I have personally used marine salt in freshwater systems, just very small amounts, because there's trace elements in there that freshwater fish like them, too.

When you guys get in the regular black and white coolies, you know, the big striped coolies, have you guys ever, like, when acclimating them, do you just keep them pure fresh, or do you mix them in a brackish type water and then acclimate them from that?

Those are going to be held in one of our brackish ish system, probably about 3.5 to four parts per thousand culinary.

Okay, I was wondering if that was what whenever you get them in, they don't live very well when we bring them in and we put them in pure fresh, and I'm wondering if they're more of a brackish fish. So that actually helps.

How many types of systems do you guys have?

Yeah, in the freshwater building alone, we've got 27 systems, and they range from 600 gallons up to 4000 gallons, most of them being the 4000 gallon. We've got some closed systems. discus are on closed systems. And then we've got two hallway systems for fish from South America that are also closed systems with soft water. discus are in soft water. And then we would go out to the main building, and we have systems that run from 0.5 parts per thousand all the way up to six parts per thousand in cds or salt. And also we have dedicated softeners on specific systems as well out there.

So is that part of your job, is to watch the water chemistry there?

Correct? Yes.

And so what does your normal day look like, Jim?

My normal day is making sure the rest of the lab associates are staying on top of all of their duties, which are feeding all of the fish, doing the water testing, checking on water flow, checking filtration, pretty much if it has to do with keeping fish alive, that's me.

And so that goes on seven days a week, checking the water quality and stuff?

Yes, absolutely.

And how big of a staff do you guys have to take care of all that? Because you have a hell of a lot of.

Fish for the basic water testing and feeding and stuff like that. There's four associates and then myself.

And so there's somebody there every day to keep an eye on things. Just like milk and cows. You got to be there.

Yes, our maintenance department is integral in.

That as well since we're on the questions on Seagris. Right. We can sneak in Seagris farms because they even have to be careful when cameras come in because they do have trade secrets, sir.

Oh, I know they have trade secrets because I've asked for them and they told me to go fluke myself.

To go fluke yourself?

I think that came directly from Sandy Moore, if I remember right. Hey, how do you treat she goes, I'll stick it Jim.

No, she didn't say Jim.

She said naked man.

Exactly like everyone else does in Florida.

That's right.

Very uncomfortable.

That's my nickname in Florida. We won't go into that right now.

Do you know how epic you have to be to be known as Naked Man in Florida? We have an entire group of guys that fight like monkeys and alligators and you're literally known as Naked Man.

We won't talk about that right now. We'll move on to the next question.

What happens in the 90s is posted somewhere on craigslist doesn't want it.

Yeah, that's right.

So more on the topic. How much salt does secret farms go through on a regular basis?

Oh wow.

I was actually asked this is not my question.

For marine salt, I'd say he did.

The ordering last week.

1000 cases every two months or so.

How much is in the case?

That's 1150 gallon cases.

Yeah, I was going to say you're talking those big boxes.

Yes.

That's a lot of fluke and salt. That's right, smooth.

And on the softener salt and salt for our freshwater systems, man, that one. Honestly, I order the marine salt so I know how often we go through it and how much we're using a week. Over there on the water softener salt, man.

There's palace.

Palace and palace. There palace and palates. Yes. Palace and palace.

So now we're getting back to the fan questions. Right, so we have here if doc had to serenade wild discus, getting into the mood, what type of alcohol would he pour? Just a tiny splash. Would you put it in some end of the tank? What would you do to get them in the mood?

Somebody'S looking to breed wild discus.

Obviously we don't hold back easy questions here.

They pretty much do it on their own. You can't really pair discus but discus will pair themselves. You have to watch them and then you can separate out the fish that aren't pairing up and they'll go to town.

So they're not like the Indian culture of arranged marriages? No, they're very much free forming flows. 1970s fish that will speak for their own minds.

Yes.

Even looking back like maybe seven or eight years ago. The wild discus. You get the green and the blue in and do you pronounce them tefe? How do you pronounce that?

Tafe.

I used to buy those and Adam used to buy them directly from me and stuff. But they have gone up dramatically in price. Is that just because of collections or what are you seeing there? Are they just harder to get now?

I think some of that has got to do with just the regulations on sites and stuff like that. Not that they're a site fish, but just because of all the hoops you have to jump through to get them.

Now.

They are a pricey fish.

Yeah, they're getting a little more. I know. The last time I was down visiting, there was two pairs of discus in the tank that I was looking at. And I thought it was just kind of strange that they were paired up being in your tanks there because there's a lot of commotion going on. But the one pair were guarding eggs that were on the glass. Does that happen quite often?

Yes, actually just before I was out being sick, we had some three tanks that had pairs in them and we were able to sell them as Paris. So that was really cool.

Yeah, that's dramatically. A lot more money and a lot more profit for you. So that's what you want to do. Thanks for offering them to me.

You got them and you didn't offer them to me.

That's right.

Yeah, but what do you have to trade? endlers. I mean, who wants feeder cuppies?

Yeah, exactly.

Go fluke yourself, Rob.

That's a new T shirt.

That's a new T shirt.

All right, so the next question is is there any way to discourage my discus or angel fish from laying eggs on a heater?

No, that I know of.

Not that you know of. Put them in a sideways angle. I have no idea.

That's where you almost need to take your heater and either lick it or stick it in.

But that's new to torture people.

No, you can take and plant heavily around your heater, which goes against everything we've ever talked about, about heaters and stuff.

Shame on you.

But you can try to try to keep your plants and things that they don't like around their heater. Like a lot of plastic plants around your heater would keep them probably away from heater.

Les from Coal Ball already struck you off his warranty list. I just want to let you know.

That Les was never going to give me my money back. We know that. We've talked less than that.

Well, it's because you put every heater in the sump and he just doesn't like it.

He doesn't like that at all.

So when Brazil opens up, has that opened up yet officially or no, we're.

Getting dribs and drabs from down there. It's still tight.

I don't speak Florida. What's dribs and drabs and what's tight?

Just a few fish here and there. Nothing like we were see, we hear.

From was it Matt peterson from amazon's magazine? He's excited because the new law, when it does open, apparently is going to open the floodgates because they have to be on a list to be banned. Everything be banned if it's not on the list, right?

Yes. That's a contentious point there.

It's a blacklist rather than a white list for those that know programming. So if you're on the list, you can't go. If you're not on the list, it's a free game that opens up a lot of species in the Amazon.

So maybe we get some spider monkeys and stuff.

I'm so down spider monkey. Or maybe they have a new stertle fish that they've been hiding. That they've been hiding, and that's how they just showed the species. Yeah, exactly. All right, next go on the list. This one doesn't necessarily isn't a question. There's an added question.

You got to ask it, though.

We had a great white shark today, attack today in Maine. A lady died while swimming not far from shore, almost unheard of here, really? Not far from shore. On that note, number one, our condolences to the family of that poor lady, and that is super rare for Maine. But on a more topical note, what's the craziest stories of people getting injured at Seekers Farms? Did anybody say get stung by a lion fish and then keep working all day long?

We've had that happen. We've also had somebody get gashed by amore. Yeah, it took stitches.

Did that get wicked infected?

No, it didn't get infected, but it did take quite I think it was seven stitches.

Damn. What's your worst injury for fish?

My worst injury for fish that's happened.

To you while working or in the hobby or skinny dipping with your friends.

Snapping turtles and stuff like that.

I've been really fortunate. I haven't really had any. I took a few stitches from elbow to the corner of a tank once, and I had a big swollen versa on my elbow from where I was carrying an 80 pound bag of salt and slipped on some algae and landed on my arm.

That's so good.

That's not good. So this weekend, I don't know if it's Shark Week has started or whatever it is, but I was watching a program on TV, and they're talking about there's so many more shark attacks, especially around the bahamas area, and they were going through different things that possibly could be the reasons that they're getting so many shark attacks. One was the color of your swimsuit, because so many of these swimsuits now have really cool patterns and stuff, and they make you look like a fish. And they talked about that, and they also then talked about wearing fins while you're out there so you look like a seal.

Maybe that's why amish don't get shark attacks, because they're always wearing darker colors.

No patterns.

They don't go in the water gym.

Rob?

Yeah. Jim Fluke, you're listening to this? forgive us.

Can I finish my story? Yes. Here's what they came to down in the bahamas, the restaurants.

So back it up.

They were blaming, trying to blame, like the cruise ships throwing garbage over, but they haven't been able to throw garbage over four years and stuff.

They have a taste for Lean cuisine. Yeah.

So they went over and over and over about all these different things that could happen. And what it was at the very end is that the restaurants there, when you're sitting oceanside at these restaurants, the restaurants are feeding chum. They come out and ring a bell and they feed chum to all these sharks so the tourists can watch. And so now they associate people with food, just like you associate literally the.

Worst thing in the world.

Yeah, just like feeding the bear and then kind of figure out why the bear ate you when you're sleeping.

That's why you chum in a boat 10 miles offshore.

Well, chumming is illegal in certain parts of certain states. But anyway, it was very interesting, all these not at Walmart, obviously not because that poor guy in the photo booth or whatever.

There's a story there we need to get back to. But continue.

That's all I had. I want to share that with you. Jim just fell asleep.

I thought you were going to say because people are wearing their swimsuits like COVID masks with their nose hanging out. anyways, moving on. Jim is just shaking his head. forgive us for we know not what we read. Next question. We hear about tannins helping prevent disease. Can you explain how and should every freshwater take some tannins for healthy fish? Every freshwater tank have tannins for healthy fish.

So a lot of tannins are antioxidants. Some also have antimicrobial effects, which would be antibacterial, antifungal, antiviral. Some are also actually antimutogenic and anticarcinogenic. So that's really cool. And I wouldn't say that all tanks need tannins, but making your own or letting it happen naturally are better options than the store bought stuff. Not that it's bad. I don't know anybody that's ever had a problem using it. We actually use it because we have just such large systems, but we also grow our own katapa leaves. I personally think that's a great source for tenants.

Is that what you guys use for tannins? I don't want to cut you off, Jimmy, but I can't let that one go. Is it just like catapa leaves or what's your botanical blend that you use at secrets?

Well, that might be a trade secret.

And then he has to kill you.

Actually, yeah, we do use the catapult.

Because you guys have planted your own trees out there, correct, for the catapult? Because at one time I ordered some and you guys are out. And she says, my sales person says, I'll go pick you some but you're going to have to let them dry out. And so they came in and they were pretty green, and I let them dry out for a few days and they work just fine. The one thing I thought that was really interesting that you said there's some plants that are anti carcinogenic. What's that about?

Yes, actually, it's the phenols in there. Tannins are still there. There's a lot of studies still to be done on them and not necessarily all tannins aren't all necessarily great for us, even in eating them and stuff. Not necessarily a great thing. A lot of research still to be done because that's a really broad group of things.

All the years we've seen all these documentaries on National Geographic and whatnot about the different people that have used whatever plant is available to cure what ails them out there? And so I just find it very interesting, and I'm sure that all of our listeners would find it fascinating to hear more about it down the road.

Especially, I think, Scott feldman. Just his ears perked up. He heard the whole thing in the Vibe. He felt the force in the air. Talking about anti carcinogen is going to be on one of his blogs now.

I hope so.

Going to do some homework. Next question we have is plop and drop after floating a bag or bag and drip acclimate? I've heard people defend both techniques. I don't know what to think. So just to confirm, I'm assuming the plop and drop means plop. Let the bag sit for 30 minutes and then just simply scoop the fish out, plop them in your tank. So plop and drop versus the bag and drip. So let it acclimate and then drip acclimate into the bag over a longer period of time. So it's not just like shocking the fish into it. What are your preferred methods, sir?

Okay, that's an age old argument, and I don't think either side is ever going to come meet in the middle on that. There's people that are staunchly for both. It's almost like politics there. My opinion actually is both. It really depends. It's going to depend on the species. It's going to depend on the shipping conditions. It's going to depend on the water parameters and the entire process for your approach, really, if you pay attention, you can have success with either. Key factors are temperature and PH. And I like to use a water conditioner as well, regardless of which method used. And if it's a fish that, you know, historically don't ship well, don't do well. I typically advocate for the drift style.

So just to hit this point a little harder, let's take the same fish. Right. I'm going to say it's a rummy nose tetra that we bought from a farm in Florida. Right. If that bag that I got has been sitting in the shipping for two, three days, the moment I'm going to get that big bag. It's filled with all of the waste from the fish. And the moment that I open that bag up, the PH is going to crash. I do not have without having some sort of like mad conditioner and then some hope and a prayer to get those fish living. So my method is the plop and drop. Don't open the bag until you have acclimated the temperature, and then when you open the bag, immediately get those fish out of there for the PH drop and the ammonia burn. Now, I went to a pet store. I got that same fish. Florida Rummy Nose Tetra brought it home and has not been sitting in that bag for anything past 2 hours. Maybe we'll say 4 hours. Maybe I did a day of shopping before I brought it home because I'm inconsiderate, right? That way you sit in your hot car, you're in Florida, it's 112. Not a good thing to do with your fish, by the way, but you brought it home. Well, you open the bag, the PH isn't going to crash. It hasn't been sitting in there in its own ways, making its own little pocket of ecosystem. That's the time where absolutely drip acclimation. I have the time, I can do it for the fish. I'm not going to have to worry about that PH necessarily just taking the biggest shit and drip away, especially for a finicky fish such as romeo.

Tetra Seacrest Farm sends me Chinese algaegers every two weeks. And what I've learned is that they don't like our water compared to the water they're coming from. And so what I do with those is I open the bag, I pour the fish into a bucket, I put in some am quill immediately.

What about prime?

No am quill. I put an am quill and then I'll do a little drink prime.

I have proof of that from Big Rich.

Yeah, you can have farts too. But we don't do that, do we? No. So the algae eaters, only the guy.

That couldn't smell that's, right?

So the algae eaters, for some reason, don't like the Minnesota water. And if I just drop them into the water, I plop and drop. They will in the bottom quiver until they die. I've actually done it where they've laid in the bottom quivered. I brought them back out of the tank, put them in the shipping water, and then they've come around. And then I've had to acclimate them. So there's certain fish that I know that I get from secrets that just don't like the water here, and I have to do the drip acclamation. But amquel goes a long way. When you open up those bags and throw in some am quill, it goes a long, long way. dude.

We're not sponsored by amcal, but we should be. Call us. Next question. This one was from an email I submitted saying, love the podcast. I hear that fish farms sometimes use hormones to breed fish that are difficult to breed in captivity. I'm interested in breeding zebra knifefish for the hobby in the future, and I'm curious on exactly what hormone in quotation marks is. Is an extract a concoction concoction or concentration? Minnesota accent hailing from one and the only sexy atom.

Thanks, rob's. Mom.

How about it? Tell us about hormones.

So hcg is commonly used as human corionic ganatotropin, also salmon ganatotropin and carpetuitary gland for food fishes, for aquarium fishes. There's a product out there called overprem, which is salmon ganatotropin releasing hormone with also periodone, which is a dopamine inhibitor used for Alzheimer's in humans, some other stuff.

It's ironic that he talks about Alzheimer's and forgets it, right?

Probably COVID.

Sorry, buddy, we can't pick on you.

But that's going to be used for aquarium fish, not for food intended fish intended for food. And individual countries are going to have different restrictions and regulations as to what can be used legally. And it's a concoction of a hormone releasing agent. Plus the dopamine inhibitor.

Is something like that available to the average hobbyist, or is that something you have to have a license for?

No, I believe you can buy the overprem directly through the manufacturer.

And is that available here in the Us?

Yes, it is. And in Canada.

No kidding. We've talked about this several times on the podcast and stuff, and I've never really heard anybody that had been able to go over to Walmart and purchase this or get it off the Internet.

Well, we get a lot of questions about siamese algae eaters in particular because they're almost nonexistent to breed. I got them to do it twice by accidents, and when I go online, I'm pretty much one of the few people that are able to not figure it out, but luckily get one batch and then never happen again. So if I was to try to breed a siamese algae eater, which again, they're farmed with hormones, is that what you recommend for the lub potion number nine?

It's worth a try. We've got farmers down here that are pretty much injecting anything to see if they can get it to spawn. So you don't know if you haven't tried it.

I'm sitting here with a bottle of vape juice like, come on, why aren't you breeding?

Wow, that's your whole life.

Why aren't I breeding?

So what has happened here in Minnesota is that we all have to wear face masks all the time now because our governor here in Minnesota has mandated that we all wear a face mask. And rob's been wearing his for 24 hours at a crack, and there's no oxygen to his brain anymore, so he's being extremely stupid today.

Well, I've been thinking of taking this mullet. I have a mullet wig from when I went on Ohio Fish rescue's livestream. I'm thinking of tearing it into like, a face mask so it just looks like this face mullet. Oh, yeah, you know you love it.

Wow.

I think we got off subject. I'm so sorry. But yeah, love Potion number nine. So the last one is I do.

Have a question that went related back.

To that one well before. Right. This is to you. Adam would concentrated Minnesota accident hailing from the one and only adam work he does, we're going to put out, like, essential.

I have Adam call me on occasion in the evenings, I just put him on speakerphone and my wife just gets all jiggly jiggly.

Are you sure she's just not shaking in pain?

No, she's all jiggly jiggly.

I don't want to have that visual image. Thank you. But look out for that cd, we're going to put concentrated in Minnesota and we're going to have him read the first interlude of 50 Shades of Gray and we'll post that to our donators. If you're looking to get a piece of that action, go to Aquarium guy's Podcast.com out of the website. You can donate right to the show.

I would donate, just not to hear this shit right now.

James right now he's losing it. This is the best part. He's like, Why am I in here? I'm still getting fired.

So I have a question about using hormones for breeding.

Are you talking about fish?

Yeah, we're talking about fish, rats or anything else.

I got one after this.

How successful is it? Because I'm assuming it's not 100% successful 100% of the time, is it?

No, it's not. And some fish, it doesn't help at all. And some fish you might not like I said, the overprim is the most popular one, but also human coronic nabitropin and a carpetuitary gland. You don't really know until you try. Serious producers are going to try all three or depending on what type of fish they're trying to spawn.

So what type of fish do you almost always have to use that for that? They breed down there in Florida in quantity.

They're doing black ghost knives. Their loaches are done with that.

I'm intrigued.

Which loaches?

Yeah, which loaches?

What loaches? Everybody wants to know what loaches.

Well, nobody's got them commercially available yet, but the tia Mac or kantha, your standard clown loach. There's been a lot of work done on that.

Are you going to have to kill us now?

No, just Rob. I want to know more about this black ghost knife breeding because I didn't think it had been done yet.

Yeah, we don't have any right now, but one of the farmers, I got to actually see their breeders, they were about two and a half foot long. It was really cool.

So, real quick, how many babies do they have or how do they produce? Are they egg layers?

I'm assuming that particular fish. Yes, that is an egg layer. I'm not sure. I don't know their clutch size.

See, I'm just really intrigued. I like knifefish and I didn't know anybody was captive breeding them. This is actually kind of cool to find out.

So are they doing any commercial quantities or they're just hit or miss?

I will say last year we had commercial quantities. Of course, fish are like dirt farming. Not every crop produces the same way.

When these fish that have been bred hormonally, is there anything that changes in these fish so they would not do it naturally, or they would be more susceptible to hormones because that's how they were bred?

That I don't know. Probably would take a bit of research on that.

Well, we should get a grant, quit our jobs and go do that.

There you go. More tanks.

More tanks.

More tanks.

I'll pick up some salt.

All right, next question. Does replicating biotopes really help fish live long and healthy lives if they've never been in such a region? I e tank raised.

That brings up something that I wanted to touch on. That's really probably a personal opinion either way. I don't know that there's any science that's going to prove that. Any direction, but something that we focus on at seacrest and something that I focus on as an individual are the five freedoms of animal welfare. Number one would be freedom from thirst for hunger, which means they have ready access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigor. Freedom from discomfort, which would be providing an appropriate environment, including shelter and a comfortable resting area. Three would be freedom from pain, injury, and disease, which would require prevention or rapid diagnosis and treatment. Freedom to express normal and natural behavior, providing sufficient space, proper facilities and company of the animal's own kind. And freedom from fear and distress, ensuring conditions and treatment which avoid mental suffering. So if you go by the five freedoms of animal welfare yeah, even if those fish have never been in the wild, you do want to try to duplicate their environment as much as you can, as well as give them some enrichment. That's really big in public. aquaria and zoo. No reason that doesn't apply to fish as well.

I feel like that should have been part of the Geneva Convention.

I love that answer. I thought that was great.

Yeah, only humans got treated the same way.

That's right.

But you still never will be.

That's because I think all right, we have some live questions. Medicated food or medicated water? What's your preferred method?

Going to depend on what I'm medicating for? bacterial issues are always going to be a food, even some flukes. You can do the food as well. Sorry about that. Food for dewarming. So, yeah, it's really going to depend on the parasite.

All right, next question. I've talked about this lump on my beta a lot. Taylor from Simply Beta says it's a cancerous tumor. Beta is still acting completely normal. Is there anything I can do for it? It is possible it will go away, or is it just something that will eventually kill the fish. So, Dr. Fish, I'm going to send this to you personally so you can see the picture. Did you get that message, sir?

Yes, I did.

Excellent. So for those that are at home, it's a very brilliant blue Beta. We're getting kind of like a top angle at the Beta. It looks like it's directly on its head. It is a light pink, almost looks like a pencil eraser that's been shrunk on the Beta. Yeah, it's very unusual. I can't say I've ever seen a growth on a Beta like this. I used to see them on a few low quality flower horns I got in and those definitely ended up being cancer as well. What's your thoughts, Doctor?

It probably is. There could be some viral issue there as well, which may be contributing to it, but not a lot you're going to do to that.

And so Taylor, who we've had on this program, was dead on.

So I've seen some people even want to take and remove those, especially on I have friends in Canada that have arijuana. They'll have a growth or a sore or a blemish, and they want to bring that fish up to quality because they may think it depends upon its life. Watch its behavior. If it's acting normal, leave it alone. I mean, if it's long as it's feeding healthy, swimming healthy, it's not taking away from its life. Those five points that you mentioned there, Doctor, but if you were to remove it, this particular fish, number one, betas are so small to try to remove them, they go through so much stress and clove oil dosage. That's how you normally would take you a koi or marijuana and try to repair something. It's so delicate and hard, especially on something that has a labyrinth lung. I wouldn't recommend doing it to a Beta, but even if you could, the stress alone, probably on top of its head like that would not be something that could be removed without threatening the last fish or having a high probability of death.

Yeah, you'd have to be a skilled surgeon to get that off without hurting that fish. I don't think that's going to happen.

I'd absolutely agree.

All right, so next question again. We're getting these particular questions live and going back and forth from the recorded to the new ones. I have neon greenres boras which have a growth on their bottom lip. I don't think it's cotton mouth as only a few of them have it. It hasn't impacted their feeding life. longevity more likely scar flesh as they like to swim face first into the glass in excitement before feeding. Is this common or is there something I can do to reduce the size or it must be of it?

You think it's like a duck lips, which is on the bottom lip. Is that all your reading?

I've actually seen that in a few of the smaller fish. It's not. IC. But if it's what I'm thinking it is, it's just, like, a little warped under their bottom lip. Am I not describing it right? I wish you'd have sent pictures.

Yeah, picture does 1000 words there. But as far as, like, neon green resource, I'm trying to see if I've had these. I'm actually looking up a picture that there's always, like, marketing, like, some pet stores that open up fish. Really don't know what they're looking at. I don't mean to shit on your local fish store. Okay.

Scientific names would be so wonderful.

The scientific name is I'll message it to you because I'm going to butcher it micro. Actually. I'm going to try to butcher it microdevario. kubati.

Is that the stuff Adam drinks in the morning? No, that's kabbuchi. Okay. I'm sorry.

I felt Cuba tie resbora, probably.

Yes, that is correct. The green cuba tie.

Yes.

Oh, here it is. He sent a picture.

That's why I was a little bit confused. These things look like an ember tetra. They're kind of the same size for those that are listening online, listening on the podcast. Except they're absolute neon green when they're fully bright. And they look like you dipped them in what's the fluid in your car?

Antifreeze.

Antifreeze. I haven't seen this when I had them, but I never had a lot of them for a long time.

Or Jack daniels.

I don't see it commonly or anything. So I don't know. Something with those particular fish or what.

Yeah, here's a picture.

Actually, he sent a picture.

There we go. Now he sent a picture. So that's why it's nice to do these live. So we have a picture here, and it looks like it's actually a tab out front of its mouth. Like it was a piece of something hanging off or a piece of dead skin hanging off its front lip.

Could it be a parasite?

It's kind of circular, like a small fluke. But that'd be very weird for all of them in the same spot.

That's true.

My guess is, yes, they hit the glass. Some of them hit the glass, and they have some damage that's now stuck to their lip. That's what it looks like.

Maybe they got a fat lip.

Do you see it, doctor?

Where is it?

In the I will send it to you right now, Doctor.

Looks like he's smoking a cigarette. Little fish smoking cigarettes.

You know what? Someone needs to make that fish smoke a cigarette. Make that happen. Internet.

Oh, wow. No, I have not seen that before.

He's, like, literally got he looks like he has a piece of food in his mouth.

Looks like yeah, he does.

It almost looks like a pitch I've gotten in goldfish. Big goldfish. Should have, like, the white little fish lace on him. It almost looks like that. It's so hard to tell.

Here's what I really think it is. An injury. Because he says the scales can be seen protruding from the growth like it's a piece of skin tab on the front. So if you have an injury in the front of the fish, like, I have a ballot shark that I saved in that tank right there, and my ballot shark is what? Twelve inches. You see right there, Jimmy?

Nine inches or girl inches?

I'd say eight inches. It's not my inches, but I got it. And it had a lot of face damage and it was because it was stressed out and it whacked the end of the tank and it had skin tabs hanging out like that and it took a very long time to heal. I don't even know if he rubbed him off himself. But again, that's a bigger fish. I got it when I was young, so maybe it did grow out of it. But when you see those injuries, generally, you'll see the whole damage around it that's my assumption is they rubbed into the glass and hit it. I love picture questions. Next one. We got a message from biggs. I'm not sure if this is Chris biggs, but it says, no question. Just keep kicking ass, keep it up.

Great guy.

Yeah, I mean, that's James favorite question right there. Yeah. Even people are saying just a common word, freeze it off with the stick you get from Walmart should be just fine. Don't freeze your fish. I can't explain. Begin to explain the reasons why. Yeah, there's a lot of people that.

Have got different things. That's the one I love about the Internet, is that there's so many people out there that have seen things that might have a good idea, and when we don't have an answer, that is fantastic. Everybody throws out what they think it might be.

The crowd sourcing, though.

Yeah. chickenpox. I think that's wrong.

Next one. Is there such thing as false stress ick, or is there maladies that look like it other than velvet? Understanding that stress is a typical way that most illnesses get into our fish.

I don't know anything about false ache or stress ick, but there is definitely a difference between clearing a fish of a disease and actually eliminating a parasite. At a low enough parasite load. With really good water quality and prime nutrition, it can seem that your fish might be cured. But you may have a low amount of parasite activity in there that can come back sporadic balance of the same disease when stressors are added. Another point to keep in mind would be that all treatments should be their full dosage for the full medication plan duration. Just like with antibiotic resistance, parasites can also become resistant to other treatments as well, not just antibiotics. So single celled organisms, really, they evolve a lot faster than we do.

The only time, because I never believed in this either, this whole false IC thing, I was like, well, you just didn't take care of the ick. Well, there's only one case that I've had with this. And it's really weird. Adam gave me his feeder guppies. And when did I got those feeder guppies? So when I got these in, I put them in the tank and they were fine for the first two months. They're feeder guppies. They're nice and strong individuals, right? So after two months, a couple of them started showing white spots like, oh crap, I got ack in the tank. No, I didn't treat it because I didn't have the medication on hand and it was planted. And I'm like, I'll just scoop them out. I got lazy. Not going to lie to you. And I'm like, well, they're feeder guppies. Let's see if they make it. Maybe in the next episode I can make a joke that the fish died. Oh, they got better. None of the other fish and this is a 125 gallon tall, none of the other fish in the tank got it whatsoever. I didn't have a uv filter at the time. Nothing. It just cleared up and went away. Couldn't explain it. Six months later, just the endlers flared up. Again, it was just a couple of enders. It was only females in the tank that did it and couldn't spread it in the tank. I don't know what was going on. It flared up and I had a new batch of endlers. They did not have it. I had them in a separate tank. Didn't happen. Moved them into the tank. They never caught it because again, they're different sizes and just never happened. It just went away. And they come in waves. Those are the original endlers I got from them. They bred, and now, of course, they have a shorter lifespan. I've had them now since the podcast, before the podcast started, and a couple of the adults passed away. But I still don't have an issue with the tank. No IC, no nothing, no treatments. Is very weird. So I'm beginning to not necessarily see it, but maybe not understand the cost. If it's not acting like IC, it's not affecting the other fish in the tank. I don't really know what it is. Is it possible that it just doesn't take off? I mean, I don't have the tank super warm, it's planted. I don't even treat that one really with salt. Like I shouldn't preach. I can't really figure that one out. Do you have any recommendations of what that possibly could be? Maybe it is just IC on one for some reason.

No. If you had IC in a tank like that, it's going to definitely spread. It could be another issue completely. It could be a protozoan issue that may just be presenting similar to it.

Maybe that's what it is. Because I got that in my batches of my tank where those enders came from, they've always done that. So once the females reach a certain size, pretty good size, and after they've had a few batches of babies, they always get these little white spots. I tried treating it like IC. It wasn't ick. And then they'd be fine, and that's just kind of how it would work. And I always wondered what it was because it wasn't IC, but it's like, well, what is it then?

Fishbox.

Any any recommendations for trial and error? Like another medication that's just a test to see if it's something else.

Salt.

Bleach.

Salt. I love you. You're a man after my own heart. I feel like you're doing it to pander to us, and we like it. Keep it up. All right, I'm just seeing if this is a question here. Sure is. My queen. molly just had a batch of 120 fry number one. Congratulations. That's a hefty girl right there. She dummy thing. Next day started to prolapse. Okay, this is becoming a lot worse. After three days, it looked like she was turning inside out. I had no choice but to call. I understand this is a semicomon thing, but can be reversed if caught early enough.

What the hell is that?

I don't know anything about that.

Does this come from the down under?

Demand pictures. Next time you have a prolapse fish.

Anus, you would want pictures.

Is it possible that during birth that she pushed out?

Well, it's 120 plus fry. That's a hefty thing for a big, big molly. That's a massive deal right there. And molly's for the light bearers. Have I think some of the biggest libraries, like guppies are smaller. Sometimes swords can be smaller.

I grew up on the farm. It wasn't uncommon for a cow or a sheep to push out its innards during childbirth, and the vet would have to come push them back in and attach them on the inside. So to me, I think that's what happened. I think she pushed so hard that she pushed out her innards.

That explains a lot of your mannerisms. Well, on that note, we demand pictures, and we will post that on our Facebook page. Not safe for work for everyone to see.

Fluke. You fluke.

Fluke, everyone. This is the only video I have. It was the day after my last fry. Oh, we got pictures, Jimmy. Oh, my oh, it is. Look at that. I got to send it to doctor. Doctor, we need you to see this prescription stat.

I called it.

Hold on.

I absolutely called it.

It's seriously like, it's taking a giant paint crap. You got to see it. We're going to post this on our Facebook page for all to enjoy. Oh, my there's even audio 25 piece. I got to restart the video.

Here we go.

For everyone listening, it's like Big mama.

Here in the middle of the night. Hit me with another 25 piece.

Wow. Those are again, those are not small babies. What? But whatsoever. So that was to add to the.

Almost 50 that she had two days ago. They're in there somewhere.

That's super beef hormone right there. Yeah.

Congratulations, big mama, on your first big.

Litter of fishy kittens.

Fishy kittens. Well, thank you for that annoying Florida guy.

Well, if she took two to three days to give birth to all that, there definitely was complications.

Oh, 100%. It shouldn't take more than one, a.

Couple of hours, I would hope.

Yeah, they squeeze them out pretty quickly.

What do you think, Dr. Fish? Do you think that she pushed her injuries out?

Yeah, I would assume that. Is that's what it looked like to me, too?

I've never had an issue like this. But it comes to the horrible mad science belief that if you're about to call it and you have to call it for the sake of its own suffering, do you perform a C section just to see if there's anything left? Just to see if there's, like stillborns left after 120 plus or heaven forbid, there's still some live I'm loving this. You guys got to keep sending your weird stuff. You know what? For Dr. Fish, episode three, we're going to put it out right now. I'll put out my own wallet here. We're going to give you guys maybe a cash prize or something up with some decent value. If you can bring us the weirdest shit to bring Dr. Fish stories, that'd be cool. Video, picture, whatever. We're not going to be biased if stories worth 1000 pictures.

Fish related people.

Yes. I mean fish. Thank you. Thank you.

Jim.

Let's clear this up. Fish related. Because I fish related. I do not want to see clowns coming out of rhino's bus.

No. Let's also put another disclaimer disclaimer on that one. And put nothing that involves naughty fish, mistreatment of fish. It has to be medically induced, something that you've seen, something that was out of your control. There's your disclaimers for the price. But that was crazy. That was crazy. Cat is here's. A little bit more. The sat kept coming out, hanging behind her the full length of her body. At that point I made the call. Yeah. If she's dragging on a tail the length of her, that would be it. And it's just a normal black white dalmatian. molly. Question of the day, my friend, question of the day. And for those that aren't part of the discord, they already made a meme of that green reserva and they put a marlboro in the smell. So don't miss out. Go to aquariumgeistpodcast.com and join the debauchery. All right, Adam, do you have any more questions, man?

None that would the only ones that I have left are probably going to infringe on their copyright and stuff, so I'm good for tonight. I learned quite a bit and I was impressed with the now I'm intrigued to get those regular coolies again.

Right. Just because they don't hide and poof when they go in my tanks. You can see them when they're jimmy's house. So they hide away because they heard horrible rock music.

That's right.

Right.

Well, they're one of my favorite fish, and they used to be so hardy. You guys were we were talking about this last time, and they used to be so super hardy, and then boom, they just kept on coming in like rap.

So so quick question, Dr. Fish. What what is the difference between the black cooley loach and the striped cooley loach? Are they the same fish? Are they different fish?

No, they are a different fish and come from different places.

So from different areas of the world?

Correct. In different environments.

Do you guys find that the black cooler loaches are more hearty than the other ones?

In my experience, over the years, I'd say absolutely. That has changed. Back 1015 years ago, I would say it was the opposite. We could barely keep the blacks alive, and the regular cooley loach did fine.

Are they kept of bread, or are they wild cotton?

No, those are all wild.

Do the black ones need braggish, or are they just pure fresh?

They can go either way, but both of them really over time, we've held both ways, but yeah, I don't have an answer as to why the striped ones aren't doing as well as of late.

They can go either way, just like Jimmy in the 80s.

Still.

I have a question, and it's kind of an important one.

You know I'm married at no.

Okay. So I was told back in the day that if you and I've done this before, you remember mandarin gobies, the saltwater mandarin gobies? They used to sign it back. In order to catch them, they used to squirt them with a squirt bottle of cyanide mixture, and then you'd get them, and they just slowly die off. They just wither away. They wouldn't eat well, I was told the trick you remember ty Jim?

Yes.

Jim, I told us this trick, and I did it, and it actually worked, where if you put methylene blue in the water, you'd like, make it so dark, dark blue, and then you keep in a bare bottom tank. I got them to acclimate them, and I got them to acclimate on food. Why does methylene blue remove toxins?

I'm not exactly sure how that works, exactly. I've heard a little bit about that, and I'll look into it and have that for our next episode.

To be continued. I want to cut it off here.

Because I've been cut off before.

I don't feel like we can beat the whole prolapsed fish conversation. That's the peak of the evening, guys. It isn't going to get better from there. We're going to pander from this moment on. So what we're going to do is we're going to say again, we've been collecting questions since before we started the first Dr. Fish episode. We're going to continue giving questions. If you want to submit your questions according to uspodcast.com by the website, join the join the fun. Send us an email, put on the note for Dr. Fish and we'll save it for him because we get weekly questions. We need questions for James, right? That way he can continue the fun debauchery and it keeps him healthy from COVID I mean, without us, he may have not survived.

I'm thinking right now, at this moment, he's thinking, I wish I would have died.

This podcast sucks that much. Poor James. Poor James. Well, thanks again, James, for coming on, man. And anything else you want to tell you're, actually massive growing fan base?

No, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I love sharing information. Anything that I know, I'm happy to share, and I learned from these things as well. And if I don't know, I'm just going to say I don't know.

And he has a network of people to contact. If he doesn't know, trust us.

I don't know if you know this, Dr. Fish, but your house is haunted. There's somebody going back and forth in the hallway. I think it's your wife.

It surely is.

Well, we're glad she's feeling better too.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's all we got for this week. Tune in again mondays at 07:00 p.m.. Come and join the fun. Again, thank you to seacrest Farms for sponsoring this episode and giving us the chance to speak with Dr. Fish and see you in the next podcast. And hopefully again, you have a fish group and you want someone to speak and have it a little bit more fun than boring. Grab conversations, message us. We'll see what we can do.

Everybody, thank you very much. Take care. Be safe.

Thanks, guys, for listening to the podcast. Please go to your favorite place where podcasts are found, whether it be spotify, itunes, stitcher, wherever they can be found, like subscribe. And make sure you get push notifications directly to your phone so you don't miss great content like this.

I never knew that a Minnesota accent.

Could be so sexy until I heard adam's voice.

Go frank yourself.

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