Alright, guys, welcome to the podcast. Normally right now, we'd have an advertisement for you talking about how much you need to go check out Blue Crown aquatics. But in this episode, we have the CEO, Robbie Chan in with us. So we're going to go through an entire deep dive into shrimp here in just a moment. So I'm just going to take this opportunity to remind you that we have some sexy attire at our website, aquariumgyspodcast.com. Go to the bottom of the website. Merch store is up and live. Now, Jimmy says I should not do this, but I have to honor what I said, that if we have was it 20 different people order from us? Not 20 objects ordered, but 20 different people order from us. I will purchase an aquarium guy's crop top and take a picture for one and all to see.

No, nobody wants to see that. Nobody wants to see that.

No one.

No. No one.

Well, I have a post from the discord here today. It informed me of this. It says only skinny people should wear crop tops. And we need the poo sitting there saying, bitch, please.

Really? Yeah. That is a sexy we need the poo.

We need the poo has always worn a crop top for years. Why can't I?

Yeah, you certainly can. And then maybe we could plant some tomatoes or something in your belly button.

I'm just saying, Robbie is where they got the honey.

Yeah, exactly. You are the honey.

All right, so aquariumguyspodcast.com bottom, the site, merch store. Get yourself a t shirt, mug, a water cannon, canteen, water cannons. Can we can buy water cannon. There's cannon. There's no cannon.

We should sell cannons.

I'll see what we can do. All right, moving on. We have the Ohio Fish Rescue to let you guys know about. They have had some mad guests this last week, so certainly check out. They've already released a bunch of content, but there's going to be a bunch more content. So check them out on their YouTube channel, ohio Fish Rescue, and go to their website, Ohiofish rescue. Say you love them by dialing their phone number. But also don't rule the money. Buy a t shirt.

Buy a t shirt. Buy some hair care products from Rich because he is the mullet man.

So he was on stream. I did ask by that man what hair care products he has. Now, I could have called him, but it's much better to do this where it's recorded. So check out his recordings of livestream and you'll see proof that he not only shampoos, but he conditions as well.

Oh, you know he conditions. That's some lovely hair.

Well, people said don't use shampoo. That would be gross. And he's a very hygienic man and has a very beautiful full name.

That's right. Makes Billy race cyrus sad.

Yeha. All right, let's kick that podcast. Welcome to the Aquarium, guys. Podcast with your host, Jim colby.

And Rob dolsen.

All right, guys. Welcome to the aquarium, guys. Content today, we are doing I don't know, you could call this, like, shrimp a palooza.

Shrimp a palooza.

Shrimpa paluza.

You know, I think Red lobster does something similar to that.

No, you know, I think you cracked a joke one week. Something about endless shrimp. And we got so many people messaging us about that and to stop playing the diggery Do.

Yeah. So what what did what did the shrimp guy say on the thing he sent? He said it was funniest comments ever.

The shrimp guy. Well, we'll play the voicemail for everyone to hear in a moment.

Oh, really?

I am your host, Rob Zulson.

And I'm Jim colby.

And I'm Adam Elonisher. Oh, yeah, he's got the rhythm down the line.

Yeah. He's sitting in Office Studio O for Office Studio O. And we're Studio B for basement.

Why do we name our studios?

Because we don't want to get confused. Because they're 200 miles apart. They're like 500 miles apart.

We just had a discussion, right, this last week.

Yes.

And we're going to be setting up a big green screen lab here to do some live streams with you to answer questions. Because we're finding out from that discord podcast that we have so many people that want instantaneous questions. So right now we have discord up, and people are getting answers like that. Of course, people love the whole camaraderie that comes to the live stream. So we're going to turn Studio B into the Goldfish Bowl. The goldfish bowl fishbowl. We haven't really decided, but we're going to put up an elongated green screen set up. And we would love to sit in our podcast studio in the midst of fish.

And we're going to be doing it nude. No, we're not.

I'm already winnie the pooh crop topping. You're not allowed to do that without at least sentence.

I thought that since it was green screen, they couldn't see anything anyway, so I thought we'd just do it naked. That's only if you're green gym.

You might be fat like bert chrysler, but you're not as funny. So maybe you have to keep your shirt on.

So maybe if kermit the frog came here, that'd be really fun.

This is getting weird.

Getting weird.

Getting real weird.

All right, Rob, you're going to wear pants, right? Because winnie the pooh doesn't wear pants. We have young listeners.

As long as we're going to take the picture from Belly Button Up. So even if I'm not wearing pants, they're not going to see it.

God, I just threw it in my mouth a little bit.

Well, on that note, Robbie Chan is with us today. We'd like to welcome him. He is the CEO of blueprint aquatics. Just super happy to have him on. We've been prepping this for a while now. We've had I think this is our number one most requested podcast so far. So far as shrimp. It's just an outcry for it. So, Robbie, we are happy to have you. Welcome, buddy.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad to be here.

So where are you right now?

I am in the state of Illinois.

Illinois. So I have so many more questions for you, but I'm going to force myself to pause because we have some cleanup to do for our listeners. We have emails and a voicemail to go.

A voicemail.

So let's start with the voicemail, shall we?

And let's tell what we're doing wrong with the voicemails.

Oh, yeah.

So tell that story.

That's a story.

Tell it.

So I'd like to apologize to each and every one of you that has.

Called, because Robbie is stupid. We're always wondering.

We're getting all these message on Discord, we're getting all these people on Facebook, we're getting continual stream of emails, but no one's leaving us a voice message.

No.

We couldn't figure out why. Well, apparently, somebody not saying myself, but probably myself, it was you, mistyped. A digit of the phone number in the wrong sequence. So when you called, people just heard Google voice, please, and they just left some random person a bunch of fish.

Love.

Whoever you are that had the aquarium podcast number mixed up, I'd like to formally apologize to you. We have it fixed. The number is correct on the website. Aquariumkeyspodcast.com go to the bottom of the website, get it right, and the phone number is verified. And here's how you know, if you dial and you hear our voice talking to you on the voicemail, you know it's us. Otherwise, don't leave a message.

Because we've had people leaving messages going, why don't you answer me?

Why don't you answer a question?

We're not getting anything.

We fixed that. And now we have our first voicemail for a while.

All right, let's hear it.

All right.

Hey, guys.

My name is Justin. I'm from West Virginia mainly. Just wanted to give you guys a.

Shout out and let you know I'm loving the podcast.

Quick question for you.

I'm expanding my fish room, and I'm adding 30 ten gallon aquariums and about 1020 longs.

I've been using a master test kit for checking my water parameters up until this point.

I've kind of grown to hate this.

Process more than water changes.

Do you all have any suggestions or what direction I could go to make this process a little more painless? Thanks again for putting out this solid content, and I can't wait for you.

To kick the next podcast. Oh, and Jim, please do us a favor and just diggeri don't. Wow.

Yes, man. You've been told another fan.

The people have spoken.

No people love the digrido. Love it.

All right, so hashtag, did you dot on social media? Facebook or Twitter, please? Or hashtag, did you reduce if you really must be psychotic? But to answer his question, I was actually fortunate enough where Justin was the one to report the issue of our number being broken. I was talking to him on discord, and I got to answer his question directly. So I got more information because that's not enough for us to answer his question. So he was having an issue with some of his water PH levels and other things, and he has to go through a strenuous process, removing chlorine and other stuff from his water. He tests continually to see if the water changes and fluctuates, which it doesn't seem to a lot. So what I recommended is have base tests instead of testing all the time. You know what your water is going to be in a regular cycle. Instead, move that down to one test every two weeks or one test a month. And if you're in the city, talk to your people to see if they're going to flush lines, because that changes PH. But if you've established what it is every time, there's no need to continually check. Most people in the hobby that are experienced have fish rooms, probably. We can even get Robbie Chan on this one. We test our PH up front and know what the base is and work from there. We don't test continually most of the time unless there's an issue, and just chart it.

Get a chart and get a piece of paper. Put it on the wall. Just chart it so you know exactly where you were a week ago. And don't go from your memory, because if your memory is anything like mine, you don't remember how to get to home at night.

So if you see an algae bloom, you see your fish stop beating. If there's some sort of symptom or sign to test, test. But just otherwise, keep it to a schedule and not test everything every time.

Perfect.

That was that. Now we can pull up some emails.

Emails?

Wait, did you bring that email?

I didn't bring my email. Again.

That poor, poor listener.

I know. I'm going to bring it to hose.

We should send them a t shirt or something.

We will. We'll send them a sexy picture of you in a crop top.

Oh, on a t shirt. We should put that on a t shirt.

Put that on a T shirt. Wow.

That. Was Adam excited?

That was a big sigh. Yeah.

We'll call it the rob's version of winnie the pooh. Now for the emails. Let's see here. We have a couple, so I'm trying to go back all the way, so I'm making sure to get them. Number one, we have a bunch of different suggestions, but I'm going to go over for the biological bacteria that we talked about for Blue Corner aquatics. So Robbie Chan, he's trying to come up with a name. And Poop juice, of course, is still the best.

But we're number one.

We're going to send a list. We got a few listeners sending us a bunch of names. We'll get that over to Robbie Chan to review and we will respond on back to you.

Yeah, if our company chooses one of them and we know who made that suggestion, we'll send them a bottle, a whole set of for free. Not a problem.

I can expect my poop juice on Tuesday. All right, maybe.

If it's poop juice, we'll raffle it to a listener.

There we go.

All right, so first email. Hi there, Rob's and Jim. Sorry, Adam, she didn't message you at all. This email is starting great, don't you think, Jim?

I love it.

All right, first, it's an honor she sounds cute.

Not good.

It's Heather, by the way.

Oh, hey, Heather.

Yes. First, it's an honor to be able to send you a message. Thanks for putting your email out there and making your guys so accessible. Secondly, stumbled across your podcast a couple of weeks ago. Been listening ever since. You both have such wonderful chemistry and your talented interviewers, and also been keeping me laughing. Very well informed on my drive home from work. Thank you for all you do. Well, thank you for listening.

She said we had chemistry and we're both married, so we're not together. Rob's and I are not together, but we could be. We could be, but we're not.

All right?

We're both married.

Call me.

Yeah, talk to me.

So now to add some background to my info, to my question, my dad kept a 55 gallon community tank of fish when I was growing up, and since we since then, we kept sick lids. But I'm just trying to start up a peaceful community tank, 29 of my own. I want to make sure I'm doing things right and start out. So I'm reaching out with a starter question. There may be more to come. At this point, I have filled my tank with water and gravel. heater and filter are going. I've done my initial water testing, and I have a bottle of stress time ready to start the cycle. Question is, how do I best add ammonia to the tank? I've been reading about different methods and wondering what you'd recommend. I also want to mention I am not in a big rush to get my fish, but I'm not necessarily looking for a way to cheat the cycle, but would appreciate any tips you would have. Love to hear from you when you have a moment. To Heather.

Wow, she's got a lot of patience. Man, I should have married her.

So let's go. What you don't do right, don't urinate in your tank. Because that is seriously a thing you can do. How to add ammonia to your tank. People, if you find on Google, will pee into their tank.

Really?

Don't do that?

No. Why would people do that?

Well, it does add ammonia, and I assume it would work over time, but, I mean, who wants their living room smelling like urine? Yeah, no, that's more of like a dog in your cushion thing.

So what else you got?

Well, what do you recommend for ammonia?

I just put in the stress zyme and waited.

Adam had a good idea. He had added a couple of small fish, add a couple of corridors that are hardy, like bronze corridoras, adding a small amount of ammonia, but it's still a risk because you don't want it to crash. But just one or two fish, or if you're so lucky to borrow a goldfish, they crap on command like a clydesdale. Right. So that does add a bit more, but the best thing you can do is trying to get some old chunk of filter from someone else, like a cartridge they're going to throw out. So if you have a friend or since you have that 55 gallon of your families, see if you can just cut a piece of the cartridge off again. It's a dirty cartridge. Add that to your tank and boom, there's your ammonia. Yeah.

And it's a 29 gallon tank, so you're able to add several fish and you won't have a big swing in anything real quick. So I would just suggest throwing a few fish in and doing some water changes quite often when you are first starting that tank. And I think that's just probably the easiest and most simple way. And it's called instant gratification because you also have a few fish to look at.

Boom.

Boom.

So that's our recommendation. And the next email. I swear we don't have many more. We got to get to the interview quickly. Here we have Martin from Ireland. Now, I'd like to point out that we're getting quite a few people messaging us from Ireland. We've had I believe his name is Andy.

Yes.

So we are I don't know what it is. Maybe people just play us in the local pub.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, let's go to the pub and listen to robs and Jim ramble out about nothing.

That's what it is. So when you go to Ireland, at the end of the rainbow, we're just a podcast sitting in a pot where there used to be gold.

Yeah. And it's all gone now. But I'm just thinking there's nothing else to do in Ireland other than there is lots to do in Ireland coming from a guy who's never been to Ireland.

We need to go to Ireland. We'll start an Ireland fan club. Hey, guys, martin here. First of all, huge thanks for huge thanks for giving us great content to listen to while grinding away at my day job. Extremely educational, inspirational and a lot of fun. My only problem is waiting between podcasts, I'm listening from Cork, Ireland. Not sure the time difference, so I'm literally checking spotify every time I pick up my phone. So, guys, break out those betty White posters and did your redo's and get your asses back in that podcast. cheers. Wow.

There's a guy who knows what he likes.

We've been told. So, Martin, just for you this week. So we're cutting this on Tuesday. So you should have this Wednesday morning, we're going to do another podcast in the celebration of our fans in Ireland, yourself and Thanksgiving.

We'll have an additional podcast this week.

We're gonna have an additional podcast.

Any idea which one?

Well, they're gonna have to just wait in to listen. Otherwise, what else is he going to have to pick up his phone for? And look at spotify? Am I right?

All right.

Am I right, Martin? He just hates us right now.

I know the cause. In Ireland, it's probably still like, 1974. I don't know how much time difference there is.

I feel like we need to insert a potato joke somewhere in this that's a bad joke. Is it?

Yeah.

I don't know. History.

The potato joke. The potato famine is bad.

Well, that's a famine. I don't do history.

Is that because their windmills quit going around in circles or that's no, that's Holland. That's holland, right?

That's Holland. Yeah.

Don't they make tulips?

This is going downhill.

All right.

Yeah.

Well, we're offending all of our European.

Listeners, and we have quite a few. So we apologize.

We've offended everyone else. We might as well include everybody.

We're making it up. We're putting out an extra podcast.

That's right. And you know what? Like we always tell people, if you don't like our podcast, we're going to double your money back. Because two times nothing. Still nothing.

I'm inserting crickets right here.

Right there. That's hilarious.

Enjoy your crickets. All right, so just a reminder, guys, you can find us on Facebook. We have a growing community. We have a lot of people sharing content and answering questions. But Discord, you guys heard less than the last podcast. We have a lot of people on Discord as well. For instant Gratification was super fun. That was great.

That was like all star wrestling. There was people coming from over the rope left and right. There are so many people on that podcast. I love that podcast.

You're just mad because it's Tuesday and you're missing wrestling.

I feel like wrestling.

Yes.

All right, so we have Facebook, Discord, but also, go to our website and leave us an email like these guys have in a voicemail. We got our number set up. And before we get to the show, since we missed the advertisement, while you're hearing Robbie Chan talk about all these things, go to his website, blueprint Aquatics.com. Use the promo code aquarium, guys, for free shipping.

Free shipping.

Free shipping.

Does he know about this?

He's not listening.

And aren't we giving away some cash ola this week?

We are, Jimmy.

How much are we giving away, Rob's?

Well, first of all, I have to pull up the list. And might we add that we've had this offer out for a month. And what are we giving away, Jimmy?

We're giving away $425 gift certificates to blue cron aquatics.

Thank you, Robbie.

You're welcome.

So, in front of me, I have a list of contestants. Right? You, before the podcast, have sent me your picks and draws, but I have not given out the names right. I just gave you numbers. So on here we have the first winner dinner.

Winter chicken dinner.

Right.

Or shrimp dinner. Shrimp dinner.

Shrimp dinner.

Shrimp dinner.

All you can eat shrimp at Red lobster.

Drum rolls. Craig Clark.

Yeah.

Craig from Illinois.

What? Illinois.

Yay.

Yay.

I see something happen here. The guy from Illinois just gave somebody from Illinois something.

Well, that's what we're going to do. We're going have to to have Robbie drop off the code in person.

That's right. We'll have him come over and bring a box of donuts.

All right. Of course, the next contestant and I'll item up for biz is Daniel Kim from Washington.

Washington State. tacoma, Washington.

Coma. All right.

Is that not where they got vampires from, like twilight over in Washington?

Is that where it was? So that's Oregon, I thought.

Oh, I don't know.

It's close. They're neighbors. Right? Right.

They're neighbors.

Vampires move fast. They could travel. All right. The third goes to Kyle Van grohl in New York.

New York.

Congratulations, buddy.

Good job.

And the last one doesn't go to Mr. pickles.

No. Jim colby. Jim kobe. Jim colby.

I just want that because Mr. pickles deserves to be picked on. He's in Canada.

Everybody in Canada should be picked on. Who won? Who won?

Who won?

Was it me?

That's who put it in on that lead? I thought people were just faking the name Jim colby.

I put my name in about 30 times, so I'm going to win.

I hate you. I really hate you. You put a lot more work into this for me. The last winner is michael mcdade.

Mcdad, we apologize for butchering your name.

Right. forgive us. From Florida.

Florida. We are touched all the borders.

Right? Thank you to Robbie Chan for these wonderful $25 gift certificates.

Awesome.

We'll get those out to you. I'll reach out. I have your contact information, so you'll be hearing from Jimmy. Because I don't feel like calling people.

I love to call people.

Excellent. All right, Robbie, are we ready?

Yes.

Excellent. So let's dive in. Number one, we want to know more about you.

Great.

Again, Robbie, you said you're Illinois. What's your profession?

My profession is a chiropractor. I'm a chiropractor. Been practicing chiropractic in California for over.

Ten years, so I've been picking on you. I messaged you the other night that I'm having a hard time turning my head. Right. And we need to meet up soon.

Of course. I'll bring my table.

There's a table.

I have a mobile table. I can treat people on it. That's it.

We're going to go to Chicago, aren't we, Jimmy?

Sure, we'll go to Chicago.

Excellent.

I think they sell hot dogs here.

Wait, you told us before that, your chiropractor was making fun of you for being like a football player. Yeah, I think Robbie has those same benefits, right?

Yeah. I went and saw Dr. Mike a couple of weeks ago, and he said I was nothing like the people that he works on, the professional for the Minnesota Vikings. Right. He still compared me to the Minnesota Vikings, but I was nothing like them, which I don't know what that means.

Good.

That's a good compliment.

I thought so.

Next time, ask him how you compare to the Lions, what you should do. All right, so, Robbie, you're the CEO of Blue Crown aquatics, and this happened actually pretty recently. You're pretty new in the chair, but you've been through the company how long?

A little bit around two years now.

How long has Blue chronic quantix been around?

It's been here it's this fabulous in 2015.

Now, what we like to go over is how we say just ornate shrimp. In general. We have the two main, neocardenia and cardenia, but there also is some oddball varieties we'd like to go over later in the episode as well. We'd like to pick your brain on it and let's start off with just the overall care. So what are, first of all, the parameters you need to keep shrimp in?

The basic parameters for neos? Neocaradinas are they range from PH 6.2 all the way to like 7.5. So the parameters for PH is pretty high and tolerance is pretty good. gh is around between three to six. Some people do it to seven. It's a little too hard, in my opinion. I would keep it around three to six kh, zero to four tds. This one is the tricky part. Could be from as low as 70 all the way to like 500, 600 even. I've seen 655 or something like that.

That's pretty hardy.

Yes. Temperature usually hovers between 69 to 74. It's a ballpark, but they can really survive in a lot of different types of temperature. Even a little bit cold ones. We ship out to cold places and as long as the water doesn't freeze.

So I've heard a lot of different information about temperature, and the reason I think that this is the most requested podcast from people is the shrimp hobby is relatively new. The history of keeping ornate shrimp like the Cardinias and neocardenias started in the early 90s. There is not a lot of information that's been given out, not because we don't have it, but because it's a very kept hobby. Everybody will breed to find their own colors. Everybody has what they think is a very unique strain. And it's unfortunate that a lot of breeders don't like to share information because they think it's in trade secrets. And what we're trying to do is make this easier for everybody. Even if you go on the wikipedia page for cardinal or neocardenia, it's missing a mass amount of information.

Large amount. Yes.

They don't have lifespan, they don't have temperatures, they don't have a lot of details that would consider basic information.

It's even hard to find out how many babies in a clutch.

You really don't know. Trying to get this information is really valuable. But I've heard from some breeders that they don't even use heaters.

Yes. Is that pretty common? Most of my tanks well, I used to live in California, but most of my tanks don't have heaters. It's okay if they go a little bit lower than even 65. As long as the water doesn't freeze, in a way, they'll just stay not as active. They don't eat as fast and they don't breathe as fast. But if you keep the temperature as long as it's stable throughout the day, not fluctuating too much, they usually do really well.

So, Jimmy, just for listeners, if your room is 70 degrees, how many degrees is the water? If it's not heated, is it like was it six degrees? Seven?

Yeah. Somewhere between five and six degrees. I know we had Steve Rubician from Angels Plus, and he was telling about heat the room. Heat the room. And if he wants Angels to kind of quit breeding, he'll put him on the lower shelf because it's a few degrees cooler, whereas the top shelf is a little bit warmer. And so that's how he controls his breeding. If he wants something to kind of back off on breeding because let's say he's got a lot of Black Angel fish right now and he wants them to slow down and he'll put them on the bottom where it's a little bit cooler. But most people heat the room when you start talking to multiple tanks because it's just too damn expensive to run all those different heaters we just bought. What day do we get those shrimp in from Robbie?

It was us last week.

Last week I ordered 50 Blue bolt shrimp. And here in northern Minnesota, it's pretty cool. And I think they came in on a day it was like 25 degrees above.

It was 1616 degrees.

And they left them on the front step and they were fine. I mean, they weren't out there that couple hours. Maybe we didn't notice.

Yeah, it was pretty impressive. We only lost a couple.

Yeah. And that's just to be expected during shipping. And I brought them in and I acclimated them over to my tank. I floated them for probably about two and a half, 3 hours. And I did a real slow acclamation, and they're doing great.

My wife chewed out fedex for putting them on the front door because we have instructions to bring them inside so they don't die. So she chewed out fedex, and I think she used just code words like schmelta, right?

Yeah. She probably punched him in the throat because she's mean. But yeah. So we purchased some of the Blue bolt shrimp, which I just absolutely love. I know Robbie had. Said, too, that he ships them when they're a little bit smaller because they ship better. And I would rather get in a bunch of smaller shrimp that are healthy and will grow than when you have the adult shrimp. They become just a little bit harder to ship and just a little more stressful for them. And so they came in the perfect size, perfect color. They're doing great. I also bought some of his food. It's delicious. I tried some.

You're gross.

No, I thought it looked listeners do.

Not eat any food, even high quality food.

Yeah. Robbie Chan sells some really good food, and it looks kind of like a green egg. noodle, that's flat. And what I saw different from this food than all the other food I've been serving is when I throw in one of these small little pieces of food, man, you can get 100 little baby shrimp on that one piece because it's flat versus, like, a round pellet like I've used from Shrimp King and different things like that.

There's definitely a new way for me to have shrimp food, that's for sure.

Yeah, I love it. So I've already burnt through a package. I'm feeling you're breeding. Yeah, I've got lots and lots of tanks, but I already burned through one of the packages.

So, Robbie, again, you said that if you want breeding, you have high temperatures. So what's some of the highest temperatures that you've had them at just for breeding purposes?

73 to 74. That's kind of like my highest breeding temperature that I would go to, because, I don't know, from my own experience, 73 is kind of like you're pushing the limit. 74 is kind of when it's a really hot day in California.

So me, I'm a bad boy. I have a large community tank, and some of the fish in there, like, at 82 degrees, some of the fish want it 70 degrees flat. I try to do, like, an equal medium. I do, like, a 77, 78. And I have spread across the tank shrimp, and I've noticed that adding shrimp because it's so high that I do have to do drip acclimation. There's no way I can just float a bag. I have to actually drip acclimate.

Yes. And they like increments of change. They don't like immediate shock. So to them, they're more fragile than fish. So I always suggest for neocaradinas, as long as they're below 75, they should be okay. Some people raise them outside, they could tolerate a lot of different temperatures. But more for tank bread ones, you want to keep them around 69 to 74. That should be pretty good.

If I may, I mentioned before, let's talk a little bit about the history of how these ornate shrimp started coming around. So in 1991 ish I'm trying to go off of information that I'm trying to verify online. Mr I'm going to butcher the name hai saiyu suzuki discovered some striking red specimens of some colored ornate dwarf shrimp and started trying to breed them. And that's how we have the crystal red shrimp. And that's essentially what started the craze on top of around that same time finding red cherry shrimp again. 91, 93 timeframe.

Yes. And these are the carridinas that we didn't touch about the parameters. They live in lower acidic water temperature and all that. So the PH will be at around 6.36.0 to 6.4, GH is around four to five, KH is zero to one, tds 120 to some people have it at 150 temperatures. You don't want to mess around. I mean, these are very, very delicate types of shrimps, especially crystal red. They've been breading breeding for a long time. They can tolerate a little bit more fluctuation, but we're talking about higher end, very high specific, very pricey shrimps.

So to try to go over the map, they have a detailed map of the cards on the neocardina front from the red cherry shrimp. And what we're going to do is we're going to post on our Facebook and discord for people to follow. Along with this episode of the map. They're trying to map how exactly they got all these colors. And it literally looks like I got in front of the guys here, it looks like a rainbow of shrimp with a flowchart showing how they got these things. And it really does give perspective that they're not done getting colors. People are still doing patterns, colors and especially neocardenias because really the patterns we have out there are either solid color, clear or really yes for listeners, what's a really color pattern?

A really color is, for example, red really would be red on the head, body is clear and then red on the tail. Now they did develop some red body, red head and then body all clear. Those are called Little Red Riding hoods. I didn't quote that. I didn't term that, I didn't coined that name. But it's kind of funny to me.

Just like any other tropical fish, everybody has crazy names for different color patterns, but they're trying to have some traditional ones. Like if you say crystal, it amountically defaults to crystal red. Yes, there are staples in the industry.

Yes. They pretty much standardize certain names, but people call them different names just to kind of look cool. It's a sales pitch pretty much.

I have a quick question. I've had this conversation with several different people. I've gotten several different answers. The red cherry shrimp, then you go to like a fire red shrimp and then the bloody Mary. Is the Bloody Mary a different type of shrimp than the red cherry?

Yes, it's bred a little differently. They kind of picked it out from a different gene. So the specifics is really about what the supplier did and it's a trade, trade secret. But as far as I know, fire red and bloody Mary is two different lines of NeoCare DNA. So then they kind of branch off from those two types and then slowly kind of dissipate into different colors. There's green shades now and there's so many different colors out there, but it's mainly coming from fire red and bloody.

So to go off of that a little bit more because some of the other common names because we're trying to talk about the same shrimp and everybody has different naming schemes. So how I've heard them is talk about fire red, which are just pure, no marking red, bright red. Then I've heard Bloody marys referred to as painted red, meaning they have one stripe across the back that's a little bit faded and the rest is a very deep red, which is how you get like the Bloody Mary. Now that's how we've seen them come in. Is that common for the naming structure?

Well, actually the painted fire or pfr is the one that they call it similar to the fire red, but it's the highest grade. They don't call painted fire red Bloody Mary because Bloody Mary actually, from what I know, is the body is kind of more reddish and if the body is red, the fire red is actually the shell itself is more red. The body is actually not as red. So then it's the shell color and the thickness of the shell that really tells them apart from each other.

All right, I'm going to pick on you because this is terribly confusing and I know it's going to generate a ton of questions. So what we're going to ask is in your spare time, if you have the opportunity to make a diagram. Because I think that this comes down to a simple grading system. Right? Now, just to talk about the current grading system, say we have a crystal red shrimp, which is white and red bands on a single cardinal shrimp. So the idea is the pattern of red bands or lack of red bands is dependent on grading. So you have a is it aaa or aaa. Then it goes to S and then aaa. S as the scaling.

Yeah, it will be a S and then double S and then S. So.

Triple S being the best, a being a base grade, which is a good grade. It's not B grade. You're not going to get like a missing color, but it's, again, not the pattern people are looking for. So I think that this is a simple deal where we just need to know what are those small subtle differences between them. So if you could post a few pictures of example either on the discord or even on your website as a self help, I think that'd be a great addition for people.

Yeah, not a problem because I've been.

Confused and I have a ton of whatever we buy because frankly, we'll just see them on order lists, we'll get them and then, well, these seem no different and we just throw them in with the rest.

I see.

I know that's what other people are doing.

Most of the grading is actually done with really fine tuned, microscopic, magnetic, fine glass so that they can see actually the shell thickness. It's really dependent on the thickness of the shell to determine their grade. And also some people look at the legs, the head, and the thickness through the head and the tail, and overall color, body shape, body size, body. How big is it?

I'm just imagining that the future of shrimp stores are people going to go into an old time jewelry store, right. They're going to find an old man behind the counter, and he's going to get these eye spectacles and look at him like he's trying to test a gold or jewelry. Wow, that's 14 carrot shrimp right there. That's what I'm talking about.

I think for the average person, we're just buying the regular stuff, but when you are breeding and you're going into competition, that's when it really comes into these different graves, is that correct?

Yes, everything will come into consideration.

And there are shrimp shows worldwide that they have where people bring their shrimp and they trot them out in front of everybody and they are graded, they are voted upon by the people. And a lot of these shrimp become very expensive, don't they?

Oh, yes.

You actually won was it 2018? What was the award for again?

In 2018, I worked with a company, and that is from Taiwan. They actually won Shrimp King Award for it's kind of like a really prestigious award that Shrimp King chris, look up. He picked the rhett Fancy Tiger as his most favorite shrimp out of the whole competition, and we won that as 2018.

Fantastic.

And how many shrimp do you bring? Do you bring like, three to five shrimp or how many shrimp do you bring to the I've seen some of the stuff on YouTube, and it's flipping crazy.

Yeah, we bring a very big variety. I have sourced I tried to source as many varieties as we can, and for our company, we can source over, I would say 50 to a little bit over 75 or 80. 80 ish kinds of different type of shrimp, freshwater shrimp. The list is still expanding as I as I source more for more far as shrimp number goes in. We import every two weeks. So every month we have two imports, sometimes ranging from 10,000 shrimps all the way to, like, 20. So it really depends on what type of shrimps we bring in.

In particular, how long is the average lifespan of some of these shrimp. And again, lifespan is completely dependent on temperature. We understand that they can go quite a ways if they're cold.

Yeah. For lifespan overall, people tell you the general guideline is about two years. Now, I've seen some shrimps that go as far as three years, really big, but the average is about two years, and they mature and I saw a question that like, how long do they need to mature until they were able to mate and then breed? It's about between two and a half to three months.

That ain't bad.

Yeah. And they breed for the rest of their life after that.

We've already talked about this, but approximately how many babies in a clutch? Is there a huge difference between the neo and the Cardinals for amount of babies? Heaven.

It really depends on the female size. If it's a first time mom, sometimes she doesn't carry as much because her size is still not as big. But if you're a full grown size mom and she's very experienced, she's able to carry up to 30 or even I've seen like 30 plus eggs, but maybe first clutch would be like ten to 15 or even up to 20. So it's between 20 to 30, I would say.

And how long do they carry the eggs?

Depending on the shrimp type, most carry between 28 days all the way to 45 days.

You could get a shrimp that that could have babies three to four times a year, correct?

Yes, yes.

So so one shrimp one shrimp could produce probably 100 to 120 babies in a year. Just to keep that in mind, when you when you've got 50 of them in a tank and a year from now, you got a lot more.

Yeah. The way I saw in Taiwan, I go back to quality, check them. I've seen tanks where five males or ten males to 50 females, and then the tank, it just explodes. Babies all over the place. And then they that's how they mass produce a lot of the babies.

How do you sex shrimp?

Well, the basic ones are maybe it depends on the size. Usually 1.0 to 1.5 CM. Then you could start telling the sex. The males will have a slimmer body and a little bit slimmer, smaller in size, a little bit compared to females. Females have a bigger mid belly, and that the right the shell right behind the head would be a little bit broader and wider than you can tell from the male and female.

Is it easier to sex them from looking from above? Like looking down on them?

You usually want to see them from the side. From the side, yeah. When they're holding still or they're just eating or something, or they're running around, then you actually see how they move. Males tend to kind of be a little bit more jumpy, in my opinion. They kind of swim faster. They'll chase after females, so they're slimmer body. The females are a little bit more wider. They walk around a little bit more slower, bulkier, more graceful.

I would say, just like humans.

I'm doing this all wrong. I just want to point that out. Generally how I do it is I grab my phone, take a picture of my junk, and just hit send.

Oh, no.

Sexing okay, not sexting. No sexting. Big difference. All right. That's why I'm doing it wrong.

Lord, you can't wait for that phone call. Yeah, that'll be a bad one.

So to get back on topic, guys, we haven't covered a few things. So number one, we've had a lot of misconceptions. There's fish that can't stand copper products for medications. How do shrimp handle general medications like salt or copper products?

I wouldn't suggest too much of the products that will raise any of the trace minerals, copper to be one of them, because the shrimps cannot tolerate high amount, high dosage. If you're going to fertilize, be very sparingly, be very careful, because high end shrimps, they're more sensitive to fluctuation. It could spike the tds, and then you will have sudden death. One there, one there, one a day or something like that. And that's not good when you're losing a lot of high end trims.

So is there any diseases that are common? And if so, how do you treat those?

Most of the disease that are seen are like, there's little white spots in the nose, and we use salt bath, epsom salt, and things like that. We could do salt dips. We can also do I'm coming out with a product that is actually really good for immune boosting. Most of the time they will have disease. For neocordinas, it's like the green fungus or rust disease. Little disease left and right, and they'll slowly eat up your colony and then they'll slowly die.

So to go over a couple of things, the only ones I've seen are the different types of funguses. That's the only problems I've ever had with any type of shrimp. So anything else, I certainly not experienced. So number one, what's the disease with the white spots in the nose? What was that?

I think we got them. I think I have to yeah, I really have to go and do my research on those. Well, clearly, yeah. They are found mostly in neo's caradinas, and that's what only show up when they're really kind of stressed during imports. We occasionally will find some, but what we do is we do a quarantine system where we make sure that it doesn't contaminate with other chains.

So what's that rust disease you talked about as well?

Rust disease is actually when the color deterleration in the shrimp inside their shell started to turn brownish or their nose start turning brownish, and then they'll all of a sudden just die off next day or the day after. This is actually kind of like a bacterial infection.

How would you treat that? Because fungus we kind of understand how to treat. How would you treat that bacterial infection for shrimp?

Bacterial infection, sometimes we use Paraguard from SEACAM and actually quarantine and just kind of screen it out, make sure that it doesn't contaminate the rest of the colony. We don't really treat it. We kind of just observe it, make sure that it doesn't spread. And put some pear guard. Some people use those essential oils, tea tree oils, and also some people use Indian almond leaves to kind of help be a little bit more antibiotic.

Well, finally I can get those multi level marketers into my house.

Wow.

Get those essential oils going, boys.

No. Quick question. Go ahead. Sorry.

Adam first.

Okay.

Do you ever need to add iodine.

To the water to help them mold? Because I remember is that mostly saltwater shrimp?

I would suggest trying not to put too much iodine. You could have my trace minerals amount. You don't need a lot of iodine in order for it to make a mold. The reason why you want to make a mold is the female. Obviously, after they molt, they will be prepped for breeding and water change can do that. A little fluctuation in temperature can do that. A lot of abundance and food. The parameters, as long as they're stable, sometimes once they get growled bigger, they will molt good water change habit. It usually helps kick jump starts. That okay.

That's all I've done. I've never had anything to never have any molting issues.

No.

Yeah, they've just molted pretty healthily. I've never had one. Just have an issue up north.

I had that problem.

As long as your water parameter is good, I think you're fine. I always make sure that my parameters are good as far as GH and KH goes, and then the Philip using the active substrate to kind of buffer it so then the tds and everything won't fluctuate as much. If there is fluctuation, you don't want to water change immediately or do too much. I would water change maybe 10%, slowly drop the tds down to maybe between if you're at 150 and it's too much or 160, then I'll drop it down to 150 or 140 slowly by the 10% and then add regular peculiar aluminum water to kind of balance it out.

So just for early listeners that are listening to the show, they want to get into shrimp. What is the molting process? Because essentially what I've had is I've had new people call me like, oh, my God, one died in my tank, and I go check it out, and it's just a molt. So explain the process for our newbies.

As shrimp grows, they will need to shed their skin. And that's what a mold is. It looks like a whole shrimp just died. And then the inside cartilage got inside the bones and everything got the meat got eaten, so it will look like a dead shrimp. At first I had that issue too, and then I was like, did it die or anything? And I was looking around, did it crawl out? It was just hiding. Because when it mold, they will actually stay on the ground a little bit more lazy, not moving as much. It seems like they're dead, but in reality, they're actually absorbing the minerals in the water in order to harden their shell again. So then they can be able to keep going with their life. And they're growing. That means they're growing, they're getting bigger and bigger.

So let's say someone sees a couple of molts in the tank, right? What do you do with the molts when you find them? Do you take them out of the tank? Do you leave them there?

They make a great chip dip grow.

Actually, they're very good calcium for the rest of the shrimps. The shrimps will go after it because there's pheromones in the molting of the shell. So it's actually a really good thing that they kind of finish eating that shell because it gives them an extra boost on calcium. So it's kind of like a supplement.

What you're saying is I shouldn't make fun of Jimmy for eating his dry skin.

That's right.

Yeah. Should be bright fingernails, extra protein. Right.

Seems good.

You guys are so beneficial.

Calcium fish tanks.

I don't, because in my tank, I make sure that my minerals and my water is staying the same tds. The reason is because at certain tds and everybody has their own parameters or everybody have their own numbers, some where they like a spreading and they have the peak amount of sprayeding at certain tds. And for me, my tds is between 125 to about 130. Once I hit that little threshold, my shrimp just go crazy. They mold easy. They just start breeding. And that's my little trick in a way that I kind of make sure that it's around there so then it induces their breeding pattern.

What size tanks are you using, Robbie?

I usually use 15 to 20 gallons. I used to use ten gallons. But I feel like with explosive breeding that I'm doing, it's breeding too much and I don't have the room. So I actually upgraded, and I'm doing more 15 and 20 to hold even more breeding so then they can have a lot more room to raise and to breed.

Now, forgetting the, you know, whole filter process and water quality because, well, say someone does crazy amounts of water changes. Great filtration. How many would you put in a 15 gallon? Oh think max.

Disregarding Max. I've seen people put 500 in there.

I get 500. Because again, you're breeding. But let's say that I'm a fish keeper, right. And I just want to know from my own I'm going to keep these shrimp in my tank long term for their life. How many would you max?

I would start with about 50. To create that colony between a 15 gallon and 20 gallon fee is good. So that there's good ratio of males, good ratio of females. They'll find each other when they know when the female molt.

And that's what I do. I'm running 20 gallon longs with matin filters, and I keep 200 adults per tank. And Robbie comes over and just nods his head and he goes, there's a lot, a lot of shrimp in there. And when you said 500, he sat there, nodded his head, and I would have gone, See, I'm not crazy. It seems like the more shrimp I have, the better they do, and I don't know why.

Yes.

So you said this word. I love to pinpoint this, because no one understands this.

You talk about the colony, the colony.

Give us more viewpoint on that. Because we have ant colonies, we have bee colonies. Shrimp are often called bees. What's with the colony?

Yeah, the colony. It's kind of like an ant colony. That's kind of how we reference it. Because there's always a group of per type of shrimp. When we keep some, let's say Black King Kong, we keep it in a colony because we keep it in a group, and they are that group, and they will keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breathing, keep breeding. If you add sometimes other bkks or from other genes or some other types of shrimp, let's say different type, let's say a pinto or something into it sometimes. I heard from other hobbyists that sometimes they actually compete, and when they compete, they might attack each other or they might have a little fight, in a way. Sometimes one colony might attack another colony and then make things worse, wipe out the other colony due to the competition for food.

It's like gangs in Chicago.

It is.

It's like gangs in Chicago, I'm telling you.

So you usually want to keep one type for us, as breeders and hobbyists, I always suggest people try not to keep too many types because you never know what if one type that you bought in has certain things or certain disease, it might pollute the whole tank, right? So you want to keep one type and then always keep it in quarantine. First, try to see them how they do, and then put it in. Or you just buy a larger quantity, like 20 or 30, to start a colony, and then that group will survive together.

So I did this wrong. I have a big community tank, and we'll get into tank mates later, but it's a community tank with other fish as well, which can be risk if you don't know your type of variety in the tank, because they'll pick them off, they'll harass them, they'll stress out the shrimp. But I have a very densely planted tank, and what I wanted to do is I didn't care about breeding them. I just wanted to have my favorite pick of individual shrimp. So over time, I put in a bunch of random colors. Really? I put in crystal reds. I put in everything, just a little bit of everything through the tank. And this is how you learn the hard way, right, in your hobby, that yeah, number one, just as you said, they may fight with each other, which I don't get a lot of that, but they certainly don't colonize. They don't stick with each other. They're very much loners.

A lot of lone wolves in there.

They're individually just going off on their own. If they do breed, because they're mixing most often I get some garbage, clear, coal worthy shrimp washed out.

Yeah. So shrimp breeding is really about selectively breeding them, because these suppliers and these breeders in Taiwan, they've spent a lot of their time, some people spent over 15 years trying to develop one type of shrimp, and now they're famous for that. And because all the shrimps, once you start mixing different colors, different patterns, they come out a little bit wild. They go back to their original ancestry. We don't suggest that. We actually suggest if you want to keep one type, keep one type. Good. For a big community like that, of course there is going to be a different type, and that's why they're not going to function as well. They're not going to find each other as well. So the male and female will crossbreed with anybody they find. But if you have a specific type and then you keep it in the same group, they'll find each other really well because they go by pheromones, and once they mold, the male will find the female really quickly and because they're familiar with each other.

I have got probably about 25, 20 gallon long tanks with the different shrimps in. And I'm at that point now where I put in 200 fire red shrimp in, and I have got just a boatload of babies. Do you try to pull the babies out at all and raise them separately, or I've had people tell me, just take the adults out and move them to another tank and let the babies grow up in that tank. What do you do?

Yeah, this is one of the things that you find online that's misquoted or everybody has their opinion, right?

It's true. Everybody has their own way of breeding. Now, for me and my personal opinion, I actually take out the baby. I keep my breeding colony as the breeding colony, because if you start taking them out, what if your other tank might have other parameters or might be different? It might stress us out. My pair that is already very comfortable in their breeding, as long as they're breeding, that means that this tank is doing well. And once you move the babies, I would move the babies out. The babies can adapt to the water parameter a lot easier than an adult can.

So is there any tricks of taking out the babies? Because I'm trying to put myself in jimmy's tank right now. He's got a zoo of shrimp in there, and suddenly you see all these, I don't know, specks everywhere.

And I run a lot of almond leaves in my tank. And you go, Where are all the babies going? You lift that almond leaf and there's 300 babies underneath that almond leaf. Do. You siphon them out or how do you get them out of the tank?

Well, I actually just put a piece of pellet food or something that sink on the ground in the front of the tank where it's easily accessible, and then I try to lure as many babies as I can. I mean, some people would be picking out the babies one day, and then, okay, they're busy now, and then come back another day, put another food, keep going and take out more babies. So it's a couple of days process. You can't really take out everybody until the tank. You need to cycle the tank or something like that. You switch out everything. It took me three days just to move approximately 150 galaxy fishbone babies out of my tank just because I need to cycle the tank.

And people ask, wonder why shrimp are expensive. There's a lot of hours invested in all this, and it's not like you just walk away and feed them once a day. It's a lot of calling and a lot of pulling the babies. You know, I used to use a trick, and I know rob's used a trick, too. When we used to have a lot of trumpet snails in a tank, we would take and put a piece of cucumber on a small plate, turn off the light, and then you come back down 2 hours later and you turn on the light and there's a thousand snails on top of that. And you just take that plate out and throw it away. Could I take a small net and lay in the bottom of the tank and put some shrimp food in there?

Perfect. Some people do that, too, so go for it.

I'm the smartest guy in the room. I feel good about myself right now.

And just to let you guys know, we did take all those trumpet sales on the plate and burnt them with fire.

And they're still alive.

They're still alive.

Yeah. You know what you should do is we should just introduce all the trumpet snails to Schmelta.

Well, here's what we got to do, right? You got a list, right? You have cockroaches, trumpet snails, trumpet sales, and jim's ex wife. They're all going to survive.

She might actually survive the cockroaches and the trumpets.

There you go.

Wow.

We're here for you, buddy.

All right, say, I have a question. How fast can you get a new color or size? Like, could you ever get two inch.

Cherry shrimp or brightly colored shrimp?

Because somebody was asking about it. But actually, I was thinking about that.

Too, is how long does it take.

To get a certain gene out of.

Any certain strain of shrimp? And then also, have you ever seen the hitler?

No, I'm not.

I'm just wondering. It's genetics. Oh, genetics. Okay, hitler.

And then how often have you ever noticed that the different color strains take different parameters?

Or are they all kind of the same parameters. Like, there's one like higher PH, you.

Know what I mean? Yes. For caradinas. Now I'm talking about crystal reds and stuff like that. For them, they require a little bit more selective breeding. Now, the thing I want to stress about is, what do you want as a breeder? What are you looking for? You have to go with the specific straight. So let's say let's take your anneocardina. Fire red. If you want to breed out two inch one, then you have to figure out what size you want it to get. Okay? So I'm going to get the biggest size I can, and I'm going to breed it with the biggest size, male and female. And now I'm going to take them out, put it in a tank, let them breed, and then I'm going to take out from there a bigger size and then go from there. It usually a span like that. And for the biggest size, sometimes you have to add the genes back into it. If you keep crossing the same gene with each other, they tend to go smaller and smaller and smaller. That makes the gene a lot weaker. So then you want to add sob wild types or some other person's wild genes. Well, I don't call it people call it the same gene. But for example, if I have a Fire red and I've been breathing it for two years now, and then to get smaller and smaller and smaller, I need to introduce new blood, new gene into it. So then it boosts it up a little bit stronger so then you can actually get that size that you want. But it takes about, I would say, from two years. Some people even develop it up to five to one of my masters, he's been breeding a lot of the terrain's, and he will specifically go for one trait, one specific pattern, and he will do that and then keep doing it. And he's been spending, I would say, ten years plus just to kind of get that specific pattern. But his trench will be very costly.

To piggyback off of that a bit.

Yes.

We have a question that I've been asked by a lot of different people, and it's essentially about coloring. So let's say you have all the same variety in the same tank. You're expecting that most of the shrimp are going to come out nice and colored. How big do they have to be before you see color? Because when you see baby shrimp, they're nice and small and clear. When do you see them? They bloom.

At what age?

Taiwan usually use a measuring stick or some sort of measuring parameter or a guidance. A length 0.8 to 1.2 CM. So it's really small. They're the juby size usually by about there.

Let's try to compare it with something, because I'm just imagining a bunch of newbie people with rulers that are just beating sticks around on their tank.

Now I got to measure. I got to call somebody from Canada, because I don't know centimeters.

I know, right? It's metric. I'm lost.

Maybe Mr. pickle could help us.

So if you're going to try to compare it to an object like the size of a pee, probably the size of a pee.

A bb?

Yes.

Well, bb are different brains bigger than.

A bb gun or the bb pellet.

So we know for sure that if they're the size of a large pee, they should have color.

They should have color, and they should have somewhat of the characteristics pattern or the specific stripe pattern. If you're looking for that, they should have that. But usually you want to wait a little bit more until they almost mature, which is about two to three months before you start taking them out, because when you take really small babies, you can't tell what they look like. So you might take out the really top grade ones and then put it into another tank. Give them a little bit time, usually about roughly two months. That's when I start calling. So basically for between one to two months, then they will start to have some pattern and some color. So then you start from there. You start selecting the juveniles and then pulling them out and putting into the tank that you want.

So one of the pieces that I want to point out here is normally culling is done for normal breeders. If you're going to bring a product to market, you want to make sure that's a quality product. So if someone else breeds them, they can continue a pure gene. But this is a situation that even if you're keeping your own colony, you're going to want to call. Because if you don't call eventually over time, because shrimp have relatively short lifespans, if you're going to have this colony long term, you're going to want to call. Otherwise, eventually you'll lose your color over time.

Yes.

Generation after generation, they will go right back to a clear or crappy version.

Or they get smaller and smaller, which is in competition. Actually, size does matter.

There's hope for me yet. Size always matters.

Adam okay, no comment on that one.

What I'd like to do is because I got a big heart stop it.

I do we have to be heartless in breeding?

No, it's like pickle says.

We have to kill the disabled animals.

Not disabled. They're just special.

Okay.

Here's my imitation of Mr. pickle. Hell, yeah. That's pretty good, wasn't it?

That was great.

But anyway, I have a planted tank and I like to take my little shrimps that I don't think are going to color up, and I like to put them in a planted tank just to give them a little something to hide at as the fish attack them and tear their heads off. Because I have a big heart. What do you do with your calls?

I just look at your face, and it looks like a stone cold cereal killer.

Yeah, no, I'm not.

I don't have predators in my tank.

So what do you do with them? Do you just put them in your pocket and walk around and eat?

Well, a professional breeder will tell you that you usually need a minimum of three tanks, one for your main tank, your best colony, your best breeding group should be in there, nothing else. And then once they breed, you pick out from there the babies, and then you put them into the second tank, an alternative tank where they can grow up to a certain bigger size.

Super p size, actually.

Yeah, bigger than p size. Then they can really see the pattern or the things, the trait that you want to select, the ones that you picked out from there, you could put it back into the main tank for continuation of what you want, that trait. Or on the second tank, you can take it to the third tank, which is the coal tank, which is something that you don't want. That would be the coal tank. That's why people will solve their coal tank first and then go for the second tank.

Our coal tank just happens to have a two foot catfish named Charlie that just loves shrimp.

They're delicious.

All right. We haven't talked about food, actually. We got to talk about food at bluegreen aquatics website. You guys do have professional grade food, but there is a bigger hobby. People have always been trying to make their own fish food for years, but with shrimp, it goes even further. So do you make your own shrimp food, or have you tried it in the past?

I tried it in the past, and this is what I found. And from my own experience, the best way is to actually get some really good grade food that is already made by everybody. Okay. And then I grind it into powder, and then I sprinkle it on top of my shrimp tanks.

Well, I swear, if I come visit you I swear, if I come visit you and I see shrimp powder on your nose, we have to have a conversation.

Yeah. There are so many different formulas to make shrimp food. I feel like I just feed them a variety of shrimp. So I don't go with particularly only the shrimp food that I sell. I go with everybody else's, because certain type of shrimp, they will actually like a little bit more protein, a little bit more veggie, so they have a preference. But it really depends on what you're trying to do. If you want them to grow faster, if you want color enhancing, there's food all for that. And so I like a complete food where it's a little bit of everything. That's why I grind a lot of different brand food to kind of grind it into powder and then sprinkle it so then not only the adults will get it. The babies will get it. And then occasionally, if I want to take out shrimps or moon, I'll actually use the palette. One palette, one complete palette. Food. It's complete food. Day to day food. That's what we call it. And then I'll scrape out call out shrimps from there.

The easiest method, of course, is just order from where you get your shrimp from, because that's what they're eating. But if you so choose that you want to go out and research how to make your own food, I'm going to give you a couple of recommendations to start out with. This is how I've seen a lot of my friends in the past make food homemade. This is not, like you said, every shrimp they were trying to give, different color, different result. So this is just, you could say, a beginner's guide to getting into making your own food. Number one ingredient, barley. Helps maintain healthy balance for finding fiber to the digestion.

So beer.

Beer helpful for the digestion, and secretly it clears water, which we've talked about in the Pond podcasts. oats. Again, more fiber. But beta glucan is the big thing that they want to talk about for Colorado. More of healthy immune system. Really what they're trying to kick out, right? Spirulina for immune system color. And it really works well for speed of growth. So if you're doing babies spirulina, I'm.

Just going to say spirulina is wonderful for everything. powdered spirulina.

Jimmy'S been trying to get me to do playcos and play cos. Gobble it up just direct spirulina. So if you're doing baby fish, certainly try looking that up. soy shells provides protein, amino acids, instead of maybe doing actual meat protein or ground up shrimp, which that's number one A hassle to do and not always taken by shrimp. Some form of calcium. You can use calcium. Different types of clay you can get and add that are edible clays. Do your homework. You can just simply add calcium to your tank by using, like, crushed coral and other methods. Bee pollen that we've seen provides a lot of fat and minerals, vitamins and minerals to the diet. And to be frank, a lot of people that order this bee pollen online, they add it for just fast consumption. If you put it in there, they'll gobble it up.

That's very sweet.

Alfalfa also for calcium and iron.

And what about my favorite one? Monday night, spaghetti night at my house, I feed frozen bloodworms.

Yes, that's very good. That's actually very good.

One of my stores again, Jeff and Nancy up in fargo said, yeah, we tried feeding them frozen bloodworms, and they love it. And so I gave some to mine. I tried to mix it up a little bit throughout the week. And on Monday night, a spaghetti night at our house, and the shrimp will grab the frozen bloodworms, and they'll grab it in their, I guess, little claws, and they suck it up. Just like a little character on the walt Disney films. Remember those two dogs that ate the spaghetti?

Are you just looking in your tank and see if there's a lady?

Yeah, lady and the tramp. Exactly. And I could not believe how much I threw in a whole cube of brine shrimp, which is quite a bit of frozen brine shrimp. And it was gone in literally five, six minutes.

Again, these ingredients that we told you, besides the brine shrimp and bloodworms, they're ingredients to make food. So if you're going to do these, you can give them rot forms, but make sure that you lightly bake them so they're actually a cooked substance. Some of these will rot in the tank if you don't treat them. So these are ingredients I want to put that warning out. Do your homework. There's plenty of places online that have great recipes. Give them a try if you want to explore. But the best way is just going to order food where you've purchased your shrimp.

Exactly. I just got my shrimp from Robbie Chan here last week, and it started immediately. They started eating when I had the food that they've already been eaten. So it's a big plus.

Well, that you got equipping pork chops in your tank. It's just not kosher.

The pork chop is because my brother used to hanging on around my neck because I'm so ugly. That's the only way the dog would play with me. Oh, that's sad.

It's such a warm hearted story. And true, and true, and true. All right.

Some people actually feed the fresh blanched spinach. Okay, that's another thing. Or mulberry tree leave.

Actually, there's a site if you go on YouTube, and I love watching this, because this guy has wild shrimp. He's got neocardenia. Shrimp is a mix, and he's famous for having these filterless tanks. It's just planted, planted tanks. No filter, no nothing. No bubblers. He goes through a very diverse boiling of veggies. He goes, as you said, spinach. But he also does broccoli and gets a lot of great results from broccoli. He has to cook broccoli extra long, but they'll completely mow the entire top. The only recommendation is we're using some of these thicker, coarser vegetables. After 24 hours, take them out of your tank. Any food left over after 24 hours needs to be removed.

Yes.

All right, Robbie, let's go to the next question. So I see here that we have a lot of questions, that I'm going to get decorative shrimp and they're going to clean up my tank. That's always a question. I just want to point out that the cardinia neocardenia, as they do, provide some small benefit to your tank. Cleaning up some waste. They are not cleaner shrimp. If you want cleaner shrimp, the best way is to find in a mono shrimp. In my opinion, they've done studies to see what is the best creature, ounce for ounce, that removes algae and other waste material from your tank. And there's nothing more vivacious to cleaning than an amano shrimp.

Yes.

So as an example, we have a friend of ours, ty, that does a lot of tank services. He goes to a city that has a tank at the hospital. It's a very large tank and 220 gallons. How often do you guys show up to clean it?

We stop in he and I take turns and we're there every week to check on it and it's never an issue.

So before it was an issue, the idea they have this tank and it's a very beautiful clinic that they have. There three walls are pure glass, top to bottom. It's vaulted ceiling, so it's nothing but pure sunshine shining into the clinic. And it's very nice from a human perspective, but from a big aquarium perspective, it's just blasted with sunshine and green sheets of algae across the entire tank and it blooms up real bad. So what we do is we get a bag of 50 amano shrimp, dump it in there, and by the next week, all of the algae essentially is gone and had to just do a light spot check for some of the pieces of the glass.

Yeah, I mean, the biggest problem we have right now is it's in the children's section of the clinic. It's just nothing but not out on the glass. And that's the biggest issue. We have to go in there and clean the glass really well. And I usually like to put on a hazmat suit because all these little boogers are out here sniffing and wheezing and spitting on the tank. It's just gross. But yeah, the inside of the tank is just beautiful. But the biggest issue right now, like I said, is just going out there and getting keeping that glass clean in the children's part of the clinic.

So again, note that if you want something cleaning, mono shrimp is the best one. Don't do go shrimp. And as far as these ornate shrimp go, they do do some cleaning, but don't purchase them. If the idea is that they're going to be a cleanup crew, these are a centerpiece for a tank and treat them as such. We're looking for a little more information on just names. We don't have to go into in depth detail of some oddball shrimp, oddball that are not neocardenia or cardenia. One of them that I keep getting asked questions about is bamboo shrimp.

Yes.

What is your experience?

Bamboo is a very interesting type of shrimp. They actually live in more NEOC parameters. We keep them in NEOC parameters and they're fine and they can actually be tolerant. They're a little bit shrimps. They can tolerate in little different parameters of water. So they are very cool to look at because of their web like arms that keep grabbing the minerals and throughout the water. And they like a lot of high.

Water flow areas and they get really big. If I remember correctly, I've seen some four inches, is that correct?

Yes, they can get up to four.

Inches, so you need a high flow. And I've also heard that some of them have issues. If you have too many in the tank and there's not enough specks of matter that they're trying to catch from the air, they'll also have an issue of starving. So if you're going to add some, start with smaller amounts and work your way up. Move to more free floating food in the tank, especially if it's a community tank and you're having bamboo shrimp flake food is probably one of the best crushed flake food. That way the fish get a chance at it, and there may be a couple of remnant pieces for the shrimp to filter feed from. So a couple of their oddballs that we hear about is go shrimp. And go shrimp have very short lifespan. They breed easy, but I don't know, they're really, in my experience, super finicky as far as if something happens in the tank, something gets rustled, they'll die for no reason, just from pure stress. Otherwise, they're hardy shrimp, but there's zero color. They're glass colored, and they have no benefit to the tank. I think they're a boring shrimp, and most of the time they even advertise them from wholesalers as feeder shrimp. So if you want to start there, it's the cheapest way to see if your tanks are ready for shrimp. But they're by far the bottom line of shrimp, in my opinion. And the last ones would be the crayfish. Now there's the Mexican dwarf crayfish that stays relatively small. How big do those get, Jimmy?

I've seen about maybe three quarters, seven, eight of an inch to inch and a quarter maybe. And they do have the they call them Mexican orange crayfish, and they also have now the Mexican blue crayfish.

And they're small, they're dwarf. Yes, I've seen as big as two and a half inches, I think. Full grown, big female.

I've never seen anything that big.

They're relatively tame. The only thing that they have issues with, and this goes for any type of quote unquote crayfish is if you have the bigger crayfish or the dwarf crays, they have a tendency to nip plants. The dwarf crays, not so much. Only in the largest sizes do I see any damage to plants whatsoever. But the regular crayfish, or they call them lobsters. In the freshwater market, you'll see white lobsters, blue lobsters. I think they even have like a purple hue.

Now there's orange, snow white and bright orange, bright blue, bright red. And now I've seen just recently, they have kind of a pumpkin color with black spots on them, and those are pretty cool, too.

So any type of those sizable crayfish, number one, the lawnmow. If you have plants, you'll see them all floating at the top cut. They will slice anything you have in the tank. And if you have tank mates like, say, a fantail goldfish, they're delicious. They will reach up and anything they can grab, they'll try to snip, so they won't grab the fish. But they'll tear their fins in the.

Middle of the night and then they'll eat them.

If they can catch them, they'll eat them. But most of the time they're fast enough that they'll they'll move. So you'll just suddenly see shredded fins in your tank because they're always reaching up, trying to grab what they can.

It's like a marty grade.

So some people have made comments on these crayfish that you can take rubber bands, like you've seen Red lobster and just clamp their claws. Or I've seen horrible things where they break their claws off or glue them. Do not do any of those things. It's very horrendous to your creature.

Very traumatic.

I've seen people do that type of things and they'll just lose them for the sake of the torment of not being able to use their claws.

Any of that for feeding.

Don't do that to your crayfish. Just make sure that you're putting them with compatible tank mates.

You know, maybe if I put some rubber bands on my fingers, I'd lose a little bit of weight. I never even thought of that. I'm going to do that when I get home. Mittens, Jim. You get mittens and the use of a spork. godding it. Have you ever gone to Kentucky Fried Chicken? Try to use one of those stupid sporks, I tell you.

Am I missing any oddball, notable oddballs, Robbie?

There are some like they call it the pinocchio shrimp, where the nose is very the nostrum is very elongated and sometimes it's a little bit blue at the tip. Those are the oddball ones. There's also something called Purple Zebra, which or the bubbleties. There's a zebra bubblete. There's the Green bubbleties. They're kind of like the oddball out. But most people already tank bred them already. So these are pretty prominent.

Got you. I think the only thing to add to that is in a future episode that we're going to have with the dnr, we're going to be mentioning a detail about red swamp crayfish and against same treatment as the other crayfish we mentioned. But these have a crazy story of how they're going to survive in Minnesota climate. So look forward to that episode. The last thing I want to touch, at least for my list, is tank mates. So number one, my favorite tank mate for shrimp, if you're looking for a non shrimp tank mate, is the panda loach. And Robbie Chan now offers pandeloach on his website. The pandeloch was recently discovered in 2007, 2008, and didn't really come to the aquarium trade until 2011. And I was happy to get one of the first people to get it in Minnesota. And not a lot of has been known during that time. They for years miss specied, the creature because the small panel oach morphs as it becomes an adult. So if you see the pictures on Robbie chan's website, you'll see these beautiful white and black perfect bard patterns on these fish. And they're beautiful when they're young. When they get older, they simply morph and go to a yellow and brown pattern that are blotches. Still a very nice looking fish, but essentially morph into a completely separate fish you did not expect to have.

Yeah, you see it a lot like that in saltwater fish where the juvenile and the adults look completely different from each other. But it's kind of cool to watch that morph process as they age. When you got yours in, what do we get in for you? 40, 50 of them.

So when we got them in, I could only afford I think it was ten of them when we first got them in because they were wholesale $95 a piece.

They were expensive back then.

They were very expensive. They're not much overtime. They've gotten better, but they're still decently expensive. That's why I'm blown away. Robbie, you have them for $11 a piece, don't you?

I think I have it for 1199, yeah.

1199, that's a great price.

So I've been seeing right now about $30 apiece. So certainly, if you're interested, go to Blue Crown Aquatics website, check it out and use our promo code for free shipping. But to go over these fish, they're found in hillstreams in China, and again, people had to go essentially risk their life to get these things off of slippery rocks. They love a lot of current. You don't have to have a lot of current. I have slow current in my tank. But you do have to have, in my opinion, a densely planted tank because, again, they do love a plant base. They will graze, but they work very well on algae, wafers and flake food. In my past experiences, they really don't hit much on the bloodworms they'll pick at it. But I have to have a planted tank for them for best results. So just this last couple of years, they've finally been able to breed them in captivity, and we're starting to see the numbers, and that's why we're seeing prices go down. But it's a fantastic shrimp tank mate. These things only get two, two and a half inches and even a full adult size. They leave shrimp wholly alone. I've had baby shrimp in the tank with them. I have not seen them take them. Now assume that anything that can fit in their mouth, they'll eat. But I've never seen them eat baby shrimp. So one of the better tank mates. And what's your experience, Robbie, with that as a tank mate?

Actually, I put them into all of my shrimp tanks almost, because when we import them, we actually bring in quite a bit of them. And then so we kind of split them up into their own tanks. And one of. The things I found was they actually live really well in groups. Groups of three, groups of six and groups of nine. They really do well in more than two. The reason is because, I don't know, maybe they kind of dependent on you or searching go together. So it's really good that you have at least a trio together. So then they live really well.

So loaches are social by nature. I have 30, 35 in my own tank and I have a 25 gallon tank. And they absolutely go in batches. They'll try to school together where there is some current. They are recommended with plants keeping together. And I've had an issue that they must have a soft water. If you bring them into hard water, even with drip acclimation, they seem to have a lot of trouble. I have a very soft water. I bring them up to our friends tropical fish shop and they have the complete opposite hard water. They cannot seem to keep them in an easy way. So I've seen that over and over again. So check your PH and get a bunch. But what's some of the other recommendations you have for tank mates? Because that's the hardest thing. When I talk to people, oh, I want to put this fish with them well, they'll eat the shrimp. I want to put this fish with them. Well, guess what? Shrimps a snack.

Yeah, mostly. Another thing, I mean, I wouldn't keep any other thing other than pandelourches with my high end shrimps because you never know, right? But some of the things that I've heard people use is a lot of the nano shrimp. Nano fishes. I'm sorry, nano fishes, like chili respirators or galaxy.

Some of the nano fish you do have to still be careful of to give an example. So betas, I've had betas where they leave them alone. I've had Betas where they'll gobble them right up. Never risk it with high end shrimp. But some of the friendlier tank mates are like a scarlet battis. They're already timid, they're hard to get food naturally and they stay very, very small. So that's a great one.

What about snails?

Snails generally leave them alone. However, if you have something like an assassin snail and they're just so, however opportunistic to find a small dumb baby shrimp, they will try to try to get it. But having a couple of assassin snails in your tank isn't going to affect your colony.

What about like a ramshorn snail?

Completely should leave them alone.

What about endlers?

I have endlers in the tank with my shrimp right now, not by my choice. Some of the other more risky choices I have again, a very densely planted tank and I have rummy nose tetras. Now, rummy nose tetras have been known to school and they're not particularly aggressive. But if there's a shrimp, an opportunistic shrimp, they might try. I keep mine very well fed. They are fully grown and there's so much plant life and they school so well. They leave all the shrimp alone. But it's a risk. I've seen YouTube videos where they hit shrimp. They have never once hit my shrimp. Everybody can have a different scenario, but I think some of the nano fish to stay away from are daniels. daniels will hit anything that you put in the tank as far as a small baby shrimp or even mid size grade shrimp. Be careful with your tetris. If you have some of the more aggressive serpe tetras, black tetris, be very careful. neons will be fine. But there are other larger neons. glow lights have been known to hit a shrimp. And even sparkling gourmet. They're the smallest grammy variety that normally is in the fish trade.

They eat inverts.

Yeah, they're known to hunt shrimp. So if you want something fun, have a big colony, put a couple of sparkling gourmet and you'll find behavior you've never seen before. That croke. But don't put them with your fancy shrimp.

Yeah, it's probably ram cichlids. I would not put ram cigarettes in with anything.

If it has the word cichlid, don't put it with a shrimp.

That's right. Yeah. The only thing I have with my shrimp is I have some snails and the snails are breeding so fast. Robbie brought over some assassin snails and I've been using them and they are extremely lazy. And I wish they would eat snail eggs, actually, because I'm just full.

That's the problem.

I was going to say, when I do a water change, I actually will take a wet sponge and get the eggs off my tank all the way around and it looks just like a big jelly mass.

The only other big fish that I've had luck with with shrimp is saes siamese algae eaters.

True.

Siamese algae eaters.

Yes.

These things these things get huge and they leave my shrimp alone. They are watermind pushing four inches.

Yeah, I was going to say they're getting at least that big and they.

Completely leave shrimp alone. I was blown away. But those are the tank mates. Otherwise, it's really difficult to keep shrimp. And you'll see, even adding tank mates, it will prevent them from the breeding activity. So if you want to breed out your fish, keep them alone. If you want them in a community tank, know that they're going to slow down breeding.

Yeah. If you want to keep shrimp, I would just go out and get yourself, like, a 1520 gallon tank like we've talked about it. I would set it up with this shrimp. And I know my favorite thing is when I go downstairs, my wife will say, what are you doing? I said, I'm going to go down, feed the fish, you'll see, in half an hour. And I will sit and watch the tanks, especially my red fire shrimp, which has hundreds of babies in there. I just find it fascinating. And I do keep almond leaves in with all of my shrimp. And once you get a colony going, you can put any six to eight to ten inch almond leaf in there, and within about, I'd say, seven to ten days, there's nothing left with the skeleton of that leaf. And it provides natural bacteria and for them to feed off of. And they absolutely love it and is absolutely essential to put that in, as far as I think, anyway.

So we're getting towards the end of the podcast here. We've gone quite a ways in, so I don't want to keep it like you too much longer, Robbie. But one of the biggest questions we have is, what do you use for substrate? Now, there's special types of media you can get for shrimp. Explain that.

Okay, so the neo dinas, you could use sand, gravel, or any type of inert substrate. What I mean by inert, it doesn't raise or lower PH. PH neutral, yes. And the other ones, for caradinas, we need to use active substrate, which will buffer the substrate down to a lower, more acidic PH so that they will thrive.

So is there any recommendations? Do you have something on your website right now?

I am in the process of sourcing a really good soil, and I'm in the talks right now and working with a supplier, and we were thinking about doing rebranding and things like that, so it's in the process.

So the other day when I got my shrimp from you, I was very happy. A lot of people, when they buy fish, they won't send the hard products, I like to call it, with, like, the food and stuff. I was very happy to only have to pay one shipping cost.

You mean free shipping?

Yeah, free shipping, exactly. And anyway, I got my food and my shrimp all in one box. Are you able to do that all the time, or you can send the hard goods plus the shrimp.

Basically, if we can be able to fit it in, we will put it in, because, number one, they don't change the temperature in the container anyways. Number two is we don't have a lot of leak. Hopefully, knock on wood, we don't. But when we pack shrimps, we actually double bag. And as you can tell from our packing, we actually make it really packed together. So the packing is very important. And if we could fit, like, a food, which is kind of flat in or some cycling products, definitely we will be able to put that in.

And that is a huge savings in shipping because, like I said, a lot of the people that will not just for the fact that they're worried about that hard good might poke the bag. Your bags that you use are so thick, I could hardly see the shrimp in them when I got them. And like I said, I floated in my tank for maybe two, two and a half hours and did a drink acclimation on those and they did just great. And you've got a big piece of polyfoam or say polyfoam. What is it, rob's?

It's like a filter floss.

Yeah, a filter floss. Two, three huge pieces in there that were layered. And I sat sitter and had to open that up and try to get all the shrimp out and coax them all out. And they're sent with the filter floss type product on there just so they got something to hold on to and they're not in the bag spinning around like scooby doo.

And we will actually put in some purring in there, too, just to kind of remove any sins or any ammonia they were to produce any. So it safeguards them during the trip so then they don't hold onto each other and tear each other apart. One of the things about shipping is they will actually kill each other if they're hungry. And we always try to have them clear the poop out first before we pack them. So it gives them time to kind of clean themselves before we actually put them into the bag and bag them.

Yeah, if they're not pooping in the bag, then water quality stays great and you don't have any problems with ammonia.

Yes, that's it.

All right, so last question for you, buddy. You have used our podcast, or let's put it this way, we have abused the information that you've given us to leak information of the Blue Crown Aquatics information that's coming up. We were hinting at people that you're going to have betas on here for the first time. So let's go over some of the comings there's going to be poop juice soon, beneficial bacteria. You're working on getting sweet substrate, right? You already have pandelocas and betas. What else could possibly we want to hear for the first exclusive on the podcast. What else is coming up for Blue.

Crown aquatics well, we're thinking about getting into not only betas, but in the future, we will think about getting rare, hard to find fish. That's one of the things that we're trying to do. We're striving to get into that. The other thing is about plants. Some of the boost plants or some of the plants that normal people here in the Us. Can't get or they have a difficult time to get, we should be able to source that out. I'm in talks with another plant company that is in Taiwan that could be able to provide certain type of plants that are not readily available here.

Perfect. So when we bought those 50 blue boats, I was also able to confirm, convince you to send me some of your best subwaster tang. And I essentially just bought it so I could say the word to my friends, hey, have you looked at my subwaster tang?

He does. He said that.

And they fear at me like I'm going to pull down my pants.

We don't want to see that.

No, it's nothing in my pants. It's a plant. That's super sweet. I got to say that I'm super excited for plants. And start with subwastertang, man.

Yeah. So wester tang is one of the very popular plants out there that we eat. And they grow fast, too. They're really good water cleaners. They absorb a lot of the nutrient from the water, so that's really good.

And the other thing we talked about off the air before we came on is that you are working on getting being able to set up to Canada. You're working right now, and hopefully in the next maybe month or two, being able to ship over to Canada, do some international shipping. Is that true?

Yes. And we are in the process of talking to a distributor out there to be able to have them have access and help us distribute shrimps to the people in Canada. It's a long people have been asking me for it, but I just don't have the resources. But now I'm in the talks with them, and then they're reluctant. But if we can streamline that, we could be able to provide to Canada.

So before the podcast, we were able to chat first to prep everything. Mr. pickles joined in discord, because, again, this was all done on discord. So come join us. It's on the bottom of our website. According guyspodcast.com bottom, the website discord. And Mr. pickles is in Canada. He was like one of our first fans. He's been begging, please send to Canada.

Are we sure he's a fan or is he a stalker?

He's a stalker.

He's a stalker.

We got Robbie Chan to say that there's going to be a future promo code and just appease Mr. pickles for our Canadian friends. So as soon as that's done, you'll hear it here first.

He'll probably be my first person I sent ship things to and then test it out.

And the first thing I would do, I would send him a rock in a bag. Just send him a rock. Kind of like Halloween with snoopy.

You know what we're going to do? We're going to make a rock with googly eyes. And then we're going to use those pipe cleaners as hands.

There.

You're going to hold a tiny diggery do.

There you go. I love it. And we're going to double charge you.

All right, guys. Well, I appreciate your time, Robbie. It means a lot to us. And thanks for being an amazing sponsor. Again, promo code, aquarium guys, on the website for free shipping. Yes, he's here and hears it, so we know it's true. It's not just a mistake that we've been picking on him for.

Oh, we know it's true because I just got free shipping, right?

Free bright.

Right.

So give it a go. And again, this week you should be hearing this Wednesday, we're going to do an extra podcast just for the listener in Ireland. So stay tuned. Make sure that you're subscribed. And you got anything else for us, Robbie?

I think right now I'm just really welcoming people to ask any questions. For me, I'm reader or hobbyist reader turn into a business. So it's really fun road. And if anybody is interested in we're.

Lucky enough to have you on our discord.

Yeah. So I'm available.

We are lucky enough to have you on our discord. So if someone has questions, certainly message us. We had a bunch of people asking questions because I said, Robbie Chan is going to be on tonight. Hop on. Robbie is not afraid. And you can also message him on his Facebook page. He's extremely active, and if he doesn't.

Know the answer, he'll make it up. Wait, that's me.

I will try.

That's me. I make stuff up. That's right.

So, last bit, if there's something else that you'd like to request, email us, message us. This was based upon a request. And then we're lucky enough to have him as a sponsor. So if again, and we may not be the experts, but we're going to go find those experts for you. Let us know what you want.

If we have to take them, pick them up in a van, beat them over the head with a gunny sack.

We have to fake a chiropractor appointment. That's right. To get an interview, we'll do it.

We'll do it because we have never been convicted of a felony. Never convicted.

Hashtag schmelta life.

Schmelta will frame you for murder. We know that.

I got a feeling that's going to be your new catchphrase. And for John Moore.

That's my T shirt. That's what I'm having made. I don't want no aquarium guys T shirt. I'm having a schmelta. Airlines.

It's going to be a crop top.

And you know what's really sad is I'm flying Schmelta Airlines in February down to Miami. So if I disappear off the face of the earth, check. Schmelta Airlines.

If they give you a free drink, don't drink it.

No, right. No. They'll probably just fly me into a mountain.

They know you by name.

Yes.

All right. Thanks, guys. And we're going to kick out the podcast. Thanks, guys, for listening to this podcast.

Please visit us@aquariumguyspodcast.com and listen to us on spotify, iHeartRadio itunes, and anywhere you can listen to podcasts.

We're practically everywhere. We're on Google. I mean, just go to your favorite place, Pocket casts subscribe, to make sure it gets push notifications directly directly to your phone. Otherwise Jim will be crying into sleep.

Can I listen to it in my treehouse?

In your tree house? In your fish room. Even alone at work.

What about my man cave?

Especially your man cave.

Yeah.

Only if adam's there no with feeder guppy.

No, they're endless.

You magic loving, Frank sucking, mother frank.

Well, I guess we'll see you next time. Later.