what's up fish tank people dustinsfishtanks bringing it to you on a
Sunday baby how's everybody doing I hope you're doing well anybody remember the
good old days of these cameras in today's video we're gonna talk about a
fish it's an invasive species caused by the aquarium hobby so in last Sunday's
video I talked about the red Arowana and the Asian Arowana and I love your
feedbacks on that one today's video we're gonna be talking about one of the
biggest established threats to our ecosystem here in the United States that
was brought in from the aquarium hobby I'm gonna talk about one fish and I'm
gonna talk about one plant both that I have first-hand knowledge with let me
start with the combination of both fish and plants and I said this at the end of
last week's video but a lot of you don't watch the end of the video so I'm gonna
say it right now this was a comment on our Instagram page when I was talking
about the Asian Arowana being illegal in the United States and someone lifted
their head up from a bong and actually said this bro in greenhouse 2.0 if you
get this arowana you could have an era wanna grow in
marijuana god help whatever California Colorado Washington State Massachusetts
and now Canada has created okay so with the fish plant combo aside let me talk
about an invasive species that is going on in my pond another pond video wait I
got a nice fish at the end of this video I promise but this is real-deal note I'm
not gonna hide from the fact that I actually did introduce the plan I'm
about to talk about into my in-laws pond out in no man's land Kentucky note that
is a closed body of water but after what I'm seeing in this pond right here I am
feeling a little bit guilty about it what I'm dealing with here today is
water lettuce now this plant is currently working for me on three
different fronts so it's actually doing me some good before I talk about how
invasive it is front one it's providing a wonderful amount of shade for my baby
koi this pond was intentionally placed in full
Chloe don't like it too hot this helps that front too with the water lettuce
this plant is filtering the water like crazy again anytime you can take a plant
up out of the water you are going to get way faster nitrogen absorption out of
that plant why because the plant has more readily available as much as it can
handle co2 and more sunlight because it's up out of the water for every inch
you go down on the water you exponentially lose light and reason
number three as predators now as many of you know I've had problems with both
herons raccoons in the past year but now we
have a new pest rolling around these days the hawk look I love birds I love
nature but these Hawks are no joke it's not just one hawk - it's four Hawks and
they actually live over in my neighbor's yard I was walking over to get my girls
through the day and one of them greeted me was about this tall and it was low in
a tree and it's signal to the other hawk nearby yo here comes bro get out of the
way and then two of them flew off okay they're wicked cool in my opinion
until they decide to savagely come in and take out some of my koi okay
so I've kept the water lettuce for a reason however with these three fronts
working for me the other day I did finally decide to hop in here and pull
out some of these suckers why well for starters I wanted to see my fish for the
first time and I wanted to get my lilies grown there's more to life than water
lettuce my guess was that I would probably pull out about fifty maybe a
hundred plants let me remind you all I started with five five water lettuce in
this pond you can see what it is done to my pond in a short amount of time
imagine what it would do to a waterway in your area this plant could easily
choke out all the surface plants around like it did my lilies or any of the blow
water aquatic plants that are helping the native species I would love to get
your comments on this maybe you've seen a plant that's choked out a waterway
maybe you live in California where I believe the water lettuce is a problem
maybe there's some other plant that's growing rapidly nothing you can do talk
about kudzu down in Tennessee it's a big problem so drop me a comment on a plant
that you've seen grow wild and evasive now we've talked about the plants I want
more about a fish that is clearly the result of humans bringing it in with the
aquarium hobby this is a problem this is your problem this is our problem we have
to work on this problem together here's the rub
but now I want to talk about snake heads now look I talked about snake heads in
another invasive fish video but I had a chance to talk with my man Dave down at
Segrest farms about to see about the snake head so I feel it's worth talking
about again just to recap on Dave dave is actually the head of importing at
Segrest farms if you're not familiar with who Siegrist is where have you been
they bring in a million fish a week okay and Dave's job oh by the way he quit a
good job in sales to go and be the head of importing to bring in cool species
and expand the hobby so this is a fish of super interest to him I asked him
when we were talking about the red arowana being illegal in the United
States Dave what other species do you have or a part of this problem that are
not being allowed to be brought into the US and if you want to see some of what
Dave brings in check out the links around here and click the links around
here to check out his massive 22 box unboxing from the Czech Republic which
includes long fin neon some really insane apisto and all kinds of fun stuff
okay bottom line dave is the man he's a great person to talk to about this all
right now during my conversation with Dave about the red Arowana I asked him
what other species they have sort of issues with when it comes to bringing
them into the United States a lot of them are illegal the second species that
he brought up was the snakehead or the China species okay now look folks I'm
gonna need your help in the comments because I do not keep snake heads and
I'm not familiar with a lot of the dwarf varieties now here's the rub the United
States Fish and Wildlife has put a blanket ban on the entire genus of China
this unfortunately includes a lot of dwarf snakehead species that are more
than suitable for the aquarium both with their small size some of them only
getting about 25 centimetres and they're calmer demeanor those species are as
follows the China Blair I presumably named after my man heiko who I'm boys
with a legendary aquarium fish collector the
China Quechua no idea if I'm pronouncing that right the China orientalis and the
China and Rio please help me if I'm pronouncing those wrong but these are
smaller snakehead species not allowed in the US but that stays small and could be
good in your aquarium but unfortunately they're banned in the United States but
why the blanket ban straight up folks this was caused by people releasing them
into an upon from an aquarium okay the blanket ban on all snake heads coming
into the US is because there's a 60 mile radius in the Potomac that the northern
snakehead is firmly established it's in there it's growing there it's breeding
there it's living there and probably it ain't going away I'm gonna read this
directly off of the Maryland Fish and Wildlife site state kids are freshwater
fish but few may tolerate low salinity waters snake heads can resemble the
native bow fin and have well toothed jaws platelets in breathe atmospheric
air through the use of a simple labyrinth organ this makes them extra
Hardy okay the ability to breathe air allows Snickers to survive and habitats
and low dissolve oxygen they can also survive out of the water for several
days if their skin remains moist the northern snakehead China Argus is native
to the Yangtze River in the China basin it reaches over 33 inches in length
folks suspicion about that long you can tolerate a wide range of temperatures
from 32 degrees up to 85 this fish fish prefers stagnant shallow pond swamps and
slow-moving streams and lives in mud substrate and aquatic vegetation female
snake heads averaged around 40,000 eggs but can release up to a hundred thousand
eggs and can spawn multiple times a year you can see that this is a problem newly
hatched larva are protected by both by one or both parents until they reach the
juvenile stage sexual maturity is reached within two years when the total
body length of this fish is around twelve inches here is the environmental
concern the northern snakehead is described as a ferocious predator fish
and freshwater crustaceans a ten it's native range from 24 to 35 degrees
north and temperature tolerance between 32 and 85 indicates that if introduced
the northern snakehead population could become established throughout the United
States and possibly adjoining Canadian provinces because of their feeding style
they could out-compete popular sport fish such as the largemouth bass
biologists are also concerned they could introduce parasite diseases that can
harm other native species it goes on to talk about the 2002 reproduction of
northern snakeheads in a small lake in croft maryland they were subsequently
extinct from that they went in there and killed them all while they were able to
kill all the snakeheads in that small pond they unfortunately since 2004 have
been established in the Potomac River there's over 60 miles of river in the
Potomac US Fish and Wildlife Services continue to conduct research to assess
the impact in ecosystem and efforts of the snakehead research conducted in the
Potomac River includes electronic fishing it goes on and on and talk about
how big of a problem this fish is and what they're doing about it in the
Potomac River but the bottom line is this this was a fish brought in by the
aquarium hobby and then has actually taken over a 60 mile radius of the
Potomac and could spread further you can also see the map here of where snake
heads have been found alright so I know what you might be saying yourself you're
saying why that's fine Dustin why do they have such a blanket ban on the
entire genus when it's only one species and it's wanted running rampant in the
Potomac River here's the rub and here's the part that I think people do not
understand when it comes to bringing both fish and plants into the United
States okay there is a ridiculous amount of species I personally have to deal
with the plant Bible to bring in certain species and I've had to pay to have
plants destroyed that are not allowed in the United States okay so put yourself
in the position of the United States Fish and Wildlife they've got on a
Monday they've got 40 boxes coming in you're an employee someone has some sort
of a China species you got to look this species up then you've got to go to some
Bible you get it you really it's all it's China whatever you look it up
you've got some tiny little picture in here now you've got some bag that's full
of fish poop it's cloudy and you've got some fish that looks like a snake get in
there and you have to determine whether this fish is allowed into the country
because it's x y&z fish or is this the northern snakehead
that's not allowed it's an extremely hard job that I think people overlook
not to mention this person is on a time crunch because they've got 40 other
boxes behind them so they're looking in this cloudy little bag trying to figure
out is this the dwarf species is this a northern species I've seen him do it
with plants I've seen him do it with fish it's not a fun thing and in fact I
am with the USDA's entire genus ban on all China species because of the fact
it's simply too hard to decipher between the two you don't know when you're
looking at a bag whether you got one that's gonna get to 33 inches long or
one that's gonna stay 25 centimeters human air happens it's already happened
that it happens all the time quite frankly I've been out to California and
seeing re pima's available for sale in the pet store which I believe is a
strike he's one illegal fish to bring in to the United States in conclusion I
like the blanket banning of all China and snakehead species in to the United
States are we missing out in a couple of cool small dwarf snakehead species
probably but overall for the benefit of the entire ecosystem around where the
larger ones can actually survive and live out of water for a while I think
it's a good move but maybe I've got this all wrong maybe there's some sort of
workaround that you thought of maybe there's some way they could bring the
dwarfs in but not the large ones in and get rid of the blanket maybe you've
caught a snakehead in the Maryland or Potomac River in conclusion if you catch
a snakehead in the Potomac River do me and the ecosystem I favor and kill it
everybody hit the like button subscribe button and share button and drop me a
comment on what you think about the blanket ban on snake heads or this mass
of water lettuce tank on everybody later can I have a second ther mister cicada
can I get this video done