So today's video is about Frank!
Kidding it's not. We're gonna be talking about the Angelfish tank as well as the Discus tank. A few little updates between the two. So,
I figured let's just do them together because this is how they've always meant to be. Discus VS Angelfish.
What!?!?
So a few things look like it might have changed with the Discus aquarium. The color of the tank itself is different. There's a
little few little blue dots swimming around.
But before we go, I just kind of want to mention that
today is
Thursday. It's about three o'clock in the afternoon right now. I've been really busy. Tonight at 12 o'clock midnight, I hop on the plane
to go to London, United Kingdom or London, England
for the King of DIY meetup. If you're not aware of that link is in the description below.
Also I kind of want to mention that my daughter Haley is getting back into
aquariums. This time she's going with something a little special, something that she's been wanting for a while, so perhaps in next
video that's what we'll set up and get started on but I'm not sure.
So there's a few things different with the Discus aquarium. One;
There's a lot of bright lights shining on the tank right now, so the discus aren't going
to you know be out as much. They need to put on some more size and
get more comfortable with the aquarium before they feel like swimming out and about as much as you might expect.
However, things are starting to look a little bit more natural for a couple of reasons and I've did this with both
Aquariums. I've left the lights on, for extended periods of time, trying to age the tank and get it to look a little bit older
with algae. One of the things that bothers me when looking into an aquarium, is the reflections on the side panels. However, if you allow
algae to grow on that, it looks entirely natural. It's the cheapest
do-it-yourself background that you can have,
plus it's beneficial. It's going to remove nitrates, add oxygen to the aquarium and
even some of the smaller fish will nibble at it and you know eat it, especially fry and whatnot. Although I don't plan on doing
any breeding. I let the
algae grow on the wood and the background, you guys will remember these are Aquadecor backgrounds, as well as
the substrate. Now it does look a little bit bad right now but this
is gonna be beneficial to me, especially when traveling and I'm not able to do a water change, at least the algae is going
to be able to pick up you know some of the slack.
The fish I added, I couldn't help it. I wanted to add in some Cardinal Tetras. I used to have about
100 or 150 with Discus a long time ago, like twelve years ago, and
they are a classic addition to a Discus tank. But you know, under the right conditions
these guys can look absolutely amazing and in a dark tank where they feel comfortable, they're going to just glow
blue and it's absolutely stunning. Now these guys are only tiny, they have a ways to go before they get a little bit bigger.
But there's only about
30 or 40 in there, I forget how many I've gotten.
But they serve a couple purposes. They add a little splash of color, a little bit more action in the tank and also act as
a dither fish. Meaning that these guys are difficult to scatter around. They're not really a
fish that's going to hide or anything like that... so they make the Discus
believe that everything's okay in the aquarium. All the little fish are fine, nobody's scattering around, so they'll come out more often. And with smaller
Discus in a in a room that's
brightly lit like this, with me filming constantly, it's difficult to get the Discus always out, until they are close to
adulthood, where they're going to be displayed constantly.
I've also
floated a few
Anubias in the tank. I don't know what I'm doing with them. They came out of the 2000 gallon aquarium and I thought I'll
just throw them in here for now. It adds a little bit of cover. It doesn't look that good but
you now I don't mind them in there for now. It's not permanent, I'll figure out a way
place to put them. I might put them in the Rainbow fish tank, which wouldn't look that great but
you know, maybe I'll end up putting them... I
don't know... where you guys think I should put them!?!
As for feeding this tank, these guys are really simple. The Cardinals actually will just eat a flake food. They're such a tiny fish that
I don't mind feeding flake food for them,
which is just an all-purpose flake. Whereas the Discus, I'm going to be preparing their food and making it myself.
However, I haven't had time over the past several weeks, just due to travel. So these guys have actually been getting frozen brine shrimp
and other different
types of frozen foods.
Some of them having spirulina in it and whatnot. Just trying to keep it varied and not getting them addicted to a certain type of food and
absolutely staying away from bloodworms. I know a lot of Discus keepers that are new to Discus, will go to
bloodworms. It's entirely too difficult to get them off of it. Bloodworms do not have that much nutritional value to begin with
plus it's difficult for the fish to actually digest
the skin on the bloodworm. So a lot of the times they'll get constipated so
It's a lot of times, it's just best to stay away from them. The only tiny worm I will feed Discus is
California Black Worms. They're a tiny little squiggly worm.
Definitely beneficial, hugely nutritious and entirely safe for the Discus plus they're alive, so it's very difficult for them to refuse.
Whenever I'm conditioning Discus to breed them, that's typically my go-to food, to get them
to into spawning condition. However, it's not needed. The do-it-yourself
food I find works entirely better and once I make a few pounds of it, I'll probably make 10-15 pounds of it,
probably make a video on it although I've got three or four different videos on do-it-yourself foods,
this entire tank will be on that food and potentially others like the Angelfish which we should talk about now.
So the Angelfish tank is definitely one of my favorite aquariums in the aquarium gallery. I think the Discus will definitely
overtake that favouritism in this racking system. Once the Discus grow you know five six
inches you know approaching adult size and put on that deep red coloration that i'm looking forward to but for now out of the two,
it's these guys. I'd love to know which one's your favorite between the two?
But when growing the algae out in a tank like this, it's extremely painful to watch and do because it's like your tank it just
looks horrible and you know arguably it does look bad like this. However, I keep the front panel clean and
I don't touch the sides. I don't touch the background and I haven't had to vacuum the substrate even though there is a lot of
debris there, that's actually debris from the wood. So it kind of looks good.
As opposed to the Discus tank where I actually let algae grow in the substrate it looks it gives it a different look.
It changes the substrate around from the other ones and makes it look more unique.
With that said, the contrast that these guys have, these Platinum Angels in such a dark tank, is
absolutely mesmerizing. Especially in person, the camera of course never picks up
what that
everything truly looks like. And me being colorblind, I can't really do any color
correction or I'll end up looking blue and I won't know it till it's too late, so I just put everything in auto and we
just film.
These guys eat a variety of foods,
mostly flakes as well as some very tiny growth pellets.
The plants of course are growing but they are covered in a little bit of algae again i don't care now that I
have a nice coating of algae everywhere. I can cut the lights
cycle back down and get into something normal. The algae will maintain but it was not gonna continue to get out of control.
But again just getting to that point is
can be difficult just because your tanks will look horrible but once you get an even coating on everything I.. I don't care, I think
it looks great!
One of the things I'm starting
tTo notice with these Platinum Angels you guys know they are white, is that some of them have some blue iridescent to them.
Some of... all of their scales in fact are
extremely
iridescent. They're very shiny.
Absolutely amazing! When anybody comes to the gallery, this is the tank they look at the most. Of course the Rays are always exciting and
and playing around with the Rainbow fish and the 375 is
also a lot of fun, but this is the tank most people think are the prettiest.
We still have the same number of Angels.
We haven't lost any fish.
This tank gets a water change once a week. We do 50% water change once a week on this entire system.
But ultimately, I don't think I'll be adding any more mid water fish. I think I might add some Corydoras
to the bottom. I will be getting into fancy plecos. So many people are saying;Joey, why don't you get some fancy plecos? I am!!
Two problems. One; I can't buy every single fish that I want for every single tank all at once. Two;
Availability! You..
everything I want is not always available right when we need it. So you know
patience is gonna be key here and I could promise you that almost every one of these tanks
will get a pleco of some sort and I do want them to be some of the fancier plecos. I won't be adding you know
the common ones, they get too big.
But some of the smaller species, you know three to four or five inches are definitely going
to be suitable for these tanks and
we'll see what happens. I'd love to get your suggestion on what should go in each in here.
I'm thinking some Zebra plecos. Again let me know what you guys think. I need to know two things. One:
What's your favorite setup out of these two? Two: What should we add for plecos? And finally I guess, Three:
What's your thought on all this algae? Of course it doesn't look good
to some but
again, I've got my reasons for growing it
So I wish I wasn't so pressed for time these past few weeks but it is what it is and at the end of the
day, outside of the videos .
However, what I have been trying to do is get out more,
see you guys more put on more events and this trip to the UK is entirely important to me, just to connect to
Hobbyists on the other side of the pond that have supported me for so long. With that said, there's a few more events that are going
to be happening in north america very shortly and I will keep you guys posted on those.
For the most part I'll be posting them on facebook through my events and you guys can check them out there. I'll leave links in
the description to both facebook and instagram
while I'm in the UK. For those that don't come I will probably take pictures and do videos and go live at some point
as well but I'll also be filming and I'll bring you guys those videos in the near future.
Anyway, so that's just a short update of what I've got going on. Again tremendously busy day ahead of me today but
it's always nice for me to come out here and
enjoy the tanks. Remember why it is what I do what I do and even if I can only bring you guys a short update
for the day, it's certainly worth doing so
but I got, to get running. So thanks for watching. If you're not subscribed to this channel yet
and you like aquariums, then you might want to consider subscribing so you don't miss any of these videos!