so today
I'm going to tell you guys the story about the pearl stingray that you guys seen in the black, diamond
stingray unboxing video you see this story actually starts about two months ago when I got a phone call from Jeff at
one fish two fish
He told me he had a pearl stingray in stock and he would sell it both to me really cheap
And I asked him why he told me that it was a special order for a customer that simply never came in to get it
now the thing with stingrays is they have a lot of special needs he has to dedicate a
Relatively big tank to this one fish has to give it a specific diet and do a tremendous amount of water changes all for this
One fish that's probably never going to sell locally my answer. No currently. I'm [in] the market for black Diamond Stingrays and in fact
I'm selecting them out now, but even if I did want it
Micro [oak] tank, isn't even built yet
And that was kind of last I heard of it until the day before the black diamonds arrived
I decided I'd run up to his store
Which is about an hour away?
and
I wanted to do a filming of a tour of the store a basically an update video whoo guys will remember about a year ago
We did one at that store did a full tour [I] wanted to go back because so much has changed
There's so much to update you guys on while there. I seen the [pearl] stingray and well
this happened
would be our
Our kind of store [mask] off
We've got [a] coral stingray
Yeah
seen him earlier I
Need them well, and I you want to make for with what I like. I like a suction cup yes, you just got it
Let's get it under the lip to the limb
or hopefully keep the tailor, but this is quite a deep net so
That's hard to say really
Worst thing is that he can get into tail caught [hot] you go there you [go] [through] I
Had to now instead of bagging the [ray] up
I'm only about an hour away
So we filled up a small box and placed him in it making it easier to get him in and out of it
However when I got home in order to acclimate him to this aquarium temperature
I had to pour in a cup of water every few minutes until I brought the temperature in the [box] up to the temperature of
The aquarium then [scoop] [them] [out] and toss them in less than 24 [hours] later the black diamonds arrived
Now a lot of you won't notice this or even say anything, but I'm going to call myself out and say right I
Should not have added fish from two different sources to the same tank at first without
Quarantine enough you have to quarantine all new arrivals regardless of where you get them however
there's a few things in this situation that are going to side with me first of all the pearl came from an
Aquarium that was quarantined off to itself it was in a closed system meaning it had his own
Filtration and heating got its own water changes
And he was on a specific diet and being in the store for was two months would have been long enough to show any signs
Of any issues that he might have the black diamonds on the other hand came from a private breeder
basically a hobbyist that had a pair that gave [birth] to a bunch of pups again no worry of
Contamination or anything going on there, but still when I get them. I'm quarantine them no matter what?
So even though I have a very little chance of something going wrong
They will be spending at least two months in this tank [well]
I'm able to grow them out and quarantine them in properly, but why would I get a pearl?
And I finally have black diamonds
Well that's where this story becomes interesting for me you see when if you've never dealt with stingrays or if you have no real
Experience with them when you see one for the first time you're pretty amazed and interested in them
And if the fish is eating and healthy and active you expect that that's what the ray is supposed to look like
however, if you have some experience [with] Rays
And you've been around them you'll be able to tell the and when I first seen this guy the first thing
I saw was he's become emaciated meaning that he's become dangerously thin the first thing
I noticed was his tail was bent his hip bones were showing his back was Sunken
And his forehead was sunken in these are all classic signs of an emaciated breast
The next thing after that is becoming lethargic meaning that it refuses food the next thing after that
Well, it dies I
Explained the [suggesting] he agreed. [he] said that the rea is active and eating
There's no reason for us to think there's anything wrong with it until I pointed out these signs and like I said if you're [not]
experienced with [raise] or if you
Haven't been around them a lot. You're not going to be able to spot these things out
So this is the stores fault they brought in the fish on [customer's] [request] customer never showed up
Store is stuck with it. Jeff calls me
I'm not willing to take it and there
sits there with it for a month or two [or] however long it was in the store for
They said it they get that water changes
But slowly over time it was dropping weight however when it comes to these pups they drop weight really quickly
And after discussing this with Jeff we both kind of agreed that I've got to take this guy
He's never going to sell here and or have the opportunity to be provided for
properly
So we talked them in the box go to the till and I'm ready to pay the [pearl] had a price tag of
[$800] and to put this in perspective
Pearl Stingrays typically go from 800 to 1200 dollars each and that's pretty conservative
But when we get up to the till Jeff tells me the total is zero
[he] tells you that he's willing to take the loss on the fish just to see it
Go to a proper home and to be honest
I was a little bit taken [back] by that obviously for a fish store to take a loss
It's a big loss because they're not getting rich over there
But it just kind of reminded me that there's still good local fish store owners out there
And it made me proud that this is mine to know the people willing [to] put the health of the animal above his bottom line
Meant a lot, so of course. I [took] him home and like I said he was pretty amass [cated] however
I did get him eating and with Daily water changes and plenty of food
This guy's going to bounce back to being nice and fat in no time
But like I once said I'm never going [to] rescue another fish
But as a [rhea] keeper when you see a beautiful ray like this in person, and you know it needs your help
There's not a whole lot. Less you can do but
Helped it. Obviously. It doesn't hurt [that] it's a beautiful pearl stingray and with time pearls get better and better, okay
So before we go any further. I'm just going to give you guys a quick update on this guy
It's been 27 days since I first picked him up and a lot of change with him
There's a couple of things I didn't mention about him though first and foremost
He did have some heater burn on his nose or at the front of his disc there was an exposed heater in that aquarium
And one of the things you can't have our exposed heaters in a stingray aquarium
You got to protect them or put them inline or in your sump the second thing was you had a chunk of his [disk] missing
the disk has regenerated and the
Heater burns has healed most importantly though. He's put on a [tremendous] amount of weight his hip bones are no longer showing
you've got a nice fat belly [his]
Head is no longer dented and of course his back is no longer kind of concave and it's only been four [weeks]
So he's made leaps and bounds towards recovery now
It's going to be really difficult for me to really show any appreciation
To Japan and you know really putting the fish first and allowing me to take it even though
I was willing to pay for it so in order for me [to] thank him
I'd also like to ask you guys to join me in doing so and what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave a
Link in the description below to his Facebook fan page for his store. I'd love it
If you guys would go there shown support hit the like button
But also leave a comment on the page thanking him, and then within a week, I'm going [to] randomly pick one of you
And I'm going to give one [of] you a signed copy of my book [shipped] anywhere in the world
I don't care where it is now. This isn't a contest
I simply want to give you guys an incentive to joining me and thanking Jeff that one fish two fish
for being such a stand-up [guy] and
Setting a really good example for other
Local fish stores to follow so I like the story behind this guy we rescued him you guys are going to be able to see
Him from going and Matt [ceated] and skinny [-] nice and fat and growing up into a nice healthy
Adult and I'm really excited to bring you guys along for that ride
So if you're not subscribed to this channel yet, and that's something you'd like to come [along] for make sure you do
Anyways, hope that you guys enjoyed today's video. I'd also like to thank you for watching join me next week
I'll [have] a new video for you