so before i talk to you guys about the puffer fish as well as my oscars and what's been going
on with them this is absolutely fascinating i'm going to give you a quick update on what's going
on in the new gallery first and foremost i got all of the frames done for the 180 gallon stands
mind you i still have to wrap them we still got to put plywood down on top and i still have to
put styrofoam when i say wrap that means to cover it in wood and paint it and whatnot i also got the
375 gallon stand done and you'll notice that it comes out from this wall but once this is
wrapped and the tanks on top fit that wall will become invisible so some people were concerned
that this jets out more but we're not even going to be able to see it once the tank's on top of it
you'll also notice that there's some plants growing on the wall
i wanted to try this now i said i would do a rock wall along this and i thought well
i do want to do a rock wall but wouldn't it look cool if all of this were this entire wall here
were plants because i am growing pothos on top of my tanks right now and i always have for years
and i thought maybe the plants and vines can grow up the side of that and all over the tanks and
they can help remove the nutrients from the water et cetera i think that would look pretty good and
then maybe we'll build a rock wall here i'm not sure what we're going to do again i'm just testing
things and taking my time because i really want to do this just once i don't want to have to do
it several times over keep changing my mind et cetera et cetera so a lot of the times i'm just
running look how awesome that looks though and if i were to cover the whole thing and that will give
it a more planty look and then when you walk into here you're going to be walking into the reptile
room which will have a lot of plants and stuff as well i think it's just going to look absolutely
phenomenal anyways we'll come back after i show you what's going on with the puffer as well as
the oscars you know one of my favorite parts about the entire aquarium hobby is like how many things
are not supposed to work but they just do you know like for example uh stingrays can't really be kept
with much else because of uh they'll eat them or attack them especially like smaller or sensitive
fish like discus but i've done that a number of times and many people do it now or you know
something a little more relatable like um i hear people say all the time i do a ten percent water
change once a week or i do a ten percent water change once a month or i don't do a water change
until every three months and it works for me that you see their tank and you're like damn that
is working for you unfortunately to find out what's working though is like you got to take
risks um and test things and try things because a lot of the times if something doesn't work for
like one person or two people or something like that it spreads like wildfire on the internet
and then nobody's gonna want to risk it or take that chance or opportunity even piranha a lot of
people will say you know piranha can't have tank mates can't keep piranha with anything
you know it's commonly seen that these guys swim around with tons of tetras and to be completely
honest when these guys move to the gallery they're definitely getting a large school of
tetras put in them why they don't view them as a food source if the prada is so big and the fishes
and the other fish are so small or the fish isn't injured or dying or dead then the piranha wants
nothing to do with it that's that homemade food i made i just froze it and stuck it to the glass
if i'm walking around the tanks or doing anything out here i just turned lights
on to fill but so they were all a little bit hiding but they're starting to taste
the food in the water and they're gonna go at it i can't wait for the gallery and uh to surprise
people with a tank full of piranhas and to break the misconception that these guys are
you know stone blood killers and can't be kept with anything and don't go near them and meanwhile
they'll have a ton of tetra swimming around with them we'll do live feedings etc and i mean like
they're there while they eat i don't mean feeding them live foods i don't think it's necessary
because look they're getting everything they need out of something i made anyways what i'm getting
at is this and i'm gonna get you guys to comment in the comment section below what's not supposed
to work but is working for you for example when it comes to the fajaka puffer fish we know that
this is an ambush predator we know it spends most of its time in a sedentary position laying on the
substrate it tends to reserve energy and waits to attack a prey that's typically what they would do
in the wild but in the home aquarium they can replicate that and we think that
they can't get along with anything why well i've read it a few times and some people
have said you know fajaka puffers can't be kept with anything so don't do it okay so as for the
oscar aquarium you guys will remember that i built them that corner aquarium i wanted to build that
one for a while but back in my in the back of my mind i always wanted to expand the gallery i
always wanted to make it public uh but i couldn't find the perfect place so i decided you know what
i'm going to keep moving forward i can't just not do anything because you know i want to do
something that's you know chase my dreams and whatnot and i just can't find a location so
i built that corner tank i launched my podcast we had everything set up and then guess what i found
so i knew i was going to move everything here but my cats won't leave that tank alone i don't want
to have a bunch of hundreds of gallons of tanks at home that i have to take care of as well when
i'm going to be spending the majority of my time here it seems as though i'm only going to go home
to sleep but as i started tearing that down that tank it reminded me of what i used to have to do
i wasn't able to keep every aquarium that i ever built because my house is only so big
so i uh previously on my channel for those that haven't been around for a while i used to do a
big project once a year and at the end of the year or at six months i tear it down so i could
do another one because i need room for another tank and i did that over and over and over again
and throughout the year we do smaller projects and whatnot but if you do this
in your house for 10 years eventually you're going to cause a lot of damages to your house
and i really want to stop doing that and and building tanks inside my house and stuff
everything's going to come to this gallery i'd move the oscars to one of the 120s
out here in the gallery just temporarily so we can get everything moved start transitioning and that
sort of thing and as i move a tank all the fish in that tank have to be consolidated into another
one temporarily until that tank is moved then we can take those fish set it up etcetera etcetera
odds are these tanks and almost every tank out here is most likely going to stay running for
pro and for quite a while it's we're not moving fish over that fast i'm not gonna be stressing
them out like that but the fish that isn't supposed to have any tank mates is the fahaka
puffer but i gotta say tyrese has never been this active typically speaking he likes to just lay
on the ground back behind that rock and he minds his business but as soon as i added in the oscars
he's out all the time swimming around now i'm going to continue to test this but if anybody
gets hurt we'll have to make some adjustments tyrese would have to go into another aquarium
and that sort of thing you'll notice that the oscars are in better shape
like a lot better shape than they were because previously they're fighting
and you know establishing dominance and that's you know what cichlids do at times
and they can't have tattered fins they can get a little scratched up and get a little beat up
and whatnot but these guys are right now in the best shape of their lives kevin's doing absolutely
fantastic in his own tank though he doesn't want any friends he doesn't want any tank mates
he's told me several times that i'm enough friend for him i'm all he wants he is excited though to
get a little bit more attention and have some visitors and you know maybe somebody will drop
in a clam here and there for him who knows one thing i can say is that this tank is pretty tall
to be like feeding i have to get up on a stand so i don't spend a lot of time petting him or hand
feeding or anything like that but he's a prime candidate for it except if i put my finger in
he might go for it he might think it's food yeah so i got to be pretty darn careful not to mess
around too much i am able to kind of edit that out i am not able to do that i touched him earlier
this is gonna take some time to get him to trust my hands one of the things that i do
when i try to get a fish to trust me is i'll put my hand in and wiggle it to let them know like
hey bro i'm not food please do not bite me and he's kind of respecting that now but if you're
just putting your finger in man that could be a pellet that could be anything to him so yeah
this this tank right here even for the time being these guys are such babies look at the wall look
at them all doing it all at the same time they think they're like a bunch of tiny little fish
swimming in succession this is the tightest knit group of oscar
swimming i've ever seen this is incredible yeah they're just so much different with
tyrese over there watching them like yeah boy do as i say
yeah this is just a fun and uh you know really incredible tag to watch you know
if it doesn't work out me and odds are if these guys continue to kind of act out of character
uh i most likely will do something else with tyreese and give him his own tank or something
like that but um for the time being i just kind of want to point out the fact that like this
is working and it's doing really well uh the only differences i'm noticing in the fish is
tyrese is far more active than he's ever been in his life are you guys doing laps the oscars
are uh sticking together and far more docile than uh they've ever been
which is really interesting but other than that i mean if i were to show a person this aquarium
that had never had fish in their lives i'd be like well these are some oscar fish and that's
a puffer fish and they wouldn't think nothing of it but if i show you guys you're like uh oh
this isn't supposed to work that pahaka is going to rip these guys apart or the oscars are going
to go after them you know vice or vice versa you know something could potentially go wrong here
but it's not everybody else is also doing absolutely fantastic besides the salt water
tank here's something that's happening right now the anemones are splitting and multiplying
uh faster than i'd like them to these guys are getting their own tank as well oh these guys are
what are you guys doing over there the anemones go wherever they want if they don't have optimal flow
or any or lighting or whatever they will leave the rock they're on and go where it's better
i don't mind them moving i'm trying to get them all off the centralized rock so um that wave maker
was turned down they're not getting as much flow as they want so they are moving off the rock onto
other rocks which is perfect i'll wait till a few more off this and then i'll be satisfied i just
don't want them all clumped on the same rock because in the new tank i want the whole tank
to kind of be filled with anemones and corals and i mean the lights just came on so you're
only going to be able to see some things that are you know kind of opening up right now but
yeah i think kids will love this tank even like normal people that never get to see something
like this in person we take it for granted a lot of the things we see in the aquarium hobby
we see it we've seen it before we're like desensitized to it but remember the time
you got into the hobby where this stuff was just absolutely encapsulating and fascinating
i'm hoping we can get other people to feel the same now the original reason why i wanted to tear
that down so quickly is because i needed a place to put my stingrays as we move their tank here
moving their 700 gallon into location is going to take longer than a day i mean it's gonna take
a whole day to drain the tank move it here get the of course get the fish out i don't want them being
in buckets so what i decided i was going to do was set up a temporary pool to keep them in and then i
could just transfer them over when it's good and ready oh and this my friends is my favorite view
of the entire gallery just sitting here i could just stand here look over everything and just
wait for it to be up and running and you know it's just such an enjoyable area and space to be
i think you guys are going to absolutely love it when we actually get things done i mean it look
doesn't look like a lot is done right now we built some frames to stands and painted and whatnot but
we've only been in here for two weeks and uh tanks are arriving next week we're gonna have almost
everything you know it's going to look night and day within a couple of weeks but within one month
and mind you of doing it all alone for the most part this place is just going to look absolutely
incredible so i'm not on patreon or anything like that all i do here on youtube is make these
videos for you guys and you guys get to watch them i obviously have merch like this this is
all stingrays by the way it looks like um little zigzags that's some of my merch line um i got my
book and stuff like that that you can buy like tangible goods but some people want a little bit
more they want me on patreon i've always refused that i've never gone on to patreon and nothing
against it i just don't feel like i want to send everybody to all these different websites youtube
launched that membership thing where you become a member of a channel like three years ago and
i joined it and lots of people got in on it and i thought if i was to join this channel membership
what would i want out of it so i've started to revamp it so i'm just waiting for this to save on
youtube but i'm going to be doing uh every sunday a members only live stream so you could talk to me
i can answer your questions i can give you some more information et cetera lots of stuff like that
members only videos i've been putting those out a lot lately showing you guys everything before
everybody else um photos and status updates polls voting that sort of deal i'm gonna be
doing discounted merchandise moving forward like discounts off this my book that sort of thing and
anybody that's been a member for one year will not pay admission to come in the gallery mind
you this doesn't take away from anything else that we do here on youtube i'm still gonna be
making these videos um it looks like i've been making them every second day i'd like to move up
to daily but there's just too much well this was like a lot of hands-on work and you know it took
takes all day you're covered in paint you're sore you're tired you don't really want to be filming
and editing all day long as well but um with the the hard stuff is like out of the way almost now
i'll be able to move up and start making better videos and more often so hope you guys enjoy
that if you're not subscribed to my channel yet make sure you do if you don't want to miss any
of this if you want to become a member certainly appreciate it goes directly to helping do this