once you've kept all the beginner fish from Petco and PetSmart you start getting the itch
to try something a little bit harder maybe a little bit rare but how do you know if
they're worth the trouble or not today I'm going to talk about 10 intermediate level
species that I personally kept and some of the caveats you need to watch out for
stuff on the list is nerite snails now you might be asking me why in the world would
be an ordinary snail be on an intermediate list well they have lots of Pros so let's talk about
that first they only get to about an inch maybe in diameter depending on the species so there's lots
of colorful varieties from zebra stripe to Horn bumblebee types they're pretty small so they can
fit in your Nano tanks and they're excellent algae eaters oh and then unlike other snails they don't
breed in fresh water they require bracket sweater now the caveats is at least for me whenever I
brought them home they seem to be doing great they're eating a lot of algae and then even though
they're still algae in the tank all of a sudden they'll get kind of lethargic they'll stop moving
even if there's no other fish in the tank and then eventually they'll just pass away so what's going
on well first of all they seem to be a little bit sensitive to water quality so definitely make sure
you're keeping on top of those ammonia nitrite and nitrate levels and then number two I think
it's easy to starve them you know they're really good to eat algae eaters I think they prefer to
eat algae over regular fish food although that could be just you know my fish are eating the
food faster than the snail so that's something to consider they're kind of slower moving too so
they're not going to get to the food as readily before it's all eaten up and then if you have
an animal like let's say a betta fish who's kind of curious and like pokes at their shell
every once in a while that's enough to scare the nourish snail so it won't come out of its shell
and then go looking around for food finally like mini invertebrates they happen to like alkaline
pH that's higher than 7.0 as well as harder water higher GH so they have enough minerals to make a
healthy shell now I personally have high pH low GH and so maybe that's one of the reasons why I
was failing I wasn't adding enough minerals like cecum equilibrium in because I have found that
when I kept the narrate snails in a really high pH High GH environment they actually did really
well which isn't surprising because they can live in all the way up to brackish environments one of
the first centerpiece fish I ever got for this 20 gallon high Community tank was a German blue Ram
now who wouldn't fall in love with those beautiful rainbow colors practically looks like a saltwater
fish that spiky dorsal fin and of course you gotta love that bold cichlid personality right however
they are considered to be semi-aggressive fish so make sure to give them plenty of space especially
on the lower half of the aquarium so that they can kind of establish their own territory especially
during breeding season that's when they're gonna get pretty feisty also it really helps if you
plant kind of lots of tall dense foliage or maybe lots of Hardscape or tall decor that will help
block a line of sight and that will help kind of minimize some of that aggression especially
if they're glass surfing I've noticed you know if you see your German blue Ram is kind of Surfing
up and down in a particular corner just put some plants there and block his sight of his reflection
however the most important thing I didn't realize at the time was they really do need hot water
so don't believe any of those online articles that are saying yeah they can go as low as 78.
try to aim for 84 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit that will make them a super happy as well as lower GH
softer water is for their best kind of optimal environment if you can do the heat especially
you're going to have good luck with your German blue Ram now I have a lot of cool Oddball fish on
this list because not only they look really cool but also they usually have specialty requirements
that would make them an intermediate level fish and so first off we have the marbled hatchet fish
this is a really cool peaceful schooling fish that lives kind of in the top one third of the aquarium
they have called hatchet fish because they have kind of the hatchet blade looking barrel-chested
profile and then if you have them on the top you can have maybe a Tetra in the mid-water
area and then corydoras on the bottom area now we have activity in all levels of the aquarium
unfortunately like mini surface dueling fish they are very very good jumpers those pick dolphins
that you see almost act like little wings strong muscles that can propel them out of the water and
onto your floor dry it up for you to find so make sure not only do you have a tight fitting
lid but any of the smallest little cracks where like the filter meets kind of the cutout that
you made in the lid like cover those up as much as possible the air Airline tubing so that they
can't get out of the aquarium I've also personally found that they seem more prone to getting ich so
definitely make sure to quarantine them and then get a good medication I personally use Paraguard
in the past and I was not successful in curing ich in them so ever since then I've converted
over to Ich-X much better medication and I've never experienced an ich outbreak ever since
finally they do have very small mouths they're kind of upturned toward the surface you want
to feed them really tiny floating Foods so things like crushed up flakes Nano pellets
that float maybe freeze dry daphnia as well as live baby brine shrimp they're gonna love that
now I definitely want to talk about dwarf shrimp because of how cute they are so colorful and easy
to breed however I've mostly kept Neocaradina shrimp which usually come in like solid colors
like solid red solid blue Etc they do have the really kind of patterns but they are considered to
be more beginner level versus red crystal shrimp or Caridina shrimp they're considered harder
because they definitely require very specific water parameters meaning soft acidic pH really
low KH most of the times the kind of more serious shrimp Keepers for carry dealership they recommend
using RODI (reverse osmosis deionized water) which is basically water stripped of everything and then
they will add a special substrate which is usually active some kind of buffering substrate to keep
that pH low and then they will re-mineralize that water using a special blend of shrimps
adults for certain minerals for Caridina shrimp that will only raise the GH a little bit so they
can do their healthy exoskeleton bolts but then it won't raise the pH and KH so I don't have room
in my house right now or a good place to put an RODI filter unit to basically filter out
all the minerals from my tap water however in the past again when I was a beginner I did keep
one crystal shrimp in the past and her name was Xiao Hong "little red" and she actually
did pretty well I have again higher pH but pretty low KH and GH and maybe that's why she lived for
as long as she did however you know I didn't have multiple shrimps so it's not like I could kind of
test whether they'd be able to breed in those conditions probably not but the second caveat
is also as with most dwarf shrimp you usually can't keep them with a lot of different kind
of fish tank mates because they're shrimp every everybody loves to eat shrimp so be very careful
about the type of tank maze that you choose to keep with them for example no betta fish for sure
oh my goodness I love dwarf pea puffers they are so adorable imagine having this one inch little
like glob looking like fish it's yellow with black spots on its back it's got big old eyes that move
independently and are very inquisitive constantly kind of inspecting the world observing you they
can move like a helicopter in almost any direction like four it's backwards side to side so cool
they don't however like to eat prepare food so you can't really put an auto feeder of you know
pellets or flakes if you're gonna go on vacation they mainly prefer live and Frozen Foods so if
you need to get a pet sitter hopefully you can teach them how to deal with frozen foods to feed
them and then also they are semi-aggressive so in the past I kept mine in a five gallon tank by
herself however people have kept them in kind of a school a species only school you want to make
sure to get maybe like one male to every two to three or more females because when you have more
than a couple males they start fighting if they don't have enough territory or things to block
line of sight so you know it's kind of like try at your own risk and be prepared to separate out any
extra males that just are kind of murderous and intent axolotls are another Super adorable Oddball
creature not a fish this is an amphibious end that stays entirely aquatic for its entire life got
really popular with Minecraft but basically kind of looks like a baby salamander with those giant
frilly gills on the side of its head comes in many colors including like a pink color and then some
of them have this green fluorescent protein that shows up as bright green when you shine a blue or
black light on it like very very cool creature but for me I feel like axolotls have the most caveats
out of all the animals I have on this intermediate level list so number one they get pretty large
larger than most people think so you're gonna need a fairly large aquarium for them in adulthood
they're messy eaters you've probably seen those memes where like appellate drops right in front
of the Axolotl and it goes on into like the water and doesn't even get the food so you might have to
do a lot of cleanup on that they it's hard to keep them with other tank mates besides other axolotls
because let's say you put some fish in there you have to be okay A) with a the Axolotl eating these
fish that you put in there but also B) you don't want to pick fish that are going to nip on the
gills of your Axolotl because they kind of look like worms waving in the water most people don't
realize this but axolotls are Ambush Predators so especially as they mature and go into adulthood
they're really sedentary so not necessarily the most interesting thing to look at all the time
they're just kind of sitting there waiting for food to come and then finally the hardest thing
for me was keeping that water cold enough like man they really do want 60 to 68 degrees Fahrenheit
really kind of mid 60s would be best nothing above the 70s because if so you're going to get like
fungal and all sorts of other disease problems so obviously the most reliable way to keep the water
cool would be using a chiller which is pretty expensive can run you several hundred to over
a thousand dollars depending on the size of your tank there are other cheaper methods that may not
be as effective but give them a try out I've got a whole video over here on top five ways to cool
your water in those hot summer seasons another really really good algae eater is the otocinclus
catfish super popular among aquascapers planted tank enthusiasts they're very very peaceful
they're not super colorful but that might be good if you want to do you don't want to detract from
the kind of plants and The Hardscape you have in your aquarium and then some people say they're so
peaceful that you can even keep them with dwarf shrimp and they don't seem to go after the baby
shrimp as readily unfortunately sometimes it's hard to get healthy specimens from the local
fish store just because they aren't fed enough the right kinds of foods they start to become
underweight and then for this particular catfish if they don't eat for a long enough period they
will just stop eating altogether and starve to death no matter what you give them so when you go
to the local fish store try to look for otocinclus that have kind of a rounded belly that look pretty
healthy and then when you get them home you want to put them in a mature aquarium that has lots of
algae to eat because they really do prefer those softer types of green algae or brown diatom algae
and then you can supplement their meals basically with Repashy Soilent Green is one of my favorite
gel foods to feed them as well as canned green beans, blanched zucchinis and other vegetables
and then hopefully if you can basically give them a ton of food in that first one to two months they
tend to be pretty Hardy after that because you've kind of figured out how to keep them alive and
they'll stay with you for a very long time and be an excellent cleanup crew member in your aquarium
Thai micro crabs I have a love-hate relationship with them because I mean on the surface they're a
really cool looking Nano crustacean only gets about I don't know maybe a half an inch three
quarters of an inch very very peaceful unlike other maybe larger crabs or crayfish that are
pretty much gonna indiscriminately eat anything that passed their way instead they have these
kind of fuzzy legs that they wave around and use to catch particles that are floating through the
water so the best thing would be put them in a mature aquarium with lots of algae biofilm mulm
for them to kind of scavenge through my problem with them is that unfortunately because they're
so tiny and they're not very brightly colored it's really hard to spot them especially if you put
them in a larger aquarium with community fish in it you're never going to see them because they're
hiding they're afraid of getting eaten right so if I were going to keep them again I would
probably do a smaller species she's only set up for them so that it's only other Thai micro crabs
they're all shy together they're not going to eat each other hopefully and then there's going to be
less competition for food because for sure if I dropped a wafer down in there that crab is not
going to come over and eat it you know it's gonna wait till all the fish eat it up first and then if
there's any crumbs left over maybe it might get them so I think that would be kind of something
I would consider trying in the future another Oddball creature I kind of regret getting would
be the neon blue Stiphodon gobies uh this must be originally a hot water aquarium however I saw the
Stiphodon gobies at my local fish store I've never kept them before and I just had to have them and
the reason why is because they kind of look like a shorter version of a kuhli Loach where it's long
skinny little danger noodle they've got a bright blue stripe on the side of them they're an algae
eater who doesn't want more algae eaters in their tank I mean what's not to like well
the reason why you haven't seen them on this channel much is because well a that
blue stripe I found out doesn't really show up most of the time unless they're really fired
up about something so that most of the time they kind of look grayish and then they hide all the
time from me it's so annoying like every time I come up to the tank they're just like boom
and then they're gone I'm like no I wanted to see your cute little Goby Behavior why
I can't really tell you how good at algae eating they are because I have several other algae eaters
in this aquarium so it's kind of hard to measure but they do like it whenever I feed them Repashy
gel food that is absolutely their favorite food and that's the only time I really see them is if I
drop it in there and then come back an hour or two or later they're usually kind of hanging on the
glass or in the general area of the Repashy so I haven't actually seen them eat it but I'm assuming
they're okay because they don't look underweight or anything so yeah African shell dwellers on the
other hand I have plenty of good things to say about them they are so cool if you've ever won
an intro to African Cichlids that you can keep in a 20 gallon long tank this is it definitely highly
recommend they live in these little snail shells really cool interesting Behavior they like to use
their mouths to pick up and spit out sand and do their own construction and interior decorating
very easy to feed very easy to breed not shy at all we'll come up to you all the time love them
right the only thing to remember is they do come from Lake Tanganyika so you're probably
going to need some kind of cichlid salt to raise up the pH and raise up the GH to the level that
they're comfortable with don't even think about aquascaping this tank because they will dig it up
they are going to move things constantly around even under your rocks cause them to fall over
and tilt so that's not great live plants a lot of them don't do good at the levels of high pH
and GH that they need to live in although I didn't try Java ferns so I might do that next
time but because of the lack of live plants in my basically shell dweller tank I did have some
issues with algae even though I basically kept the lights off all the time I still got blue
green algae there's indirect sunlight coming from the window and that would kind of cause a film on
the front panel so just be aware you might have to do more tape maintenance on this Aquarium
it's not like I want to be a Debbie Downer and completely turn you off of intermediate
level fish but you know buyer beware of what exactly you're signing up for
in fact I'm actually in the middle of setting up another intermediate level
aquarium which thank you to the members who voted on my recent poll to help me with some
fish stalking decisions but if you're in Easy Mode you are super busy you don't want to mess
with all that check out my top 10 beginner level fish that you definitely have to try
out take time to enjoy your aquariums and I'll see you in the next video [Music]