-It's been called an obsession. My name is Malik.
I am 41 years old. Just a regular guy.
I work in film and television in Toronto.
And as my side hustle, I keep, breed,
and retail rare and exotic fish.
The fish in this tank can buy me a nice car.
What's going on everybody?
Welcome to Malik's Water Garden.
I am a fish influencer.
Yeah, I am. I live in a fish farm,
and I would have it no other way.
[ Cash register dings ]
Welcome in. Come on to my crib. [ Laughs ]
My fish crib.
I usually don't like people in my house, like,
in this part of the house.
And I'm, like, very careful on who I let in.
There's about 3,000 fish in this apartment.
Probably a little bit more, actually.
There's about $50,000 worth of fish in my facility.
And I'm the only one that can keep most of them alive.
♪♪
This is my living room fish room.
I retail them to local customers
as well as I wholesale to stores.
I get fish from other collectors
or I know some fisherman in South America.
So, as long as it's legal for them to export them,
I let them know I want this particular fish.
And once I get them, I usually get a group of 10 or 12,
and I keep them in a tank six months, a year.
Usually, they breed for me.
From that point, I sell it to the people that want them.
And so they're now all over other people's fish rooms.
So, I grow all my baby fish out here.
I think there's about 55 or 60 tanks in here.
I try to make at least $5,000 from each tank.
Angelfish are quite profitable
and I'm good at keeping them alive.
So, like, if 1,000 comes, I can keep 955 alive maybe.
If I sell them in three-week size, I'll make 955 bucks.
There's about 200 fish in this tank.
You'll see them, each one is worth about 40 to 50 bucks.
They plecos sell for about 60 bucks.
So, these guys sell for about $300 as adults.
I've been offered $7,500
for my breeding group, like, and I said no.
I'm expecting to make at least $20,000
from just my breeding group this year.
[ Laughs ] Just from one tank.
My target for the year is about $60,000 gross.
I net about $45,000 a year.
I freelance for film and television.
I do mostly stand-in, but I do background as well.
I work on "Star Trek."
So, you wouldn't see me and recognize me
because I'm wearing a huge mask head, whatever.
But I'm one of the only people that's willing to be in it
for the amount of time that they need to be in the prosthetics.
I don't take overnight work.
That limits me quite a bit for roles and stuff,
but I don't feel comfortable leaving them for that long.
Would I ever live without aquariums?
No. You know what I mean?
I've had aquariums since I was a little kid.
My dad had aquariums. My mom, too.
And I got my own aquarium when I was,
like, 3 years old.
I was born in Sri Lanka.
I grew up there until I was about 12 to 13.
There was a war going on, so I'm a political refugee.
We came to Canada, and I've been here since then.
My parents are big into conservation,
so my dad always had a lot of giant aquariums in the house.
So, I wanted a tank since I was, like, as long as I can remember.
And my third birthday, my dad got me a tank.
By the time I was 7, I was breeding fish.
And my dad was, like, proud of me to the point where he was,
like, showing me off to his cousins and stuff,
"Look at my kid." You know what I mean?
Like "Better than you guys" type of deal.
In the summertime, it gets really hot in the whole house.
Sometimes I sleep right here on the middle of the room.
It's comfortable and it's --
you know, it's nice at night, all the water sound.
I look around, I see all my fish as I'm falling asleep.
As soon as I open my eyes, I see them.
I make sure everybody's good. Like, it's more like
an immerse experience that way for me.
Usually, I sleep better in here because it relaxes me
after, like, everything I deal with.
I mean, I grew up in a war-torn country.
The fish take me away from that. I don't think about it.
So, yeah, it's good. -Yeah.
-I'm in a different world in here, right?
It insulates me from a lot of things.
I can come in here and not think about it.
If something happens outside or something is happening outside
and it's out of my control,
but I control all the systems in here
and I can kind of forget about all that and be in here.
And I have PTSD, so, like,
what better medicine, you know what I mean?
They would put me on 20 kinds of antidepressants
or I can just have another tank.
I feed my fish very high-quality food.
It costs me about $400 to $500 to feed my fish per month.
I have to buy things all the time, like these boxes.
I spend, like, sometimes $200, $300 in a month.
A filter would be somewhere between 20 and 60 bucks
for some of these ones. Obviously, there's 25, 30 tanks.
Medication's, like, $100 a month, you know, in general.
-What does your accountant think?
-Oh, he thinks I'm nuts.
[ Laughs ]
Hey.
-Hey, buddy. -How are you?
-I'm good. How are you? -I'm good.
I actually was going to just remind you,
I'm streaming tonight at 8:00.
-Oh, I'm all about it. Don't worry.
-So, my channel is growing.
I put in a lot of work towards it.
This is usually where I like to livestream from
'cause the Wi-Fi is really good here and it's better connection.
So, you know, the stream usually doesn't drop.
Good morning, everyone. What's going on?
New LocalAustin, welcome. And BigTankHank, welcome, bro.
If you guys have questions, feel free to ask.
ToyBun says, "My cichlids eat out of my hands."
Amazing. Like, that's really good, bro.
Ultimately, I want to have, like, a million subscribers
and -- and -- and teach everybody
how to take care of these animals
because we really need to take into consideration
that these animals are going to go extinct without our help.
The video we're making today
is we're taking some fish to the pet store.
And so I'm going to make a video for my subscribers.
What is going on, world? Welcome back to AquaMalik.
Today is going to be a really fun video, everyone.
We're going to go to the pet store.
Yes, finally, out of lockdown.
I'm going to Dragon King Aquarium
and I am going to take them some brand-new angelfish
that were grown here. So, without further ado,
let's get into the store tour.
♪♪
Essentially, this is how you compare size.
It's a big fish. Bigger than a toonie.
Alright. I just prayed to God
to make sure that we're all safe in our journey.
They are definitely scared.
But the good thing is it's, like, a 30-minute drive.
They'll be in their new tanks at the pet store.
And they're really good. I make sure I don't sell my fish
to, like, PetSmart or anything like that.
We're at the pet store.
This is Dragon King Aquarium.
They are the first person I usually call
when I have extra fish that I don't want to sell myself,
I don't have time to sell.
We still have about 100 fish in the car,
so we're going to take them in
and get some good money from our friend.
Pandemic style.
[ Laughs ]
♪♪
She's not open yet. [ Laughs ]
We got a few minutes to kill.
I brought you some fish. Yeah.
Good morning. How are you? -Hi everyone.
I know him about two or four years.
-Probably. Probably longer.
-Yeah. Yeah. -We're just figuring out
how much she's giving me for the fish.
So, I have 22 of the larger ones, 27 of the medium size,
and 29 of the small.
She said, "I'll give you even $300."
-Yeah. -I'm okay with that.
And she's okay with that. And we're good.
♪♪
What is going on, world?
It's your boy, Malik.
We're back at the Dragon King Aquarium,
first time here after the last two years
of being locked down in my own house.
And I'm finally out and doing my thing.
And I got some money, so now we're doing some pet store tour.
Let's get into this store tour.
This is like heaven for me, okay?
Like, literally.
Rainbow cichlids.
Really pretty.
And the red guys.
You know you have a healthy system
if your animals are trying to reproduce in it.
Really nice quality fish.
Really, really, really, really, really nice.
Thank you so much, guys,
for watching the video until the end.
Come check out Dragon King Aquarium.
They do have some of my angelfish in stock right now.
And I'll see you on the next video.
I love you all. God bless you.
It's not normal for a person to be living
with this amount of fish.
There was a girl that I was dating
and once she saw it, she --
she broke up with me within, like, a day.
This works for me, keeps me sane,
keeps me from going out there
and doing something that I shouldn't,
keeps me away from drugs. I used to have a problem
with that, you know, in the past.
This is me. I'm not really going to change, either.
You know what I mean? Like, I'm 40 years old now.
And if I'm been doing this since I was a little child,
and consistently, chances are I'm probably going to do it
for the rest of my life, so...
I'm not going to compromise.
Like, I want to have this in my house
when I move to a new house.
Even the girl I was dating right before the pandemic,
she wanted to buy a house with me
and she said, "Okay, we'll work on the fish room
and we'll get a basement for you, whatever."
And she also wanted to have her stuff in the basement.
So, we broke up literally because she wouldn't give me
the whole basement of the house.
But that's the sacrifice I'm making.
And ultimately, I want to find somebody or meet somebody
that has the same kind of goals, you know what I mean?
Hopefully that happens. It's great.
If not, I'm good.
So, when I was 4 or 5 years old,
I read this book called "The Invisible Ark."
It essentially talks about the need
for conservation of species, right?
Because of human activity,
a lot of the biodiversity is going to go extinct.
There's no way to save these animals
without direct human intervention.
So, his entire theory is that we have to create
these arks in our houses and we take on the animals.
Without getting too emotional, like, if we don't do it,
your kids, my kids,
our grandkids are not going to see them.
♪♪
My apartment is like a spaceship.
If I needed to go to space
and they can pack all this stuff in for me,
I can totally be in space by myself with my fish.
I'd be happy. I mean, that's how I feel like
when I'm in here anyway. So, I'm good, I'm good.
♪♪