i can't wait any longer i want to do something with the 40 gallon racking system if you guys
remember there's six 40 gallon aquariums in this system right here alone down below quarantine
tanks and then these two and these two are standalone systems look using sponge filters
to filter them and i want to set them up skate them all individually and do a bunch of fish that
belong in a 40 gallon aquarium i'm actually really excited to get into kind of some nano fish and
maybe we'll do a pet fish in one of them or something but bottom line is this and i know
you can't stop looking at that so check this out i just recently scaped this out i think it looks
perfect for one of these aquariums everything's just kind of balanced there i'm just i'm i'm lying
you guys know i'm lying this isn't real check this out technically a background or one of those types
of things aqua decor backgrounds.com sent it to me and i was like what am i supposed to do with
this and i was like oh it's probably for one of my 40s because they watch my videos and whenever
i got an empty tank these random boxes show up at the house they're like you're gonna love it and
uh i was like i really don't know if i want to use this because i want to escape it and i want to set
it up but to be honest with you i think this is absolutely amazing especially for people that are
escaping challenged like myself i won't be doing this for all my aquarius i'm gonna do it once
uh simply because this thing is just awesome but then i was thinking well i have backgrounds for
all of them and i have plans and escapes that i kind of want to do but this will be the only
tank without a background so it's going to look kind of silly so it's never been used it's wet
because it was raining outside and i saw a lot of my stuff just outside because these are like
indestructible but this is not a background it's meant to go on the floor of an aquarium and you
can see the cutout where the background would have fit this will go on the floor of the aquarium so
you can technically have your whole tank look like this uh or it's great for like fish that dig and
whatnot anyways since i don't use it um and i've been thinking of a reason i think i'm gonna cut it
to fit in the back of this because i think that looks absolutely amazing now wait
will this kind of like let's wait till we see the thanks not i'm not even decided yet
this depends on the type of fish that is going in it you see i start with the type of fish i
want to keep and then i build the scape or build the tank around them there's only one fish that
this is going to look awesome with and one fish that was planning on going into the 40s anyways
let me show you that would be my shell dwellers that are currently in 120 gallon tank with fraud
toza that this tank is uh incredibly covered in algae i'm actually tearing it down because you
guys know we're switching all of these out for uh 180 so i'm just letting the algae go nuts
at this point which is completely fine to be honest with you the water quality in this is
better than any other aquarium simply because we have pothos up top plenty of algae we've got
live plants in there there's almost no reason to do a water change and the water is just like
evaporating it's in been such a realization for me as of late that you know we can really just
enjoy our tanks a lot of times instead of doing all this work constantly anyways i have a bunch
of african shell dwellers in here in fact i have uh some multifaceted as you can see right there
what i'm thinking of doing is taking the same type of substrate you know you know kind of
tossing it on top of this stuff and around it so this is exposed but there is substrate as well
um and then i take you know let's say a couple of pairs out of here there's some more over here
uh and we start a whole new colony in one of those 40s and then we can compare what they're
like with active predators in the tank versus an aquarium all to themselves now i'm thinking
about doing nano fish in this one and nano fish in this one i'm thinking of pistol grama
and then i'm thinking the african shell dwellers or vice versa at the other day it's not really
going to matter now why would we put them up top you think you put them in the middle
absolutely not um these guys like the bottom and i'm like head when i come up to the tank
i can see like this portion of it it's going to be perfect viewing for me plus with the
podcast and whatnot you guys would be able to see them as well so i think it would look
awesome downside is this isn't uh going to fit in that tank as is so i got to make some adjust
adjustments um and make some cuts here so i'll do that real quick and we'll just see what it's
going to look like and then we'll get your guys opinion and then you know we'll go from there
joey with power tools never ends well i don't know if you guys remember but i almost cut my
entire finger off at one point i was taking apart my 540 gallon tank that i built years ago
i was taking that apart and technically there was no tools but the glass came down on my finger
and almost cut it completely off i had to get reconstructive surgery
twice on that finger if you go back into my older videos you can see me wearing a cast
or an arm support that goes here all the way up my arm everybody thought i broke my entire hand
i was like no no just cut my finger off i'll be okay i got 10. um so yeah i think that this
actually the colors and the texture actually match so i think this is going to look relatively good
i got to be honest though guys i think this will be cool but i'm really excited to watch once again
because it was years ago when i kind of like got african cichlids for the first time and uh
you guys are absolutely amazed now like every youtuber gotta have them and i don't blame them
absolutely fascinating fish but uh i'm really excited to be able to have on site a comparison
between a tank with predators actively in there with you because i got to tell you they're acting
completely different versus what they're going to be like in here where are they going to swim
how are they their colors or aggression or will they breed more what's going to happen
so we'll be able to answer those questions here shortly because i got a lot of really
cool ideas that i want to bring to you guys and show you in comparisons i'm not going to
ruin too many surprises but my mind is going a mile a minute out here and i think you guys
are really going to love it i only have to cut off a little bit to fit this in here i think
that's the beauty of these see just absolutely oh they're like next to impossible to to destroy
i mean that's why i like them a lot put something in my hands and i'm eventually going to break it
you know what i might do though i might trim it so it all matches
give me a second here awkward accord sitting at home just cursing at the computer right now
or the tv or however they watch me this is the last thing aqua decor is ever going to send me
because i like cut everything apart but they know it's me
plus i'm a guy i just want to use tools
now that's the beauty of these things though i mean if they uh if they're not fit and perfect
they slam this thing they don't fit perfectly where you won't need to do something else just
cut it the downside is i don't know what the front and what the back is so i picked what i thought
was gonna go look good and because i'm going with sponge filters which are incredibly popular in
common i just put it right behind the rock or something i think it's gonna look really good
next thing i got to do is make sure this is gonna fit this is gonna be a little bit more difficult
see these things like there's no breaking these and this is super cool they come stamped all right
i've promoted all decor backgrounds for like four or five years to help but for obvious
reasons i mean they don't pay me by the way this is just like they send me some stuff
and they know i love it so they keep sending it to me so what i'm thinking here is just kind of
hopefully maybe do a somewhat accurate cut i'm thinking right around here look what good
so
it's almost like this was meant for this the it's so like very close in dimensions as it was
there this is one of the new backgrounds that they offer for 40 gallon aquariums
do you think they're ever going to send me more stuff
maybe i should stop cutting all this stuff up and making it do what i want
walk with your core please have me worst off i love this stuff
i think i would put it here so i have other plans for over there as silly as that sounds see i just
dropped these bad boys in there i don't even glue them in place or nothing like that they don't need
to be you get them in you get they cut they cut them exactly to your specs so that looks like a
it looks like one that you put on the back it fits it so perfect
all right this one next which way did i say i was gonna do this
i don't remember i'm gonna have to do a water change on this tank i got all this debris in it
timeless though it's just plastic or fiberglass stove actually don't know
i should have made sure i should have double checked that these fit first i'll make it fit
oh it fits
i wonder how many things they built where they went to go put it in the tank and it didn't fit
so like oops i'm gonna add in some sand right now
shell dwellers do technically require sand a fine sand not too fine we're like
um a little bit smaller than like pool filtration pool filtration will work that's what's in that
tank over there but they require a sand as well as they require shells obviously shell
dwellers anyways i tossed the uh filter into the background there and all i'm going to do here
is this none of this is rinsed so it might cause the tank to be cloudy
but as you can see here um you can see that it doesn't necessarily cover the whole thing
so i'm gonna focus around the edges and uh that should do it just kind of fill it in back there
like that right i'm probably only gonna need two maybe four liters of water or i'm sorry uh
sand i'm putting it in a little leader bottle so i can add it in now without you know kind of needing
to rinse it too much uncover some of these stones although the shell dwellers are going to do
absolutely anything they want in here but i think the focus will be on the edges here i'll put the
shells there and of course on the other side and maybe some in between but we'll see what happens
there i'm just i want sand to be everywhere but i also wanted to be able to actually kind
of see the rocks gives the uh gives the tank a little bit more character i guess you should say
yeah i probably shouldn't be too worried about this hand these guys are really going to move
it all around do whatever they want anyway yeah so ideally you know shell dwellers don't
technically require escape of any sort but uh they'll do fine in here you know
maybe instead of centering it maybe i should push it all the way over here and have them
live on this end i think i'm to try that and see what that looks like yeah that looks way
better a little bit more natural as well anything too centered and i just don't like the feel of it
this gives them i'll probably end up putting most of the shells over here and a couple behind there
in case i mess up and there's more than one male in here i'll give them their own territories but
um i think this is going to work out really really nicely looks way better than i thought
it was going to as well a little cloudy here so we can't really see the background but you know
that's what happens you don't rinse your substrate first um you just add in uh everything to it yeah
this is gonna look fantastic yeah once this clears up and watch this this is the positioning of the
lights all we can do and try this at home if you have like a strip light of any sort move it to the
front and to the back see what you like more see watch this this will highlight the front more and
then i push to the back i've done this for years it's always like if i don't like the way a tank
looks i'll just reposition the lighting and then it's almost like you get a whole new tank with new
dimensions isn't that cool so now the lights all the way pushed to the back we're creating
uh you know uh shadows and more more depth to the tank almost uh and again once we pull it forward
yeah see how cool it looks maybe that maybe that even looks better which one do you guys like let
me know what you think you think light all the way to the back or all the way to the front
i mean in the center i'm not i don't know tank's also cloudy so we gotta wait but yeah so this
is gonna be the african shell dweller aquarium i think they're gonna love it let me know what you
guys think of the comment section below uh let me know what you think about this thing these already
pre-planned scapes i thought it was super cool and they do have air to uh holes in them to let the
the air out so nothing gets trapped in them but uh yeah i think this is gonna be absolutely awesome
love to know your guys's thoughts let me know uh let me know what you guys think in the comment
section below come to think about i think this is like the first aquarium of its kind i'm finally
first for all you guys to comment first in the comment section i'm first now first yeah that's
it and the more i look at it and the further well there's big bright lights on me right now
podcast lighting so oh yeah i should probably show you a few things let's go put you guys right there
for just a second you're on top of the piranha tank don't fall in you're not gonna like it
so when i said i was bringing the podcast out here if some people were like oh this his face
is cramped there's too much going on there i have it's a multi-functional area not only do we do the
podcast and we have this as a backdrop but now i have a work table you guys see me building
the fish tank and the stands and everything on them um obviously i gotta clean it off but
it's a solid wood table and it's six feet long a little more than two feet wide now the lighting
i don't have to have lights throughout the entire gallery anymore but i know you guys
can't see me i can move this wherever i need it whenever the camera's following me
and then obviously i put it right back up and it's just under my head
so yes it might look like an eyesore in the middle i absolutely love it i love its functionality and
i like the way everything's working out there's i always have a method to my madness i think most of
you know that by now anyways if you want to join along for this journey of my madness including
putting tanks big old 375 gallon tanks on top of big old 2 000 gallon tanks make sure you subscribe
if you're not already because you're gonna miss it i got these six tanks to set up i still got
to do the 120s there's four of them got to build the racking system for the 180s escape them in
the 180s they won't have backgrounds or anything i'm going to paint them black i think maybe blue
we'll we'll cross that bridge when i get to it but i'll let you guys have an input of there as well
but i'm pretty sure i'm going to paint the black i got to build certain filters for them etc look
at the filters there on the floor oh them those are some bad boy filters wait do you guys see it
maybe you already seen it i'm not sure when this video is coming out i hope that i don't put it out
too soon this is what happens at nighttime i just get in here and i'm like oh i really want to set
something up i really want to get my hands dirty i really want to do something and i'm like well i
gotta film it because these guys are gonna kill me if i don't show them so lord knows when this
video is gonna come out hopefully i'll have a haircut by then see you guys in the next video