oh it's a windy day today but we did make it here to aquarica in bedford nova scotia right
off the bedford highway and today i'm coming in here let's get in it's way too windy out here
today what i'm hoping to do there's a tank of a proven
pair of breeding discus in the back and i'm gonna try to convince the owner to sell them for me even
though they're not for sale now mind you when you buy a proven breeding pair you can expect
to pay five to seven hundred dollars although if you wanna buy six to grow your own you're
still looking at five to six hundred dollars plus you gotta spend nine to 12 months growing
them out into breeding size i'm hopefully going to try to cut that time in half i'm
only here for the discus but first let's look around and see if there's anything else we want
all right so one of the first things you see when you come into this store is this massive aquarium
it's actually quite large it looks to be like eight feet it actually looks like the tank at home
that's uh 375 gallons stock with some discus some really big clown loaches and of course the congo
tetras look how big they get there's absolutely enormous i love seeing a nice display tank there
i've been to this store a number of times usually just as a customer this is the first time i get to
film it but one of the things that i love about it is it kind of seems like every time i come there's
always something new and different here in such a small space you guys are going to love this store
lots of dry goods a smaller saltwater section but i did get some saltwater fish from here before
dry goods go all the way around that is i think we might see oh look at the pestos what a nice
selection of a pest house this is very uncommon to see uh you don't get to see uh you know really
nice pistols that often and i think the owner's really into different types of shrimp because
he's always got some very high end shrimp i think there's some blues in here oh if i can come across
some red-eyed tetris which i don't know are here i'll likely grab some of them as well just to put
in the piranha tank there's some more of pestos the size of this angel oh a beautiful marbled pear
just gorgeous beautiful tanks too very nice now if i can't find red eyed tetras what one of the
things i might go for is any other sort of true schooling tetra the piranha is always going to
try to if they're going to eat a tetra if they are not a true schooler they will try to corner and
separate some of these tetras from the pack and just eat it but in a true schooling tetra they're
doing that to protect themselves so you'll see how they swim versus other fish these guys are a
true schooling fish they're all sticking together for the most part they'll all kind of do the same
thing these guys are comfortable just being spread out a little bit everywhere and i really feel like
i'm bringing my friend along to the store it's awesome close the red eyes kind of look like that
but not like that it's also not a true school that lots of different selection of fish here
every time i come here it's always something different
oh i just seen the owner go by paul is that you yeah i thought i'd be i grabbed you real
quick just introduce yourself maybe you can give her this is paul the owner of aquarica
tell them where you're at yeah address and whatnot yeah we're at 1600 bedford highway
uh four-story cibc building across from sunnyside mall we've been here four and a half years
opened by hobbyists for the benefit of hobbyists we employ people who are in the hobby who know
what they're doing in fish keeping actual fishing so that we can actually give you proper advice and
help you select the right fish for you one of the things we try to do here is get in a big variety
of fish that you might not see in other places so our stock and selection is always revolving oh
there's two things i i'm just seeing some puffers over the corner of my eye but the first thing i
want to say is there's actually vip parking out here for customers only so i love that part of
it makes me feel special every time i come here check out these pumpers so these are the green
spotted puffers they're in a fully marine tank by the looks of it and i'm only saying that because
we are in a marine section you get these guys and they're so tiny it's very rare that you get to see
them this big now i think that these guys can even be placed in brackish and potentially even
fresh but obviously they do much better with salt in the aquarium paul do you know much about these
guys yeah they're in full salt uh these were uh purchased by one of our customers about six to
twelve months ago and uh he's decided to go into different directions so uh he brought them back he
slowly acclimated them from a brackish to a full salt environment which is what they're in now
they'll grow uh another two to three inches but they're uh they're gorgeous fish yeah absolutely
doing fantastic too they do come in as fresh water though don't they and then most people will
begin they'll do better in brackish of course the suppliers often ship them in fresh water
and then as they get older and older you increase the salinity of the water they're in until they're
in full salt all right back to my search wow what a beautiful selection of discus blue diamonds
okay the not for sale sign is taken off this is the pair that i'm looking at
this is a cobalt pair arguably one of the more difficult discus to breed in terms of raising
the fry it can be hard to get the fry to actually attach to the parents and survive to adulthood but
i've had this pair before not this identical one but i've bred discus of this uh variety before
but anyways last time i was in here there was a big not for sale sign on it but then i kind of
convinced paul to you know maybe just sell them to me for what whatever you want me to give you
and uh i think we'll be able to cut a deal today there's so much of everything some of it's pretty
common but other things are pretty advanced like i know that some people have tons of pea puffers but
in my area atlanta canada it's very rare that we come across such a variety and interesting uh fish
unless you specifically order them in but this is an opportunity to come and see them in person
even if it's only for the first time i've never seen the black venezuelan corydora
they look like mini gulper cats all right let's see if i can't cut a deal on those discus so these
are them cobalts they're a breeding pair what does that mean to you they're uh they're mated they see
each other as partners for life if they live that long uh however long they live together they'll
protect each other and uh take care of each other as long as they can as well as the children that
they happen to have but they are a proven breeding thing they are a proven greedy pair they will
lay eggs they've laid eggs every two to three weeks they've gone to the wiggler stage and the
attachment to the side of the the parent stage but we just don't unfortunately have the time
in the store to dedicate to raising them i do see that once they became sexually mature right
at around the four inch mark that growth stopped and a lot of times when it comes to breeding fish
all of their energy starts going to the breeding producing more and more fry and they'll stop
growing but obviously with this one with the male with his forehead a little thicker a bit
of a knucklehump the the pointed dorsal and the females just dramatically different this
is such an awesome time to to look at discus and be able to see the differences in sexes um because
sometimes uh it can be incredibly difficult to tell the difference now i've bred these guys
before and kind of had the same problems with you as you guys is where they'll eat the fry
or the fry might not attach and i think a lot of it has to do with their dark sides in coloration
because when i breed things like the pigeon bloods uh and or turquoise or anything like that never an
issue but they say the lighter the fish the more difficult it is and the darker the fish the easier
it is supposed for the fry to attach but i've never found that personally well you have already
these guys there's only two fish three fish on the planet that breed like the discus which feed
their fish off of the the mucus of their skin discus or one walru or another and the third
is a saltwater chromit no it's a freshwater fish i'd have to think about it but there's only three
fish in the world that do it huawei's the poor man's discus anyway so you are you're willing
to sell these to me yes if you want to breed them joey they're yours all right we already
agreed on price and it's uh right around where i thought a breeding pair was if i want to get
into breeding discus and i get them at this size is this 44 or 94. that's 44. so wow that's good
so if i were to buy six which is ideal i'm still looking at 300. 44 bucks is pretty cheap maybe i
should get those just because they're cheap but you know it's 300 for six and i get six
to hope to get a breeding pair but what happens in six to nine months when all you got is males
or all you got is females or you don't have a compatible pair then you just spent three four
hundred dollars on a bunch of small discs that you spent how much time and money growing out
when you could have just bought a breeding pair for similar and money so you got to kind of decide
what you want out of it do you want to the little guys and grow them out and hope for a pair or
do you just want to save yourself some time and get into you know a proven breeding pair that's
laying eggs and getting to the wiggler stage two females can technically lay eggs it doesn't mean
they're a pair but these guys have gotten to the wiggler stage absolutely perfect i'll take them