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Fish Added To Aquarium

By King of DIY on

Joey Mullen: Today, we finally add the uaru to their aquarium. If you don't remember this tank was set up specifically for them. I think it's looking-- let me adjust this lighting here for you. I think the tank looks pretty good, I do have a number of things we have to do but to summarize, we've got this background in here, giving it a rock and mud look, more coming through. If you remember the logs here, we added a little bit of java fern to it, we added some elodea, we have some java fern, we have some floating plants as well, none of which the uaru should actually eat but we're going to see in due time.

We do have a bit of a problem though because I'm trying to do both of these tanks at once yet keep their video series separate. Let me explain. I think what I'm going to have to do here is remove all the wood. I am currently draining the tank, I'll have to get a lot of this biological media for their canister filter to their tank and go up and running. Scooping these big guys out won't be the issue. The problem here is getting their ember tetras separated from the cardinal tetras. I hope I could do it, I don't see why not. We'll see what happens, I guess.

To make things a little easier, as this drains, I'm going to start removing this wood from the tank. Let's see if we can catch these tetras first. I'm probably going to have to manually sort them. Let's get the uaru now. You just love to watch, don't you? [laughs]

Okay, you know what? The uaru are way bigger than I remember and there's already six of them in that 120, I'm going to give them the 120 to themselves. I've got the tetras, the fahaka tank can have these guys. Let's get these guys in their tanks.

Oh man, the uaru got big, didn't they? They're definitely going to get this tank to themselves. I'd love to be able to pick these guys up by hand but their dorsal fins have spines through them that will easily stab you. I'm probably going to get a little wet here.

First guy's in, here you go, bro. A couple of them in there, a little scraped up, scraping around in the bucket and whatnot, happens. A couple days, they'll be back to normal. Ooh the big guy, is this him? He's the troublemaker. He's going to be kind to me, these guys are 8 to 10 inches mostly. Here you go, bro, enjoy your tank. I just could see them already looking at the plants. They are going to eat those plants.

Here's another big guy. This is an 8-inch net or a 10-inch net, [unintelligible 00:04:07] 8-inch, 10-inch, 8-inch net and they're all as wide as it besides Timmy, no bro, he's that stunted uaru that we kept. Anyway, he's already in there. There's a pretty one.

I suspect they're just going to lay around in the tank, the lights are going off here any minute. I couldn't get away with just, with nobody getting me wet. These guys always get you wet. I thought I was doing good. Like I said, they're going to hide, I didn't know there was such a big area back there for them. They're going to love this tank, I think they look fantastic in it.

You know what guys? Let's come back tomorrow and take a look at these guys then, let's leave them alone for tonight. I've got to shut their lights off and once tomorrow hits, they'll be in great shape. Obviously, they're doing fine, they're swimming around, just been added though. I got to give them a few minutes to acclimate and whatnot, get used to traumatizing of being moved, which a lot of the times isn't that bad for a fish. Obviously some of these guys're already swimming around looking. Don't you eat that. All right, let's come back tomorrow.

It's been about 12 hours at this point and I have to say this tank has ended in, well, pretty much how we expected it to. The uaru are out, but look at them, they camouflage, they're right in front of our faces but if they're not moving, you don't see them. This fish is perfectly camouflaged especially as a juvenile, when they go through that camouflage transition. These guys are absolutely gorgeous, aren't they? Definitely a beautiful fish, I love them, very plain but once you go through a ton of-- or a ton of fish, and you've been in the hobby for a long time, you start to truly appreciate more the subtle coloration and some of the characteristics and traits that these guys display.

Anyways, victim number one, they ripped the java fern out of the rocks. No problem, I can put that back in. Victim number two, they took all the java fern out or java moss out of the branches and it's now in the power head, we'll be able to fix that up. They never touch this, so I'm thinking this is going to be the plant that survives. Maybe it's just gross or tastes disgusting, I don't know. Maybe I should do a taste testing video where I taste all plants and find out which one tastes the worst.

The frog bit's doing fine, for the most part as far as I could tell. I did turn the flow down in this tank and this is like first look in the morning the tank kind of-- I do need to clean the glass up a bit and fix all these plants. I don't think I'm going to reattach the java fern. I think I'm going to add that to a different tank, I will try to get the java moss back in the rocks but if they keep removing it, I'll just remove it entirely and I might even take out the rock pile out and just have one. Let me know what you guys think about this tank.

I'm absolutely in love with it. I think it's a phenomenal-looking tank, I wasn't sold on it at first but once we have the fish in there, I think that this completes the tank. I'm also happy we didn't add in all of the tetras because I think that they're kind of what it took away from the tank or maybe complemented it, but these guys are huge.

This is the big boss, he's a big fish. I use a wide-angle lens so a lot of times, my tanks look way smaller than they are but I can show you-- these are four foot long tanks. We'll see how these guys do long term in the tank with the river stone being flat and round and they do have spawning sites so perhaps being moved will trigger spawning, but we'll see what happens there.

The fahaka right beside them, the tetras are doing absolutely phenomenal in here and Tyrese's favorite spot. He's like this is a little, wooden bridge and here’s the bridge troll. I love this tank. I don't know which one I like more, do you guys like this one more because of its simplicity and contrast and the tetras and well Tyrese isn't really being much of a showman, or do you like this one better? I think both of them contrast beautifully. We have some South American cichlids with some wood background, which I think looks fantastic.

I don't know if I'm sold on the scape though guys. We might have to change it, I don't know. I'm going to read your comments and see what your guys is thinks. You guys always come up with some good ideas or suggestions and I might not use them all but a lot of the times, I take some and manipulate them to be a little bit more suited to what I want to do, but the contrast of tanks are coming along beautifully. I'm loving them. I don't know what I'm going to do with the last two. I'll need you guys, your suggestions on that as well so let me know in the comments section below.

Anyways, I have to get back to work. You guys are seeing this video probably two weeks after it was filmed, and this room does not even have the new 700-gallon in it yet it's still filled. I got to empty this room because tomorrow, to give you a date on when this was filmed, tomorrow is when I pick up the tank, so that gives you a better idea on how things are going.

Anyways guys, hope you enjoyed the video, I certainly enjoyed setting this tank up. I think it's awesome. I can't wait to see what you guys think. Let me know in the comment section below. If you're not subscribed to this channel yet and you like what I'm doing, I highly suggest you subscribe or you're going to miss this, especially some of the really cool stuff coming up soon, season next one.

[00:10:07] [END OF AUDIO]

About King of DIY

Joey is THE King of DIY, and when he built his gallery of aquariums he chose the Custom Aquariums rack system with 120-gallon tanks...a lot of them!

Joey Mullen is also known as the king of DIY, uarujoey or the DIY fishkeeper on social media. Providing education and inspiration for aquarium enthusiasts on YouTube, he is also the author of The Ultimate DIY Handbook; for the DIY Aquarist. His channel is about educating all levels of fish tank hobbyists who are passionate about caring for fish and keeping an aquarium of their own. Joey's aquarium rack systems were custom made by our professional fish tank engineers, here at Custom Aquariums.

Please watch the King of DIY's videos for some helpful information and great tips on diy aquarium keeping.

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