Joey Mullen: [chuckles] Look what I got. I went to my local fish store to pick up some new fish as well as some plants for the first tank we will be setting up, which is this one here. The thought process was simple. What do you guys want to see? A tremendous amount of you guys want small fish, community fish, livebearers, et cetera. I think with the first tank, we will be doing a lot of tiny fish. I actually want to do a bunch of tiny fish that are both colorful, active and just fun to watch in the aquarium. I also want to do some plants in this tank, but I also want to keep it all very beginner oriented.
What's the point of me setting up a tank if you can't follow along and potentially do it yourself? Let's just jump right into what we got. All fish and plants, for the time being, will be going into the far tank over here for quarantine where I can specifically have them in a tank where we can treat them, do dips and whatever we need to do before we transport them to here, but that doesn't mean I need to quarantine them for six weeks because I'll be able to separate this aquarium from its system, put it on its own filtration, separate it from the top tank so there's no cross-contamination.
What I will be doing is probably for about five days I'll be doing a little bit of meditating in the main aquarium. In the future video, we'll talk about that and what I do as well as dipping the plants and whatnot. However, we won't have to wait forever like six weeks to set up this tank. We'll be able to move into this right away. I don't know if all the plants are for this. Let's just jump right into the fish.
[chuckles] They're so adorable. I wanted something that was going to be colorful, flashy, active, exciting, fun to watch, and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do until I remembered one of the fish that I've kept- the first part of my hobby, which was tiger barbs. Now, in my opinion, tiger barbs, out of the barb family, are not very "beginner friendly". Probably one of the meanest and most nippiest. Next to that are actually the most common barb that shouldn't be kept by beginners is the tinfoil barb. They just get way too big, but there's a ton of really fun barbs that you can keep. [chuckles] Right now, they all look the same.
Let me jump to some footage that I had on my phone from the local fish store. I saw these odyssey barbs. Now, these guys do tend to get a little bit bigger than your typical barb but extremely colorful and add a little bit of black and splash of additional color that a lot of other barbs don't have. Had to have them. Then, of course, I had to get the Neon Rosy Barb. These guys are just absolutely stunning. I think barbs are a much underappreciated fish.
However, if you're a beginner getting into the hobby, you don't know what to keep, you don't really have a big tank, you want something that's colorful, active and fun to watch, that interacts with its environment and each other, barbs are a fantastic choice. I hope that this video and the set up will display barbs in a beautiful way, but we'll see what we can do. At the end of the day, guys, it is me. I can only do so much here. I'm only working with so much talent. Yes, the Neon Rosy Barbs. They're going to look really good when they're older. The gold barb, this is almost like a yellow barb. Notice that we're getting different colors, a splash of three or four different colors. The gold barb is mostly gold and has a bit of blotches, usually too, but absolutely stunning as well. All of these barbs that we're going to be showing average between inch and a half to three inches. Then of course, arguably my favorite type of barb, the cherry barb.
I think these guys are absolutely stunning. Not enough people are keeping them or talking about them. They stay relatively small, meaning you can keep more and just have the barb mentality extremely active. They can be a little picky. When it comes to barbs, you definitely want to stock six plus. You can tend to mix them if you have large groups.
These little guys are all washed out. Here's those cherry barbs. Me, I'm doing 20 of each. They don't like it in their bag, cherries. 20 of the golds. They just look like little minnows right now. Guys, I'm telling you right now, when these guys get larger, they're going to be absolutely gorgeous fish. These are those odysseys. They're going to be doing absolutely phenomenal in no time.They're not a fish that lives particularly long, so they'll get to adult size relatively quickly. I'm going to be doing 80 of them in a 120, which is to an extent kind of overstocked but not really.
When it comes to barbs, you can almost follow that inch per gallon rule that everybody talks about. That's entirely unaccurate for the most part. When it comes to certain tiny little fish, you can apply it, and barbs are one of those fish. You just got to be careful what you put them in with. Again, they are nippy, so you don't want to put in angelfish, for example, to just nip at their fins nonstop. Plus, they could nip and tear parts of some plants, so you got to be careful there.
When it comes to plants, which we're moving onto next, I want to see what we can do with a shop light. A shop light is a very common light fixture that most or a lot of hobbyists use that I have found in my time in my hobby are tossing on their aquarium. Why not see what we can make happen with a shop light in an aquarium? No other equipment. Just a filter and shop lights, some plants and some barbs and just see what we can make happen. I'm thinking with the plants, we have-- We should look at the plants.
I hope that the barbs- which I better float in the tank here -don't cause too much of a disappointment with people. I know that every time I get new fish I'm not going to please everybody, but again, let's make a nice little barb tank. We'll enjoy it like do the others, and we'll eventually cycle through these as well. I think a lot of people based on the 2000 and my history on YouTube think I'm going to be keeping nothing but exotic fish out here, and that was never the point of the gallery. I want you guys to actually be able to emulate what I'm doing on some sort of an extent. I don't mean to have a rack of tanks, but maybe the barb tank gets you into the hobby.
Maybe the barb tanks inspires you to have one. Maybe you want to use the lights or the filters or the tanks or what piece of equipment that I'm-- We've used three different types of lights on these tanks now. We are cycling through a bunch of different things and giving you guys a bunch of different options. I hope that this is becoming more and more clear. It's just taken me a year and a half to do it.
Plants, cringe warning. I got myself a mother plant of Java fern. She's a big, big, big baby. I love me some-- There are snails on here. I'm not sure what I want to do. Do I keep the snails? I could put them in the quarantine for now, or should I keep the snails? I will treat for pests in terms of-- Besides snails, I will treat for any sorts of bacteria. We do need to quarantine plants as well as fish unless you want to skip the quarantine process, but plants, we need to do a dip. We'll do a separate video on that eventually at some point. Why? Because parasites like ick can be carried in on plants as well so you definitely want to be carried. You want to quarantine everything and treat everything.
Theme here, easy to keep plants that look pretty good that will grow in an environment like this. Now, you guys know I have lots of Anubias and lots of different Java ferns and mosses. It's time to slowly get into a few other plants, introduce you guys to a few more things. It won't stay in that pot forever, just now. I also got a bunch of new mosses. We've got some Weeping Moss. Isn't that pretty? Wonder what it taste like. Remember when I used to eat my plants?
Then we've got some Christmas moss. Going to be a little more fluffy. This is Java moss guys, like pretty much the same thing, different variants of it. Java moss can come in different variants and different looks and different growth patterns, et cetera. Plus, you can take a Christmas moss or any one of these mosses and depending on the level in the tank that you're growing it, it's going to display and grow differently. Maybe you have CO2; maybe you don't. Maybe you have a high lighting; maybe you have low lighting, whatever the case might be. There's so many variables when it comes to Java mosses. I find them fascinating myself. Full disclosure, the only plant in my hobby that I've never killed was Java moss.
Then we have some Spiky moss. This will look familiar. Now, we've kept this in the 375 when we wrapped all of that Manzanita in. Now, this doesn't look like a lot of moss, but in no time we will multiply this by several amounts because it grows relatively quickly. I want to pick up three different types of Mosses. I think maybe we'll put them all in that one tank. Maybe we'll see how they perform and grow over time, and we can pick our favorite or you guys can get an idea of what's what, but ultimately, easy to keep plant. Java fern easy to keep plant and Java fern doesn't even need a substrate. Attach it to wood if you want.
Oh, okay. I remember why I got these. These are not easy to keep plants. I wanted to do an experiment. I got a few cups. I got a few cups of Hemianthus. I don't know if I'm pronouncing these right. I rarely do, but it's called the Cuba. It's a carpeting plant and what I want to do-- Oh, so pretty. This is a culture tissue or tissue culture plant free from pests. If you want to skip the whole snail thing and potential ick and potential pathogens and parasites being carried in on stem plants that you could buy like this or potted plants or whatever the case might be, then you go with aquaculture. We did this for my planter tank a little while back where we did that high tech.
Anyways, this is a carpeting plant ideally, high light, CO2 for it to carpet and grow properly, but it will also grow on wood and other surfaces. I want to do an experiment. Could we keep a very difficult and more advanced plant? It is rated as advanced in a very, very beginner type setup. Let me know your thoughts on that. I know that it probably won't do well, but maybe it does. Maybe it does better at near the top. I don't know. I'm just interested and excited to try it.
What the hell is this? This didn't look like this. This is not really a beginner's plant. It's not in my opinion, although it is rated as being an easy to keep plant. It's starting to wilt and die already. Look at this floppy little thing. This is Echinodorus parti. Planted aquarium people must cringe when they hear me pronounce these plants. Basically, it's a sword plant. Once submerged, it does not look like this. I suspect the leaves are going to fall off. It should grow longer narrow leaves. I've never really had success with swords because I've never kept them properly. I don't think it's going to go in this tank. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but what I do know is I'm going to put it in quarantine and see what happens to it and see if we can grow it, and we'll go from there.
This is going to bring back a lot of memories for some of my first plants I ever had. I had a few species of the [unintelligible 00:11:29]. This is the[unintelligible 00:11:33] guyi or gayi. I'm not sure it's G-A-Y-I, gayi. I don't know how to say it. Look at that. It's almost like a grass, right? Now, together, we're going to take a look at all these in the aquarium. I figured these for sure in there with a little bit of a planted tank soil, but I want to keep this tank down to the bare minimum of equipment and supplies and costs and see if we can make a few things grow.
Now, this one is also a plant I kept a long time ago, and I had some success with it. I'm trying to emulate what I used to have success with as a beginner and trying to remember that so I can guide you along, so you can become the king of DIY one day. Water wisteria or Hygrophila difformis or something along those lines. Again, all you planted fish tank people, please go in the comments and correct my pronunciation. Give common names for the people that actually want to keep these things and be able to find them. They don't want to go to the local fish store and try to say something the way I'm saying because they will have no clue what they're talking about. That's it.
This is very common, very bushy plant, very easy. Look, it's really good behind some wood or something like that. Very easy to propagate. This is a stem plant. We'll go over how to plant them and whatnot here in the near future. By near future, I mean maybe even the next video. We've got a bunch of that Cuba carpeting plant, a bunch of the different types of mosses and then, of course, look, a bunch of fun plants.
This is that plant I was telling you about, the gayi. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. People are going to think I'm saying it wrong and I probably am, but isn't that really cool, how it's like very grassy? I love it. Very Long, very grass, very bushy. The fish will love swimming inside that. Then of course, another green type plant but Hygrophila, very bushy.
Now, these are very beginner plants. Beginner, beginner, beginner. Beginner for sure. Beginner for sure. A little beginner-ish, sort of. This is going to come down to how much nutrients in the plant, do we need to add in supplements, et cetera. I don't know what the heck's going to happen with this thing, but I did think it was fun enough, and it was big enough for me to try something. Maybe it ends up in with the angels at some point or another.
Let's take a look at the barbs now that they're kind of acclimating here. Ah, shoot, I can't really see here. This is them cherries. I know they're nothing to look at right now, but I am telling you these guys are going to end up absolutely gorgeous. Bright red, very active, just absolutely stunning. Then the golds, they're just a classic fish. Then, of course, the roseys and the odysseys, you won't see much of a difference between the two right now. Give them time. Let's acclimate them. That's quite a nice little handful of plants to go here.
Now, here's the problem when it comes to me setting up a tank, plant a tank, anything of the sort. I'm not going to buy a mat--That's more plants than I've ever started out with, by the way. I'm like you. I buy a few stems. I grow. I have to cultivate them or propagate them, et cetera. That's how a hobbyist sets up an aquarium. I know there's an absolutely stunning Aquascapers out there, but I can't relate to that. I'm not going to buy 2000, 3000 dollars worth of plants and have an immediate effect, although that's gorgeous. The hobbyist starts off with something like this, and that's where I feel as though we could truly accomplish something here. I just hope it works.
What do you guys think of the plants? Did I choose the right plants? Should we have done something different? I feel we got a nice little mix of something a little more advanced to test around and try and play with, then of course, some things that are most likely going to survive. I think the barbs is a really fun idea. I think it's great. Many of you guys are suggesting livebearers. Listen, we could do Mollys. We could do guppies. What do you think we could do? We could do a small livebearer tank. I also thought of other fish that could go in with the barbs eventually. We'll see. I've also been looking into topping off the angels. Perhaps we do something a little different there.
Yes, I'm really happy we're doing this tank. I'm really excited. I really can't wait to set it up. I just don't know what I want to do for an aquascape. Again, I don't think this is going to be a grand slam. Every new tank I get, everybody's just going to absolutely love it, but patience. We've got four to go through, and we're going to do some fun things. Once we get those setup, maybe we could take a look at some other tanks that we need to go through as well.
Next video, I think we will do setup of this tank. I'll see if I have enough time. I really like this idea of this tank. I love the fact that we'd still beginner-- I'm sorry I keep repeating myself. It's just making me excited. I love that it's very beginner-ish. I've really feel like I'm tapping into where I started, and then I could turn around and be like, "Wow, look how far we've come". Go from keeping-- I guess my first fish was a piranha, so it's not really a beginner's fish, but it's really what I wanted. Isn't that ironic that I've seen a piranha tank, and I was absolutely inspired by it? That's how I got into the hobby, and I had to have that.
That is what I'm trying to do here, folks. I hope that somebody sees this tank, and they want that, and that's how they get into the hobby. I hope that somebody maybe, they see wall roof for the first time and they've been in the hobby forever, but they experiment with wall roof. Who knows? Maybe they start breeding and distributing locally to their local hobbyists, and they become a really popular fish. Maybe people that watch the videos on the redtail catfish realize that this is too big for me, and I can't buy it. I'll enjoy it on Joey's channel or something along those lines.
I do hope that we're doing the right thing out here, and if I'm not, we have an awful lot of fish tanks that I don't know what to do with. Hope you guys enjoyed today's video. I hope you're looking forward to the setup. If you had some suggestions, please let me know. I do read them and as always, could use them. I'll see you guys in a few days when we start setting this bad boy up. Give it time. You're not sold now. That's what everybody says. Give me some time.
