Speaker 1: There are lots of pros and cons when it comes to having the aquarium gallery. The pros, of course, is that the aquarium gallery is serving its purpose. The cons are it's expensive, it's time-consuming, and I actually have to let it live up to its purpose. Two years ago, almost to the day that I said this, "Imagine if I only kept each tank running for about a year, then we switched out some of the stocking, maybe we changed the aquascape, maybe I didn't have a livebearer tank at first but then we got one. Imagine this, tank one, all the tanks are set up for about a year, then I start on tank one. I switch all that out. A month later, I switch another one out.
A month later, I switch another one out. It sounds horrible saying it like that but by the time I get to the other tank, two years have gone by. I don't think that's the real timeline and I don't think I'm going to do them in that exact order, but by the time I switch up the last tank, the first tank we switched out is now 10 months old."
Essentially reviewing the plans and the overall goals of the aquarium gallery, and that is to continuously switch out the aquariums and stock, much like aquascapers do where they only have a few tanks to work with, so they'll set up a tank, they'll scape it and then they shut it down and start a new one, do an article on it, et cetera, you get the idea.
While some people don't like the idea of doing that like only keeping the aquarium for a year or sometimes it's only several months. I'm not the biggest fan of it either, but the aquarium gallery isn't about me and it's not necessarily about you enjoying an individual tank, it's about me using the aquariums as opportunities to inspire, educate and get as many people interested in the aquarium hobby as possible. If we kept the same 10 tanks in here, our range is going to be limited. The hardest part about having the aquarium gallery is sticking to my word.
The Tropheus aquarium was obviously next on the list of aquariums to switch over, and they were the first fish into the 120-gallon aquariums and I was pretty attached to them. We went through everything, they even started breeding. We had an established colony, and I think I was so attached to them because they were so difficult to get them established. We ended up with a colony of 25. A colony of 25 established breeding group of Tropheus is probably worth about $500 or more.
It should be noted that I don't actually sell the fish once we are switching them out, I always donate them or give them away to a friend that I know can care for them and there's been a friend of mine that has been chomping at the bit to wanting to get his hands on these Tropheus for over a year now, and I had promised him so he got them. Anyways, let's jump to the footage of me adding the fish in and then we're going to come back and talk about what's going on today.
Okay, so if you didn't watch my last video, these guys came in on an order, they spent about 26 hours in these bags. I went over and I talked about what's happening in the bags, why I acclimate them the way I do in terms of getting them to temperature and why I get them out of the bag and not mixing the water and that sort of thing. If you plan on buying new fish, you might want to watch that video.
We're going to go ahead and add the shell dwellers first. These are the smaller fish and I want them to be introduced as close to their shells as possible, give them the best chance of survival. Just a little handful of these guys. Try to get them as close down-- One got out-- to the net or to their shells as possible. Into their shells they go. Wow, look at those guys go.
All right, they are adorable. These guys will get a little bit bigger than the previous shell dwellers we've shown before and will display a tremendously amount of more color. In the similar set we had previously, we admired the striations and their color patterns. They're already digging in the sand, are you kidding me? I literally just-- He went in. Yes, so these guys will spend their lives inside shells. They'll breed in them, they eat in them, they defend them, they literally live in these shells. They love this sort of sand as well, so they will dig in the sand, they'll spit it out, they create homes.
I'm going to give them a few minutes to try and get established in here and then we'll add in the other fish. The other fish, of course, if we only have these tiny little guys, the tank would look tremendously empty, not a lot of action and we want to make sure that this tank is not only fascinating to watch at the bottom, but entertaining and lively throughout the top with colorful and appealing fish that might make you want to get an aquarium or an African cichlid tank or a Lake Tanganyika, which this tank is.
Let's start adding these guys in. Oh my Lord, they're just absolutely beautiful. Okay, here goes the first ones. Oh, wow, they almost glow like an orange, yellow-- oh, what a beauty. They have the big mouths on them as well. Of course, once they get established and acclimated, they'll come up to the top of the tank. Let's take a closer look. Look at that. Just beautiful. Whoa, what a nice little combination as well.
These guys don't live in shells, they don't care for the shells, they will swim around a lot more. Those shell dwellers are already out and exploring, they're looking, they're checking their territories, they're nipping at things on the ground, they look like they've already acclimated. The process with these guys, even being such a tiny and nano-type fish, are an extremely hardy rewarding fish to keep, but they just don't breed in numbers to sustain the actual demand. For example, they might lay maybe 10, 15 fry, maybe more, maybe closer to 20 or 50, but it's not like the Vieja, where these guys are laying 1,000 eggs type of deal or 500 eggs.
Of course, the demand for these massive fish wouldn't be as high or as easy to maintain or as popular as these ones, because of course you could put like a nice little trio in a 10 gallon and before you know it, you might have 20 little fish in there that just need a few shells, but you definitely need at least three shells per fish. We added eight in here and there's about 50 shells. They are scattered throughout. There some in the back there, they're throughout the entire rock work behind them. They're everywhere, giving them opportunities to get away and to go wherever they want.
Look at those leleupi. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. This is going to be a fascinating tank to watch just like the others. That's a dominant male, look at him, just puffing up like, "Hey, girls, look at me. Check out the pipes." I think he's got a little female right there behind him his trying to impress. I don't blame him, she's cute. When they kind of flash down, their bellies are blue like a neon blue. Let take a close look at them. Then, his gill plates have like a black marking on it. Their heads are darker and the rest of their bodies are like a yellow-green. What a pretty little fish. I'm going to love this tank.
All right, last bag. We got 20 in total of these guys. This tank isn't going to be as active or as stocked as the previous, but it's still going to be equally rewarding. I wanted to give this species of shell dweller a little bit more opportunity to grow in this tank, and hopefully we start getting some fry and whatnot at a relatively fast pace, but keep in mind, they are relatively small, it could be a few months before we actually start seeing fry.
If you guys remember, the last shell-dweller tank I had, we were breeding those nonstop. Not a difficult fish to breed at all. Go on in you gorgeous, gorgeous fish. Hopefully, these guys will tolerate and leave the shell dwellers alone, but they do tend to be semi-aggressive, so I do that and make sure that I add 20 of them so they can interact with each other and no worry about what's going on down low.
Now, check this out. Look at the color on these guys. Isn't that beautiful? Look at them. Right now, they're just kind of swimming pass the shell dwellers. If I keep these tanks properly feed, then they're going to have no reason to really go after the shell dwellers. Look at them. He doesn't look like he's doing too fantastic. Little bit listless, lost his color, but again this things kind of happen, perhaps he was just resting. I don't know a tremendous amount of information on these fish and that was exciting to me. I love learning new things. I love challenging myself. I love teaching you guys and showing you guys new things, but these two African cichlid tanks have got to be-- I'm just happy we went with small tiny fish and a big old fish tank.
I am in love with this aquarium. I want to mention one thing first, it's about switching the fish again. Let me shut this light off. If we never-- If you guys remember, this tank used to be way up there. It was above the new shell-dweller tank that used to be Malawi peacocks, a stunning, absolutely beautiful fish, but if we never switched them out and started, we wouldn't have this tank. That tank's absolutely awesome, look at it. Some people were like, "Oh, it needs more fish, it needs more life."
Let me just focus here. They're everywhere. These guys are just babies. We got a lot of them grow. They still got some size to put on. This tank is definitely stocked properly. No deaths as of yet. People are waiting for see who's going to die and who's not. Still, haven't added in more simulus, but those guys are not even hiding. Look at them all out. Nobody is attacking them.
I will say the [unintelligible 00:10:01] are doing some rituals here and there, it's really interesting to find. I think this guy here is the dominant one. Of course, he's so grumpy looking. Look at him. Look at that face. A face only I could love [chuckles]. Anyways, back to the other tank. These guys are actually lemon cichlids as their common name or leleupi. People cringe at the way you pronounce. I love it. That's like half the thing is pronouncing them wrong. It's just funny, but what it does is cements these names into your head. It gets people interested.
These guys those are a crevice-type cichlids. This tank is absolutely perfect for these fish. Check out the crevices. They're hungry right now and they think I'm going to feed them, but they usually are back in the crevices hiding, poking their heads out, enjoying the back area and that's why the shells are littered in the front.
These shell dwellers are I would say a little more entertaining than the multifasciatus or the simulus which are both very similar in appearance, but these guys are like tiny little devils, just beast. They're constantly warring together, establishing their territories. Look at them, they don't care. They're there with the leleupis, the lilies, I don't know, but they have these eyes that are almost situated on the top of their heads.
Let me see if I can get a clear shot. They're so tiny, but they look hilarious and watching them fight and whatnot. I'm going to have to set the camera up and let it roll one of these days so you guys can actually watch it, but they've mostly established in this area. Every once in a while, they'll come over to this area and we have 100% survival with this tank as well.
As for the plants, I'm just trying it out to see what happens. I'm okay to sacrifice these plants just to see what's going to work and what's not. I love the lighting. I love how it lights the tank. We're only using one light, I even took the other one down so I wouldn't be tempted to turn it on, because this is just such a unique look and I want everything to be unique looking in nature. I do think it will probably lose these two over here and potentially this one, but I'm pretty sure this one will do okay.
Now, this isn't a planted tank substrate, this is a sand substrate, but it is two years old, so it should have enough nutrients to support at least some aquatic plant life, but we'll see. If it doesn't, I think it does look out of place, so I'll be okay if we've got to take them out, transfer them to another tank or something like that, but for now I don't mind it. The fish seem to enjoy it.
Look, see how they go up into the crevices? Look at this guy. Can you see him up there? I'm going to have to adjust the camera. See him up there? He'll go up there. What they'll do a lot of the times is they'll lay flat against it facing upwards. I'm not actually feeding right now. We'll do some feeding videos of all the new fish here in a future video, but this is just another-- Look, these two. I'm just going to focus on these two for a sec. Look, see the shell dwellers? They're bickering a little bit. Not much, but they're a little bit.
If these guys were not comfortable in the tank, I can assure you they would not be out of it. Another one over here. Lemons are fighting a little bit. Yes, I love this tank too. This is a shell-dweller aquarium as well, but so much different than the original. I know that having two shell dweller or two Tanganyika tanks is repetitive, but they are so different that they had to be done. They had to be done. In six months, three to six months, I can't way to see how this goes.
See, there's another one perched up on the output over there. I love how they interact with this environment. I think it's absolutely fascinating. Let me just get my camera. There's another guy. See, they're crevice dwellers. Unless they're hungry, they'll come out here, but they're rarely out with the shells. Unless I come over here. If I'm looking at this tank from afar or if I set this camera up for a little while, they're all in the back. It's almost like a moving background with how they interact. It's just so different, so incredibly different.
I don't know, let me know what you guys think of this tank. I think it's absolutely awesome. If you guys enjoy it, let me know in the comments section below or what you would change. How do you feel about these plants? I think it's worth testing just to see what we can do. This is a crypt spiralis I believe, and low light, low needs but maybe the light and the nutrients are just a little too low in this tank. Nonetheless, I'd still be curious to get your feedback.
I got to say that all of these tanks as of right now are phenomenally different. I truly feel like we finally have what I originally envisioned and we're not even close to being done. We still have to finish other tanks. We still have to set some more up. There's other things that I have planned that you guys have no idea about, but this tank, I'm just in love with it. I'm in love with the entire gallery right now. Coming out here is just so fascinating and exciting and I hope you guys are enjoying it so far. If you are, and you're not subscribed to his channel yet, make sure you do so you don't miss any of these videos.
