My Favorite Fish Tanks (Mini Tour) + Fish Room Update!

Hey everyone hope you're doing well. I wanted to take a quick update video and show you some tanks that you haven't seen in a long time. I also want to bring you up to speed on some new fish I just got in the mail this week and some breeding projects I'm working on. Should be a really fun update video for you so sit back relax and let's get right to it. This tank is home to my Chilothrina blareye rainbowfish. These were given to me from my friend Steve. He gave me a trio and I bred all of these fish and they are absolutely stunning rainbowfish. It's late in the day so you're not going to see their true potential right now but when they really get going they get a deep red on their tail a really beautiful like yellowish green on the body and then they have this super super bright gold breeding stripe that's just absolutely amazing. But I built this tank probably a little over a year ago and I tried to make it look like a fast-moving riverbed. So I have a bunch of round stones I got from a local landscape company and I just placed them in such a way that kind of made it look like a try to make it look like a riverbed. I went minimal with the plants in here a little bit of jungle veil in the back and some I think needle leaf java fern creeping up that manzanita wood. I also have some just anubias nana in here and a couple various crypts nothing crazy. That piece of manzanita wood is really cool I really enjoy it but I'm wondering if maybe I should take it out just because it's just another obstacle for the rainbowfish to swim into and it's got some pretty sharp edges. So let me know what you think about that should I remove that piece of wood or should I just leave it? And I also have some reticulated hillstream loaches in here I think I only have about three of them. I would like to keep breeding them and and put a larger number in here. There are also some cherry shrimp floating around here although I haven't seen them today. I really enjoy this tank this tank actually used to be built into the wall at my old house when I was just a kid growing up. My dad was really into fish he bred discus he had about I think seven tanks and he actually built this into the wall in my room so it was a see-through fish tank and I just thought it was so cool. So he just gifted this to me a couple years ago and it's definitely a sentimental piece because I grew up looking at this tank with discus in it and now it's it's taken on a completely new life and I really enjoy it. I'm sure you know who George Farmer is he's a great aquascaper and he's got a wonderful channel. I've been following him for a long time I really love his content and his style. He takes his face and he pushes it right up against the glass and then he covers his face with his hands kind of like a little kid and it just immerses you into the tank it makes you feel like you're in the tank. It's probably the closest you can get to actually being underwater with the fish you know without actually going underwater with the fish. So do that sometime it might make you look a little silly but smash your face right up against the tank, cover the peripheral vision with your hands, cup your hands around your eyes and just look into the tank and just kind of meditate and get lost in the tank. I do that quite a bit and I really enjoy it. Your spouse might wonder why there's a greasy forehead mark on your tank but maybe try having them do it too it's just a I don't know it's a really unique way to view your fish. If you've never done it give it a try I promise it's it's pretty cool it's immersive. I've said it once and I'll say it again it's better than anything you're going to see on that stupid tv. Sit down just look at your fish tanks. This tank is home to my Chindongo Selusi. They are an Mbuna African cichlid species. They stay pretty small they don't get much bigger than this male right here I think about four inches. Again we were just talking about George Farmer he's got a beautiful Oase tank full of these and it's aquascaped with Anubias. Absolutely stunning go check out his channel. I watch these fish enough on his channel to be like okay I need that fish. So they're a really beautiful fish they're the only African cichlid I've ever kept. I don't know anything about African cichlids but I did my homework on these guys. These are all the same species believe it or not they all start off yellow and as they get older the males turn blue and the females stay yellow and they're a mouth brooding species which means the females will actually hold their young in their mouth until they hatch out and even after they hatch out for I think up to a month or even longer than that sometimes and the female just won't eat. She doesn't eat she keeps them in her mouth keeps them safe and the way you can tell someone's holding they say is it looks like she's got a mouth full of like bubble gum like you know when you were a kid and you took a big pinch of like big league chew and you tried to eat as much of it as you could that's kind of what they look like these are like your cheeks are just like you know just sticking out and I actually see I think one female in here that's holding right now and when we get down to the breeding room I'll show you I've actually got a couple batches of fry I will be selling these in the future if you're interested. I got my original group of 12 from Imperial Tropicals they came in excellent quality look really nice and this is a Marineland 93 gallon cube I think it's 30 by 30 by 30 inches some pretty sketchy stuff I was reading about these tanks actually a lot of them started leaking so I don't think Marineland makes these anymore and actually I do have some bubbles forming in some of my silicone on the other side of this tank so I don't know how long it's actually going to be on my main floor I am worried about it busting or leaking I'm running a sump underneath it this actually was a saltwater system my friend Paul gave this to me when he moved into his new house the old owner left their saltwater system I ran it as a saltwater tank for about a year really enjoyed it but I found out that I do not have the budget or the time for saltwater right now I would love to get into it in the future maybe have one really nice tank yeah I really love these fish they are super aggressive eaters very personable they're not scared of me at all they come right up to the glass when I come up here like little puppies and you can see the dominant male has the most coloration the subdominant males stay more like a pastel kind of color but then the females are equally as beautiful they're just a different color and I actually use my tap water in this tank which is extremely extremely hard pH is way above eight and they they love it but you can see I don't know if you can see in the video I tried to grow some Anubias in here doesn't matter how much fertilizer I give it light it doesn't matter it I can't grow any plants in my tap water it's just it's too hard but yeah it's a really simple tank I am thinking about putting some clown loaches on the bottom here and I think that'd be a lot of fun I would like to get like a group of maybe six but I know those suckers get pretty big so I know I would get attached to them and then I have to get rid of them eventually I really do like this the shape of this tank like I said the build quality worries me a little bit you know what can you do you get a free tank you gotta say yes you can't say no to a free tank this is a tank that kind of started my whole love for the hobby all over again when I was a little boy I had one tank with neon tetras and that was the last tank I kept for probably 20 years and then I got this tank for free another free tank that I couldn't say no to started playing around with different fish I saw a video on YouTube with planted tanks and I fell in love with the idea of underwater plants and you know goes really good with underwater plants rainbow fish so my friend Steve gave me a big breeding group of bozomani rainbow fish and I decided after talking with him and thinking about it for a while I wanted a species-only tank just for these fish they are so special to me not only because Steve gave them to me but because Rosario LaCourte who recently passed away line bred these bozomani to get the most orange coloration he possibly could in the tail region and they have a very dark navy blue head as well just an absolutely gorgeous fish you should have seen them when Steve pulled them out of his backyard pond they were the most colored up rainbow fish I've ever seen in my life absolutely stunning and they really really got me into rainbow fish so they deserve their own hopefully one day I can get them a bigger tank like a 200 plus gallon tank but for now 90 gallons is what we've got and I've got some various plants in here all easy plants like a big big ball of java fern right in the middle again some jungle veil I think it's actually the Italian veil so it's a little smaller I've got some trident fern that's not doing so great it was doing a lot better I've got a couple various amazon swords I've got a nubius nana and a nubius nana petite and a couple other crypts that I can't remember what they are and I forget what that plant in the background is but it's it's an absolute brute and it grows really fast I redid this tank and I did have a sand foreground and I also have three big plecos in here so keeping it a sand foreground is going to be impossible I have pretty much given up on that and I'm okay with aqua soil just getting pushed to the front now because those big dinguses they don't they don't care I'll make it all nice and then in two days there's there's aqua soil everywhere so if I want to do that over again I think what I would do is I'd cap the entire aquascape with sand and not just the front of it but this tank really gives me an opportunity to enjoy this one species I've also got some roseline sharks in here that are absolute tanks and I'd like to get them in a bigger tank eventually one otocinclus that I've had forever I used to have a group but he's the last surviving one so I'd like to get more of those and I think there are two albino plecos and one wabin monster pleco I got one programi but he's not that great looking he's just kind of chilling in here and I think I have 12 trilineatus corridors in here as well but I recently started the co2 on this tank again it went for the longest time without co2 so that's going to kind of help boost plant growth I do have a an automatic doser that doses nutrients into the water every day it's a jabao single head doser I got off ebay and if you're wondering what I use for fertilizer I use nylock g thrive but I use the one that's got less nitrates in it there's a lean version because nylock g the thrive does have quite a bit of nitrates in it like too much nitrates in my opinion for what I'm doing so I get the one that's got less nitrates I would like to breed a tetra and put a giant school of tetras in here as well and the options right now are rummy nose tetras cardinal tetras raccoon tetras or blueberry tetras so let me know your opinion what would look really good with the bozomani rainbow fish I was kind of hoping to do the rummy nose tetras but I also think the the raccoon tetras a big school of them would be really pretty because I just really love that tetra I think it's beautiful but the blueberries would look good too so I don't know I don't know just let me know what you think and I would really appreciate a comment on that because I am having a hard time picking but I guess I gotta breed these fish beforehand anyway I've got two nykru planted led pluses on here it's a very budget friendly light I think they're 60 a piece they're not expensive and obviously they grow plants pretty well so if you're looking for a budget light that's good for a planted tank nykru makes great lights but you got to get the planted plus one I'll put a link in the description yeah I just absolutely love these fish I think this light makes them look really nice and what I like about the bozomani is they always look nice some rainbow fish are only good looking in the morning or at night these guys are tens all the time just got a fluvo fx6 on here doing my filtration it's a pain in the butt to clean but I only clean it like once every six months so it's really not a big deal um the anubias is starting to show new growth which is nice with that co2 going in doesn't need co2 but it really helps and this anubias nana petite really looks nice over here there's a little gang of corys hanging out a lot of dark areas in this tank that are really nice for like the plecos and the corys to hang out there's one of the albino plecos kind of hanging back there yeah just a beautiful tank love to get a school of tetras in here as well and like I said I probably will have to remove some of these rainbows the bigger they get I don't have a heater in this tank because it's actually directly over a vent so in the winter I kind of open that vent a little bit and it heats the the cabinet which in turn heats the water the water stays right around 74 degrees like year round in the summertime when the ac is on I just stuff a towel in that vent so no ac goes into this tank and again it stays right around 74 so it really is nice I don't like heaters if I don't have to use them I don't because I've lost too many fish to heater failures already and I would be absolutely devastated if I lost this whole tank of bozomani aren't they just spectacular absolutely love them and what's really cool is I got a window right here if I leave this window open certain parts of the certain times of the year sunlight comes in and hits this side of the tank and you really get to see these fish in the sun oh it's it's absolutely gorgeous so you step back that's what this tank looks like it's absolutely beautiful I'd love to get a bigger tank in this spot someday I wonder if a 220 would fit and I'll take you back down in the fish room and just show you some other things I've been working on some really fun projects so I cleaned up the floor by the pond I'm trying to make this a little bit of a seating area so I tried to move this monstera and it wouldn't move because it's already rooted itself there's a bunch of roots that are just digging in to like underneath the pond and it's not going anywhere now so I am probably going to trim this pond it's getting a little out of control and I would like to have like a little open water maybe right in the middle just so I can view the fish sold the last of my opaline gouramis and pearl gouramis I just kind of have a couple marble angelfish in this 40 gallon they were starting to breed I had a group of four in here and the group of four were just pecking the eggs the second they were coming out so a little disappointing but that's okay they're just kind of getting the hang of it so I think this is a pair I'd like to get some marble angelfish going I bought another line of dumbo mosaic half moon guppies and they came in kind of sick one was already DOA and the other two had like a pretty good body fungus on them already luckily the mom dropped I think five fry so hopefully they grow up to be decent fish because the male see on the bottom is dead it just died and the female is up on the top treating them with medication but I think it's too late I think I'm going to lose them I recently bought a group of gossy eye corridoras they are absolute walruses and I love them so much my new friend Tyler was buying some kalimoisie off of me and he offered a breeding group to me and I couldn't say no they're absolutely gorgeous but I've only had them for about two weeks and I just threw a mop in here and a little eheim skimmer and I got eggs today we had a major cold front come in I did a 50% water change but feed them lots of blood worms and ebo insect granules and they blessed me with about 50 eggs so hopefully we can hatch those eggs they're right here in this container these are the mbuna cichlids that I was talking about that are upstairs I had a holding female I put in here she spit her fry out removed her been raising them up same thing this is a slightly younger batch but had a female holding she spit her fry out pulled her out been raising them up I've got some baby teacup platties in here they're starting to grow up how cute are they super orange I'll probably be bringing these to the local grade school I have a tank I'll link a video in the description if you want to check it out I made a little river tank for the local grade school and I think that they would really like it you can see I have the parents in this breeding basket I only put them in here for about a week because they look like they're about to pop I'll be probably bringing them to the school soon I just wanted to get another batch going super super cute platties pretty much the most colorful fish in this in this fish room I'm completely out of pearl gourami so I'm trying to breed more of them I got a male and a female in this 10 gallon they don't really seem interested in breeding right now I don't know if they're even old enough yet still working on raising up the Venezuelan corys they're growing fast because I'm giving lots of water changes got another pair of angelfish I removed from my breeding tank I have their black marble angelfish so hopefully they give me some eggs really like this one recently got some eggs from the blueberry tetras in this breeding tank so that was really exciting blueberry tetra will scatter a bunch of eggs and instead of being right on the bottom of the aquarium where they can just readily eat them they fall into this mesh I put a little piece of yarn on it and every day that I think they bred I come down here I grab the yarn with my finger and I just have a little look see I just pull it up and I'll shine a flashlight and see if there's any eggs I just think that's such a nice way of doing it because you don't have to remove the fish so if I see eggs what I do I take a siphon it's a little DIY siphon but basically it's a siphon hose with half inch PEX tubing so it's a rigid tube that goes down into the aquarium I siphon those eggs out into a bucket swirl the water around suck the eggs out and I then I can harvest tetra eggs without ever moving the fish I saw so many eggs in the raccoon tetra tank that I decided not to do that I decided to actually move the adults so I moved them over to this tank for now they're just kind of chilling in here and I'm going to try to raise the babies up in this 20 gallon so I've got some infusoria culturing out right here it's pretty seasoned it's been going for about a month now I've been feeding them that and fry powder so I'm really trying hard to raise these guys I harvested a bunch of eggs from these guys today and they're already hatching so same thing trying to raise those up really trying to get into breeding tetras next on the list once I figure those two out are cardinal tetras and my favorite rummy nose tetras I would love to get a big group of rummy tetras so a lot of people commented on my last video saying that they saw a method to breed the rummy nose tetras is to put it like a leaf floating on the surface and then they breed on top of that leaf I saw that same video I gotta try that that might be the key I did try that with my old tank but the leaf like sank right away so that kind of stinks and I have a new group of fish I just got in the mail this week these are Melanotania Picta absolutely gorgeous fish they don't look like much right now I've been keeping my eyes peeled for these for a while now and I'm super pumped that I found them I also have some new white cloud minnows that I just purchased I just don't want to keep over breeding the same genetics so every once in a while I do this with my CPDs and other fish that I breed a lot I buy a new genetic line and I mix them in with my line just to kind of keep the gene pool deep and I don't want any kind of deformities or any kind of problem so these guys came in looking really healthy they're in quarantine right now they look really good though and I have an absolute ton of corys growing out down here and I have an absolute ton of corys growing up in the fry tanks I finally got the Trilineatus to start producing lots of eggs and you see this one is interesting this is a mixture of Trilineatus and Venezuelans you can see the different colorations that's kind of cool and these are mostly Trilineatus or the false julies but have an absolute boatload of these growing up which is great because I think corys sell really well and they look really good in a big group so all right it's been a few days and I just want to tell you I have so much to do and so many cool products to try out that it's going to be a busy few days for me I just got a big big shipment of plants from Aquarium Co-op I love buying plants from them everything always comes in super healthy and I love that they're carrying Tropica One Two Grow got a lot more plants over here really cool product if you don't know what this is there's gonna be a dedicated video on that super pumped about that Hyger is making a new aquarium soil I'm gonna be there's a hole in the bottom so I got it upside down but gonna be making a video on this got a UNS Contra soil which I've never tried before Contra base is brand new it's a super nutrient rich base for planted tanks I'm really excited about this too gonna be growing some seeds for an outdoor garden later and with this I've got a really really cool grow light from Berena to try out the gossy eye corys that I recently purchased are already breeding again and that's good news because I really want to get a big group of these guys and the eggs that we were hatching out the eggs look like they've hatched out either yesterday or today and they are ready to get moved to a fry tray so I'm really excited about that it looks like we got a really good hatch oh and something else really cool I just picked up seven more 20 highs so I've got five more for down here and I've got two more for up here so this room is almost gonna be done the only area that we've got left is this area right here which I might end up just doing two more 75s because I think I'll be getting a tank back from the grade school the tank that I set up at the grade school might be coming down and if that's the case I'm gonna be bringing it back to this room and I think I'll just be doing another rack of 75s kind of like the one you see right there oh and our Monstera gave us a new leaf and that's the best leaf I've ever seen look at that how cool is that there's my hand look how big this leaf is it's huge also got some eggs from my gold marble angels the dad's on guard duty and the mom is fanning them with her pectoral fins so I'll be moving those probably to an empty tank like this the way I hatch angels out I throw them in a empty 10 gallon with some methylene blue and an airstone next to the eggs not hitting the eggs but close to it and let them get to that wiggling stage and then start doing big water changes to get the methylene blue out and that's pretty much it I'll raise them in the tent till I can move them to a bigger tank Berena has sent me a really cool grow light I'm gonna be doing a video on and this thing looks like it puts out some serious power I got it suspended from the ceiling and we are starting to start some seeds in here Jordan's gonna have a flower garden this year and I'm gonna do vegetables so only the future knows what uh what we're gonna get into with this light but it gets ridiculously bright like ridiculously bright I don't know if that's even gonna really probably not gonna look like anything on camera but it's like insane Berena also sent me two more lights I'm gonna be using these to grow some houseplants out of the top of the 75 because there's kind of a lot of void space right here and I'd like to fill that in with plant matter I think that'd look really nice and while we're talking about the 75 I did switch out the the light for a nitro planted plus I'm using my finger to focus so that I can kind of show you all the fry I did that how to breed rainbow fish video I'll link it in in this video if you want to go check that out these this is the progress of some of the eggs I'm hatching out so you can see I got a bunch of little sticks and they're actually starting to eat baby brine shrimp too so you'll see a little bit of orange bellies on them after I feed them with baby brine shrimp but yeah rainbow fish start off really small see how tiny these little guys are if I don't have my finger in here I can't focus on them then it focuses on the backdrop we're gonna keep it pretty short I don't want to bore you too much but I figured I'd show you some new fish I've got and some tanks you probably haven't seen in a long time if you've been watching the channel for a little while now so thank you so much for watching really appreciate you guys and I'll catch you in the next one. Bye!