APPROACHING 1000

Good afternoon. This is Father Fish, and I'm in front of our Blackwater tank. It's 150 gallons, or maybe it's 200 gallons. Six foot by two by two, it's 200 gallons. It has mostly South American, very small, very small fish. The biggest fish in there is the albino pleco, bushy-nosed pleco. He's about five inches. Everything else is about an inch. You've seen pictures of the Apisto, who is in there with her babies. She's been ushering them around for about two weeks. I'm sitting here in front of this system because it has been a long time coming. It took two years to develop and put this system together. It has not come easily. It has not come quickly. We have struggled with it on many different levels, but it finally has achieved a stability that we're really quite excited about. And that's exactly what I want to talk with the fish fam about today. This channel, the Father Fish channel, is not something that has truly happened quickly. It has taken many years. We started it in about 2007, 2008. A friend of mine insisted that I get involved way back then. He came in and made some videos, some of which are posted on our channel, but I never really understood what it was all about. Never had a heart for it. And so other things happened, other opportunities with the shop, and I moved forward with those. Finally, last fall, I decided it was time to get back on this channel and try to make something of it. I actually created a new one. Kind of merged what was going on and started on my birthday, September the 14th. As many of you are aware, I was bouncing along a little frustrated right on the bottom of YouTube for about two months. I managed to acquire 50 subscriptions in two months and they were all personal friends people who were customers we stopped in and wanted to be helpful and then Lucas somehow found me and without my knowledge he asked his subscribers his friends his supporters to subscriber bomb me and bomb me they did within three days nearly 300 subscribers had signed on to my channel this accomplished a lot of different things for one thing it put me in touch with a corner of the fish fam that I have found to be loving, caring, supportive, kind and with a real commitment to fish keeping. Since that time I've averaged, that's been nine weeks ago, about 250 subscribers a month. Not massive but certainly not insubstantial and am on the precipice now of breaking a thousand and becoming monetized. I'm within about 700 hours. I'm doing about a hundred hours a day. So probably by the end of January, I will have 4,000 hours and a thousand subscribers. And I am here to tell you it has little or nothing to do with my skill at putting together a YouTube channel. Because all I've done is turn the camera on and start talking. That's literally all I have done. You guys have seen something in it that you like, that you enjoy, that you find fun and entertaining and helpful, and for that I am indebted and deeply, deeply grateful. I sense in my heart that crossing this barrier and becoming a real YouTube channel creator will change what I'm doing, will somehow change my attitude. I'm not sure that's good, but I've seen some things and become aware of some things here on YouTube in the fish channel that I find troubling. I'm not going to spell them out and I'm not going to go into any kind of detail and I'm certainly not going to point the finger at anyone. I do not have that right nor would it on any level be responsible. What I have discovered here more strongly than anything else is an acceptance and a positive attitude that shows remarkable discipline. As all of us have seen on other places like Facebook and Twitter, it's really easy to criticize, to put down to be argumentative and hostile and aggressive. I have found in truth none of that here. Where there has been disagreement, and I certainly have run into that, just if only because I'm proposing what I'm proposing, the deep sand bed, that alone makes enemies of friends More to the point, it has created a conversation. A conversation that I see is reaching every corner of this web, every corner of this fish farm. The biggest and the best among us are talking about substrate. Have you noticed? They really are. Now maybe they always have been and maybe I'm just taking credit for something that I'm not due credit for, but it makes me feel pretty good to see some of the big boys talking about basics. I encourage them to watch my videos in order to learn what the real basics are. We have a few new people coming in, redfish, bluefish among them, who are hobbyist scientists. We're doing some really remarkable things. He's not the only one. He's probably the one I've encountered that I'm most impressed with. But there are more guys and gals who see this hobby as something more than just an opportunity to buy a pretty fish and stick it in a tank. They want to know what makes it happy, what makes it thrive, what keeps it alive, what keeps it healthy and what will encourage it to spawn with another of its kind. More and more, more and more of genuinely inquisitive people are coming into this place, this fish farm, and making of it something that it has not been. I notice there's also a strong interest in attending conferences. These are wonderful opportunities to get together with people who you may never otherwise have a chance to meet, to talk to, to get to know as friends, and it is a miraculous opportunity. And then there are the fish. I've always been one who is really thrilled at the prospect of having fish that are hard to get and hard to keep and learning how to do it. I anticipate sometime soon beginning to do sales out of my shop online where I'll be able to ship unusual and interesting fish out to my customers. I look forward to that and I look forward to increasing and widening the base of fish keepers that we've developed here in this little shop. We have probably 15 serious hobbyists connected to Father Fish who have substantial fish rooms and are doing some really remarkable things. Over the next months will be going to visit their fish rooms and showing everyone what they're doing. We've done one. We did Chris a little bit, although we need to get back and do a more in-depth study. His work is genuinely remarkable, and there are others. So I'm excited. I'm excited about what we're doing here, what we're creating. I'm excited about being a part of it and being able to make a contribution. So as I slip over now into my first 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours and become monetized, I will join the ranks of many others who have struggled much, much longer than I have to achieve that worthy goal. I look forward to it. I look forward to growing on this channel, to growing in friendship with all of you, to becoming a part of something that has been in my heart and soul since I was a little child. God bless you all. I am excited about the years to come. Have a good evening. I will be with you tomorrow on two occasions. we're going to be doing a one hour open mic and we're going to be doing a one hour demo on how to create a dirted tank with Fish Room Fever that should be exciting and we'll create will be great fun see you then good night