Today, we're visiting Dean's fish room

and let's go ahead and get started.

So, let's start, let's just start here.

We'll start here.

And so, this rack, I guess,

it's kind of cramped in this room, if you guys can't tell.

How big is it, Dean?

- [Dean] It's, like 96 square feet.

- [Cory] 96 square feet. - [Dean] It's small.

- [Cory] And you're gonna see, I guess,

what Dean can pull off in, you know,

it's not quite 10 by 10, but, you know,

it's a jail cell, right? (laughs)

- [Dean] Pretty much, yeah.

- [Cory] Alright, so, got some discus here,

and you were telling me that, what,

they ate their eggs this morning or something like that?

- [Dean] Yeah, there's two pairs that,

these ones had fry.

They are getting better and better at raising.

They're still really young, so, I expect, you know,

another six months, they'll start--

- [Cory] And how old are they would you say?

- [Dean] I would guess that those are just about a year old.

- [Cory] 'Cause this thing, you know, I'm assuming this is

the male here-- - [Dean] Yeah.

- [Cory] Is like bigger than my hand type of deal,

so young seems ...

Well fed, but maybe young, I guess.

- [Dean] Yeah, he should get another inch and a half.

She should get another inch.

They should both get another inch and a half.

- [Cory] And then, are these, these ones here the same--

- [Dean] Yeah.

- [Cory] Like, you got 'em at the same time?

- [Dean] Yeah, actually, initially,

I bought the two females as a pair.

- [Cory] Okay.

- [Dean] And they kept laying eggs,

and I said, "Well, okay, but the eggs aren't viable."

And then one day, I saw both of them laying eggs.

- [Cory] Well, that'll tell you.

- [Dean] So, I realized they were two females,

so then, I went out and shopped for two more males.

- [Cory] And so, did you already buy them big,

or you can just spot 'em when they're young

what you think are male?

- [Dean] I bought 'em about this size.

- [Cory] Okay.

And how did you determine male at that size?

Like, just by observing behavior, or?

- [Dean] Behavior, the look.

You can obviously tell this is the male.

He has the great big bulk.

And also, if you get a good look at the breeding tube,

but you have to get really close.

- [Cory] Right, right, right.

- [Dean] The males are always slanted and pointed forward.

- [Cory] And pointing forward?

- [Dean] Or, one way.

Pointing one way.

Yeah, they should be pointed forward.

Slanted and pointing forward, the females are blunt.

I actually saw that male spawning with another female,

so I took him.

- [Cory] Hmm, and was the female just not very good?

'Cause I would have been--

- [Dean] I already had the female.

- [Cory] I would have been tempted to be like,

"I'll take the female, too,"

'Cause it's, they were compatible,

in my opinion, or whatever.

- [Dean] No, I already had the female.

I didn't have, I can't dedicate anymore tank space to that.

- [Cory] Sure, and so, these down here.

What about these discus?

- [Dean] Those? - [Cory] What are these?

- [Dean] Well, my daughter kind of wanted me

to breed some discus,

so one of the things that I've learned is

you can't miss any feedings with a lot of fry.

So, this is a spawn that I had pulled and raised

and then ended up going away for the weekend

and came back and there was four left alive.

- [Cory] I see.

- [Dean] So, those are the four that made it.

The rest--

- [Cory] And they get their own 20 gallon

while they raise up, huh?

- [Dean] Yeah.

- [Cory] How old are those right there, roughly?

- [Dean] Those are about

two and a half, three months old.

- [Cory] Okay.

- [Dean] And they don't have the tank by themselves.

There's mega clown plecos in there.

- [Cory] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- [Dean] They just happen to be about the same temperature.

- [Cory] I'm gonna have to get in closer to get those

mega clown plecos.

Any activity out of those yet?

- [Dean] I don't think they're big enough yet.

- [Cory] True, yeah, now that I think about it.

Yeah, they're like four inches or so, yeah.

And then, down here.

What's going on down here?

- [Dean] That's a school of aspidoras.

Can't remember the--

- [Cory] I remember they call them the six ray

is the common name, I think.

The six ray.

But, I don't, I don't remember the--

- [Dean] I started initially with three of these;

two males and a female.

These are all my own offspring.

- [Cory] Nice.

- [Dean] They will spawn more in the fall for me

than this time of year.

- [Cory] And you find, like, when the pressure drops

and things that actually do that, or--

- [Dean] Yes.

- [Cory] Okay.

- [Dean] I can induce them, if I know a big storm's coming,

I do a couple water changes the few days before.

They will spawn, but not very many viable eggs.

- [Cory] Nice.

- [Dean] And you'll see these scattered

through a lot of my tanks,

'cause I have had many babies that I--

- [Cory] Looks like we have the Finnex light,

the Stingray, is that what we're--

- [Dean] Yeah, almost every tank in here's

lit by the Stingray.

Some of 'em, it's right down on the tank.

Most of them, it's up above

so it's out of my way all the time.

- [Cory] Right?

Everything's so uniform.

That's what I'm jealous of, you know?

Even stuff's labeled.

I mean, who labels stuff?

Geez.

- [Dean] That's just so I remember.

(laughter)

- [Cory] Fair enough.

I guess on this rack, we can go,

if we can go up tall now.

So, up tall, let's go to this top right tank.

So, obviously, rainbow fish

and they're the Wapoga red lasers.

And, where, oh, yeah.

I was gonna ask you where you got 'em.

I think you got 'em from me, right?

- [Dean] I got those from you, yeah.

And there are eggs in the mop right now.

I don't know if you can zoom in close enough to get 'em.

- [Cory] Ooh, that'll be tough.

I don't know.

- [Dean] Probably not.

- [Cory] That's something I'll have to look at the computer

and see if it actually came out or not.

- [Dean] What I normally do is I will leave that mop in

until I see babies swimming on the surface

and then I'll take the mop out and hatch.

- [Cory] Do you rescue the babies also?

- [Dean] I try to, I try to.

'Cause the parents, they will eat them.

- [Cory] Well, yeah, that's what I was--

- [Dean] And if you catch them on the first day,

there's only a couple babies

and then they'll usually hatch out

for about eight to 10 days straight.

- [Cory] Okay.

It looks like here that,

are all of these tanks running canister filters?

Is that what's going on, in addition, or ...

- [Dean] This rack that you're looking at

I want to all run canisters, also.

Eventually, I will switch them all to,

I have enough Eheims now.

I got a couple used at the swap meet.

So, I'm going to switch them all to Eheims eventually.

And that's just, it's more so for water flow

than filtration.

I think the sponge filtration is fine,

but I wanted more water flow.

- [Cory] And then, I think this is cool.

What temperature are you running your discus

and then, I want you to talk about these heaters.

- [Dean] The discus are 84 degrees.

This one's 84.

This is about 78, the catfish.

I believe these are in the 82 range, the rainbows.

- [Cory] And, do you turn, are you,

so, are you using the heater to make them 82

or is it because they're so high in the room,

they're naturally--

- [Dean] No, all the tanks are 82,

'cause we're in my basement

and it tends to stay about 65 degrees year round in here.

- [Cory] Okay, so the heaters are doing that for them?

- [Dean] Yeah. - [Cory] Yeah, okay.

- [Dean] Yeah.

If I don't heat them,

actually, the unheated tank in here will run about

68, 70 degrees all the time.

- [Cory] And then, next door, it looks like you've got

the praecox rainbows, so, the sister species.

- [Dean] Yep, those are always one of my favorite ones.

Easy to sell, easy to breed.

Same thing goes, when I see fry on the top,

I'll pull the mop, start hatching them.

- [Cory] So, I think it's, you know,

we've kinda shown this first little rack.

There's not an inch of wasted space, by the way.

You guys know I'm not the skinniest man.

I can barely walk through this door.

But, every inch of space is utilized.

So, we've seen, you know, I guess all of these tanks,

for the most part, besides that discus tank,

are kind of breeding tanks.

And then, we'll show you, you know, in my opinion,

some of the impressive part,

the fry tanks.

There's fry everywhere in here.

And, so like, here, these are, which ones?

Theses are the praecox,

so that's ones we were just talking about.

And is this, like, how many mops make this?

- [Dean] That's one.

- [Cory] One mop made that?

- [Dean] Yeah.

- [Cory] Wow.

- [Dean] But, you can see that they hatch

over a period of about 10 days,

and I would guess at a fish farm,

these would be sized and put together by size.

- [Cory] Sure, so that way they don't outcompete

and things like that.

- [Dean] But, I don't have room to do that,

so these will outcompete a little bit,

but, eventually, as I net 'em to sell them or whatever,

net the bigger ones, the other ones will catch up.

- [Cory] And how many do you think are in there?

'Cause that seems like way more than one spawn.

Like, I would have guessed, like, 60.

But, that seems like way more than what's in there.

- [Dean] Yeah, I would say there's probably

near 100 in there, maybe.

- [Cory] And it looks like you're running

the Matten sponge filters in the back?

- [Dean] All the tanks on this level are Matten,

and I really like them.