AMAZING Ecosystem Fish Room!! [Tour]

We're going to see the world's most advanced plant grower. It's a top secret laboratory. How all the aquarium plants are made. Through the energy. I think all people have the potential to love plants. Plants have the answer to future life on this planet. There's that much demand? Yeah, around 70 million euros. What's up everybody? We're here today in Denmark at one of the world's largest suppliers of aquarium plants. My name is George. We're also here with George Farmer. He is a master aquascaper, plant specialist, and also an ambassador for the Tropica brand. And you guys are going to get to see the secrets of how all the aquarium plants for the hobby are made. But the most mind-blowing thing for me is just the sheer quantity and beauty of the aquarium plants that we're going to see. Let's go check it out. No one really gets to come inside here. This is just like... This is a full-on, behind-the-scenes, private tour just for you, George. Thank you, George. You're welcome, George. Are we going in? Let's do it. So here we are at the entrance to the infamous lab. It's pretty secret. Top secret? Exactly. So this is what we need to put on now. What's in there? Millions of plants. Like, literally millions. So what makes it so secret? They've got a special magic. What is this? If you want to go in there, you need to put it on, George. If any contamination gets into the plant-growing material, it can ruin a whole batch. Yeah, I feel like I'm a liability. So I feel much safer now, I think. I also feel like I may be ready to serve a couple hundred kids their school lunch. The world's most advanced plant-growing facility. So this is basically like a massive seed bank. Pretty much, yeah. And these are kind of the mother stock. The guys in here are chopping up the bits of mother plant here. And then they're putting them into their individual cups. And then they're getting ready to be delivered into the grow room. We use these to then generate the new tiny babies. They're really vulnerable to disease. So we need to give them the cleanest, purest environment with the best nutrients. Can I touch it? Yes. And what happens if you open it? It just becomes unsterilized? Yeah. How many babies are being made here? In terms of individual plants? Millions. Literally millions. Millions of plants are being born and grown here? Yeah. Do you think that people who have plants in their home aquariums have any idea that all this work and science is going on behind the scenes? I don't think many people do. It's super exclusive. We're the first aquarium plant company to actually have our own laboratory on site. It's so tall. 15 feet to 18 feet tall. Fun fact for you, everything in here is at a slightly positive pressure. So when you open the door, dust and nothing can come in here. Everything is coming out. Dude, what is this place? This room is even bigger than the last room. So that's the mother stock, and this is the actual stock now. So here's a good example. Whoa, this is so colorful. So that's probably two weeks apart, I'd say. Wait, George, what are we looking at right now? This is mini hairgrass. We have to put it back, but where did we take it from? Oh shit, where was it? These are the baby, baby plants. That's a lot of babies, George. Yeah. What plant is this? Mosselacronata. It's a carpeting plant. So you can see these really healthy roots here. But I'm a little confused because I was under the impression that for a plant to grow, you need soil. No, they're just suspended in this nutrient-rich water, and they get fed from that. Similar to hydroponics. What exactly is in the water? I can't tell you that. That's a secret. That is a magic secret. All right, so I'm seeing all the plants. You get to see them up close now. They're so cool, so colorful. Speed round. I want to know how many plants you can identify in one minute. Ready, set, go. Okay. Junkos repens. Eleocharis nicolaris mini. Corneandulatus red. Chelanthus telanum. Lobelia cardinalis. Helianthium telanum green. Salvinia aracalata. Cryptocoryne. No, it's not. It's a Hycrophila pinnatathidae. A very young one. Oh, Hemianthus calyptrochoides cuba. Beautiful. Ah, no, it's Rotala green. Yeah. Rotala green. Yeah, Rotala macrandra. Ah, this is a Monte Carlo. I think you were talking about. That's Monte Carlo. These red ones. Yeah, these are Eltonanthura mini. Very popular red plant. That's what it looks like when it's young. It's grown in for a week or so. A couple of weeks. Oh, wow. Yeah. This one's really young. What we're doing here, we've developed so much kind of technology and infrastructure around the quality management of the plants. Hopefully, you know, when the customer gets them, they're almost guaranteed to have success as long as they have the right aquarium system. What is this? This is the avocado. Hello. This is George. So we're here with Lars Green. He's the CEO of Tropica. Can you tell us like a little bit of the backstory of the company? Tropica is from 1970, originally founded by Mr. Holger Vindelue. And he's actually the, you can say, the founder of growing aquatic plants for production. He was a hobbyist himself, aquarium plants, and they were traded, you know, or you had friends or whatever, you exchanged the aquatic plants, he thought, might be a smarter way to grow them. That was the opportunity we saw. The last time I calculated, we delivered 54 countries. And we estimate the market to be around 70 million euros a year. The reason you see a big laboratory like this is that we don't want to capture any wild plants out of the nature. And if you want to also be competitive in the market, but then you need efficient production. Quite an investment, as you can see here. How do they actually start to get made? This is actually the very, very beginning part of the process. So these actually start off as almost single cell plants, tiny, tiny plants, and they're grown in these special containers. These are like the baby test tube babies. Wow. When it's grown in nature, it comes from Taiwan, and it's called that little daonoi, which means little star. Look at it. It is. You are a little star. Okay. So there's probably thousands of individual plants in there, and they're tiny, tiny. You're not supposed to open anything, but we're lucky enough, George is nice enough to actually open the plant for us. Special robots here. Dude. Can you see these individual kind of little blocks? Yeah. So this cuts up the special fiberglass wool that the plant grows in, into exactly the right sizes. Oh, here it comes. Wow. Imagine if I had a robot like that. I would program it to make me sushi. So the robot created these individual fiberglass blocks here. Can I pick one up? Yes. I'm very curious to know what these feel like. Yeah. Can you kind of describe it? You know like roof insulations? It's basically very, very fine strands of fiberglass. And then the plant gets inserted in between the two. Ah. And then this bit here sits in the table. So the nutrient-rich water is going around here, feeding the plant roots, and the plant grows out of the water into the air. So Anna has now implanted the individual plants in these fiberglass blocks here. Making almost like little sushi rolls. Yes, yes. You can say that. Right here. Oh. Wow. That's a lot of plants. Yeah. What's your name? Simon. Okay. So what do I do? You take this piece in your hand, and then you take a little piece, boom, and stick it in. Okay. Wow. That looks a lot better than I thought it was going to look. Perfect. Very good. Cool. They don't even let me do that. If anyone's going to mess it up, it's going to be me. All right. So where are we going now? Now we are in the greenhouse. Feel it. Feel the energy. Just feel the energy. Feel it. Am I doing it right? You are. It's very quiet in here. Yeah. Plants don't make a lot of noise. It's very zen in here. It's also a lot warmer in here. Yeah. They like it warm in nature. They come from the tropical rainforest. High humidity as well. You can probably feel the mugginess in the air. Yeah. So we're trying to replicate the natural environment where those plants are going to thrive. It just keeps going. Like, it's so big. It's got to be at least one football field long. Maybe two. That's how big this greenhouse is. If you look over to your right, you can just see trays and trays of plants. A lot of them are covered now to actually limit the amount of light they're getting because otherwise they can actually grow kind of too quickly and scorch almost. Some species need shading more than others. So here we have the mother plants where all the plants are used to create baby plants in effect. Big mother colonies of the plants. Yes. You can take the seeds from these plants and then make new babies? Yeah. How do you take the seeds from a plant? I think they just take the seeds off with their hands. They have a load of seeds in like a pepper shaker, you know, and then they do almost like a little pepper shaker on all of the pots there. This is beautiful. Just feel them. Wow. How many different types of plants are over here? In this section, it's probably around 20, but we produce 144 at last count. Species? Yeah. Wow. These will produce a certain amount of generations and then we'll get a new mother stock to keep the really high quality genes. What is this? It looks like an alternanthera actually. There's so much of it. Yeah. It's pretty wild, isn't it? You can feel the plants again. I love feeling the plants. It's got the dream job for me coming here. Yeah. You can do your... Do you want to do it with me? What do you do? You just hug them? Yeah. Just like, and then just let yourself go. Ah. Yeah. Just surrender. You do a lot of this, don't you? Yeah. I have to. I carry a lot of stuff around. Okay. So these are being grown to eventually create aquarium plants. Why do they start above water? They're more robust because they have to support themselves in the air. So they're more robust. So they're easier to ship. So is it technically harder to grow a plant in water than out of water? Yes, absolutely. I think all people have the potential to love plants. I think we should all love plants because I think plants have the answer to future life on this planet. You guys have pretty much run out of space on the level one. That's right. And now you're creating a second floor. Yeah, double decker. A double decker plants. And so we can then light the lower layer with LED lighting and then we can basically double our production. Are they going to like the LED lights as much as the natural sunlight? They love it. You know, we were talking about the hydroponics earlier. Yeah. This is how it works. So you have a very shallow layer of liquid nutrient rich water on the bottom. So there's like a little layer of water underneath these plants. Yeah, exactly. What plant is this? This is a Liliopsis brasiliensis. And it doesn't like the light? Not too much light. Because we're in the summer now. Yeah. So the actual bright light can scorch, dry them out too much. You can't spray the plants with like sunscreen? She said good. She said good idea. I think I have a million dollar idea. Yeah. Tropica, come to me. These are the Amazon swords. So we looked at the mother plants earlier and this is the next kind of version down. Do you remember the fiberglass wool that we showed you earlier? This is like a bigger version of it. Oh yeah. So this is a giant XL pot. These are the regular. This is a great example. So this is the fiberglass wool again, and then you can actually see the roots of growing through the wool. And this is what gets sold to the customer? Yes. How much time did it take from that little bug we created to here? Probably six weeks. Six weeks? Yeah. Oh man, this stuff grows so much faster than coral. Hygrophila, Coriambosa, Siamensis, 53B. 53B? Yeah. This is an Echinodorus. So many plants. You said 144, I think, at the moment? 144 plants? Yeah. Do you know them all? Yeah. I've grown them. I think I've probably grown them all. What plant is this? This is a Limnophila sessiflora. This is a very, very fast growing weed, actually. It's a really, really great beginner plant. And so what were you doing? You were petting it. I just love to touch the plants. I just have an urge to connect with the nature and touch the plants. This one's very satisfying. It is. It's really spongy, isn't it? Yeah. Wow. These seem all really nice. Yeah, this is a Rotala. Rotala. Yeah, this is a Rotala rotundifolia. Whoa. Is this the same one? No, this is a different one. No, yeah. This is Pogostemon erectus. This is a beautiful one. This is a beautiful one as well. I really like this one. Yeah. It's really cool. It's beautiful, isn't it? It's beautiful. It is. So these are slightly younger plants here. So this is the Rotala rotundifolia here. Do you remember why it's called rotundifolia? Because of the leaves around. Yes. George, tell us a little bit more about how you got into plants. I have a really deep connection with plants. I always have done. And it's only recently that I really understand the depth of the connection. I think it's something, as humans, we all have a connection with plants. We just don't realize it. How did you find your way into the aquarium hobby? I just bought a fish tank, right? Just fancied a fish tank. I've always had a fascination with nature and fish and water and actually plants. So the plant in the aquarium seemed the ideal option. Plants are very therapeutic. They are nature's healers, right? You have plant medicines. You know, you have natural herbs. You could just sit in here like for a while and really, like you said, now I'm starting to understand. It's absorbed. And the gardeners here, they all take real pride in what they do. Most of the employees here have been here for a very long time because they love it here so much. That's awesome. Wow, so wait, over here, you have different shades of green and then you even have red. Yeah. Whoa. That's such a cool view. Look in here. Look in there. Whoa. These are all the small plants that you would buy, right? Yeah. But they're still out of water. They're still out of water now. And you put them in your aquarium at home and then hopefully they'll adapt to grow underwater. But most of the times, and it took me a long time to realize this, they die. Yeah. And then they grow back. We call that melting off. A lot will die off. And that's normally because the plant hasn't got what it needs to adapt. And then that's really sad for me because... Wait, hold on. We just got rained on? Yeah. I hope your camera's waterproof. How often does that go off? It will be computerized. Yeah. So it's like every... So it will detect light. It will detect CO2 levels, oxygen levels, and everything will work. It's not on like a set hourly schedule. It's just like when the plants need it. Yeah. Now that's crazy. This is red lava stone and then mess here attaches plants to it. Wow. So this is a Java stone. Can you show us what you do? I take a plant and sit it here. That's it? Yes. Oh my God. Hold on. How did it... Does it stay there? Does it stick? Mess, we're going to test it out. Ready? Okay. And... It passed the test. All right. And then that now is like a perfect piece of instant aquascaping material. You just put that in your aquarium and you're ready to go. All of these rocks you're going to put a plant on? Yeah. This whole bin? What are these guys doing? Look at that. He's so fast. So fast. He's so fast. That's so satisfying to just watch him. And the guys really like, they take pride in it as well, you know? It's really cool. You said you called this the moss tent? Yeah. It's very humid in here. It's even more humid than the greenhouse. Yeah, it is. Is that because the moss just really loves the high temperature? Yeah, it does. If you think about where moss comes from in nature, it's normally like damp, dark, you know, very humid, very moist. So this is what we try to replicate in here. That's a lot of moss. Yeah. That's amazing. That's so cool. Yeah. So this is like a piece of driftwood. Yeah. And it's got some moss and some plants on it. Yeah. Wow. You can even use multiple pieces together, you know, and create a little aquascape. While George is aquascaping, make sure to subscribe to the channel if you're enjoying the video and give it a like and show your appreciation for George. Not only is he giving us a tour, he's livescaping for you guys. Okay, you guys ready for the final product? Ta-da! Wow. Do you know what these are? This is beautiful, this one. This is called the Madagascan lice plant. Look at that. Can you see the lice? That's why it's called the lice plant. Yeah, because the leaves are really cool. So one of my favorite things though is... Putting your head on it. Yeah. And then just let yourself go. And then you can hear the moss talking to you if you listen really carefully. Alright, I'll give it a try. Ready? Yeah. Oh wow. What's it saying to you? Yeah, I'm letting myself go. Growing. It's cool, isn't it? Getting the body going. This one's saying, drop a comment down below. It's so crazy. Every single moss has its own personality. It says it loves you, George. Oh, that's so sweet. The moss is so grateful. The whole process we've pretty much covered. From that tiny little tub with our tiny little plants in, to the trays over here, and eventually conveyor belt all the way to the boxes and then off to the customer. This is essentially where everything gets packed up and ready to go. Yeah, packed up into their boxes, ready to be shipped out. So we deliver thousands of boxes every week to 63 countries around the world. This is the final, yeah, final part of the process. You can see all these boxes ready to go. So here they are, they get picked, they get put in these polystyrene things here, and then they get put into their boxes where we've seen the conveyor belt and then finally packaged up. This box then gets loaded onto the lorries and then shipped to the customers. So where are all these boxes going? They're going to Canada. They're going to Canada? And this is what's going inside? Look how small they are. It almost looks like they're just a few leaves in there. Yes, exactly. So they're tiny, tiny baby plants. If you do buy plants from Tropica, at one point that plant started at this facility in Denmark. That DNA of the plant definitely started in Denmark. Wow. This is our test lab, super secret. I can't really take you in there. Please? Okay. Alright. But for real, no one really gets to see this. No, this is pretty much exclusive behind the scenes. Yeah, this is quite special for you guys. So not only is this an amazing opportunity, but it's also dangerous. Dangerous zone. Yeah. There's like 15 freshwater planted aquariums in here. So the whole kind of concept behind this area is to test out potential plants that we could put into production. They put the plant in the aquarium, they're growing it, they've seen how fast it grows, what kind of nutrients it needs, you know, and just getting an idea of how it acts in different circumstances. As if they were the consumer. Yeah, because, you know, we can't sell a product and we don't know how it works. I love this one. Oh, the red one? Yeah, the one with the red tips, basically. Cabomba, that is. Cabomba Fucata. It's called Cabomba? Yeah. It's my new favorite plant. So many different kinds of plants, like these really small, short plants, medium, longer. And then it's just like a jungle. The plants are actually growing almost out of the water. The plants are actually trying to get out of water. Because they can't reproduce in the water, usually. So they're trying to get out. They're trying to break free. You guys can do it! These are really cool angelfish. Yeah, these are called koi angels. And look at these little guys. These are really cool, too. These are platys. So colorful, though. This is a test lab. Yeah. What's going on? Sometimes tests don't work. And that's good, because we need to know what doesn't work as well as what does work. Something's gone wrong. Caused some green water, which is a single cell form of algae. And now we can work out, hopefully, how that's happened and what we can do to prevent it happening again. So over here is the Tropica Live studio. So this is behind the scenes. We were one of the first people to see this, actually. Like, full-on behind-the-scenes tour. That's awesome. These are just basically like demo tanks. Yeah, indeed. These were both created by guests that we flew over to Tropica. And then I'm the host, and we have a guest. And they skate these, and I chat to them, and we talk about the process. We have great fun. Cool. We'll leave a link down below where you can watch these live streams. You got a really cool pair of angelfish down here. Yeah. These are actually breeding. They are breeding. And they've got some babies on this leaf here. And you can see how vicious they are. They're so protective. Really protective. And there's a tank over here. Yeah. This is the guy that works in here. That's where he sits. This is Anubias minicoin. This is beautiful. Wow. That's a cool little tank. Awesome. It's like a little box of nature. Yeah. So there's so much work going into it. What do you say to people who go, these are just plants? Yeah, but without plants on this planet, we wouldn't be alive. That makes sense. At first, I was like, this is an insane amount of work for plants, which I thought could be grown outside. But now it is really starting to make a whole lot of sense. It's a huge investment, but I think that you're right that it's the future. Not just for plants. I think it's also going to be for fish. You're seeing a lot of fish farms really making huge investments into sustainability. And that's super important because the less that you can take, it's better for the environment. It's better for the actual fish or plant. And it's better for the consumers because that product was grown in special care. So you get a really high quality product. Yes. It's such a crazy story that someone can start a business out of a passion for plants. It can grow to become this big. Hundreds of employees around the world. Yeah, I mean, it's an amazing thing to see. George. And George. Keep on Skyping. Out.