How To Create Diversity In Your Aquarium #biodiversity, #aquariumdiversity

It's a foundational thing. So you've got any environment, whether it's terrestrial or aquatic, we're talking about fish tanks. So let's keep it to that. You've got your aquarium. It's so much more than a glass box and a fish and a plant or plastic plant in a lot of cases. But when you start breaking that down and looking at it as a ecosystem, you start to realize that there's so much more to it than just those couple of basic components, like a fish and a plant or a substrate, it's actually a plethora of creatures and the more diversity in those creatures you have, the more of a balance that's formed because everyone's kind of in a sort of a, I hate to use the word competition, but you're in some kind of competing for space or resources of some kind. And if you only have a few variety of any particular kind of creature, it's going to really be able to take advantage of those resources and blow up in population and that this balance of, let's say you've got some kind of bacteria or some kind of pest species. If the food source is great and the competition from other animals is very low, that one creature is going to be able to explode in population. Now we can use that to our advantage if we're trying to raise particular creatures in certain situations for a production for sales or something. The other benefit of doing monoculture is to provide food for baby fish. Right. Moina and Daphnia, for example, in my experience and kind of opinion, you almost have to do that monoculture, especially if you're using green water culture, that's typically more of a monoculture monoculture. It's kind of a dirty word in our community, but it does have its place. But if we're talking about setting up an aquarium that you're not going to have to fiddle with all the time or do a lot of insane maintenance to, you know, not scraping the glass or vacuuming the substrate, you're going to benefit from diversity of the biologics, which is a plants and animals. So it's not just how many big creatures can I see? It's also those microscopic creatures that are much, much smaller. They're out of sight to us with our naked eyes. Anyways. We now have three unique packages. We have a rooted plant pack that has Valisneria, Sagittarius and Swords in it. Five species of each. And we have a non-rooted Anubias, Fern, Mosses and Floating Plants, 15 unique species, $59 a package. That's roughly $4 each. It's available now. You can buy them this week. So I get a lot of questions all the time in relation to growing large populations of either micro creatures or macro creatures like scuds or shrimp, or having a lot of different types of animals together that maybe don't get along, got some fish that can eat shrimp or fish that eat scuds or, you know, whatever the size is. And the key to all this is going to be a diverse, dense habitat. If the bottom of your tank is like a little rubble tank, and it's just a whole rubble layer that if a scud, for example, is able to cross from one side of the tank to the other, completely undercover, then it will be able to establish a population with predators. But if you've got a little patch of gravel here, and then a couple of leaves over here, and then a few plants over here, it has to go out of cover like 10 times every day to get to food, to reproduce, to find its mates, your population will not be able to really establish itself. So, you know, when you look at any kind of natural system, and there's a lot of exceptions to this, of course, but if you're looking at the bottom of a lake or the bottom of a pond, I mean, it can be a pretty substantial thick layer of muck and twigs and different botanicals are in there, lots of leaf litter, lots of chunky rocks, and having that very dense habitat will allow you to grow more and more creatures. So this is a $39 stem plant pack, which we only have very few of. They are a result of putting together our standard $59 package of 15 different plants. At the end of that process, we had some leftover, and rather than throw them away, we are putting them in special packs, charging a little less, it's the same plant, you just don't get the variety, you get maybe three or four species, you'll get 15 bunches. That's the $39 package. If you have got your tank or barrel or whatever you're growing this in, you set it up, you follow your whatever method of your choice. I don't hardly make a tank without some kind of soil in the bottom, no matter what, whether I'm adding something to soil or not, doesn't matter. But some kind of soil in the bottom, I like to cap that with sand. I like to use a little bit of gravel or something or something chunky on top that can be lots of surface area and habitat. If you create all that and it's all brand new, and then you dump a lot of creatures in there, the baby scuds and the baby shrimp or all the little tiny micro creatures are not going to flourish in there quite yet. Maybe they can survive, you'll certainly see them alive. But when that little shrimp is born or comes out into existence, it needs that kind of microbiome already established, all those micro, uh, the biofilm and all that really needs to be there already to have success in high population growth. So when you set up that brand new tank and you put something in there, whether it's, you know, leaves from a pond or whatever, it does take a little time to really set up and mature. And then this, this expectation about what these creatures should be doing, what you're seeing in this video right now, these creatures cruising around. That's very possible and very realistic, but it just doesn't necessarily happen overnight. Yeah. We're talking about a six month process to get a well set up tank to the point where it is genuinely flourishing. Now we get excited right away. If we get that stem plant pack and put them in there and they're growing like weeds from day one. They'll have two inches of growth every day and really do. I mean, legitimately so, but that's just the beginning of the process. There is a universe of life that needs to develop and mature in that environment for all of the players, all of the bit part players to begin working together, a food web doesn't happen quickly. It takes five years for a complete food web to develop from a living organism through its complete breakdown into, in, into mineralization to be taken up by plants and turned into nutrient for higher order animals, right? That is a long, long process. This has been such an amazing success. We're selling upwards of a hundred of these packs a week. It is, and, and people so thrilled to get it and excited about it because they're beautiful, wonderful plants. We now have started as of this coming week, not one, but two new, new packages, new bags of plants. One is rooted plants. This will be Valisneria, Sagittarius, and Swords. There will be five species of Sword, five species of Valisneria, and five species of Sagittarius. That'll be 15 different rooted plants for 50, $59. And then we also have a pack of non-rooted plants. And these are the wonders. These are the joys. I do not recommend this pack for a brand new tank. Let your tank settle in. Give it about six months and then order Anubias, Floaters, Ferns, and Mosses. You're going to get a total of 15 species out of those four groups for the same price, $59. These are available now. You can order them now. They'll be shipped out this coming week. Now, the link for our store will be posted. You'll be able to click on it and go right there. Fatherfish.fish has all of the links for everything in the Fatherfish world, including half of the other people in the world. Tony, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. It's been exciting. Absolutely. I appreciate everything you do. One of the biggest things I love about you is your commitment to your message and your unwavering direction, because that's where you see people kind of, they move all over the place because they're afraid to say the wrong thing, they're afraid to say something controversial, and really it's, you've got a message, I've got a message, you resonate very well with me. You're one of the few that I feel like is really where I'm at as far as the philosophy of it, thinking about it, how this relates to other aspects of life. So thank you so much. Thanks for everyone listening. I cannot imagine the support of, you know, I just can't believe it. I'm blown away every day. You know, I just, I really, really appreciate it. Thank you, Tony, so much. Dana, thanks for your help. Yes. Thank you, Dana. I just want to let everybody know that if you're curious about the Father Fishton package, I've got one in the mail coming here now. I'm going to do a detailed video review on it and you'll be able to see everything that's in it. I just want to let everybody know. There you go. Thank you guys. God bless you all. Good night, everyone. Thank you. Love you all. Bye for now.