Hodge Podge Lodge; Saltwater Aquarium

I was driving around to try to water carrier carrier day by saying hey I'm selling war. Oh. Yeah. I'm. Not. I like to watch fish and other animals that live in the water.

I do too and sometimes it's pretty hard as a little less sure a deep sea diver and go down a deep in the water and see all the things moving around. So where's a good place to watch fish. I bet you know what do you think. Where's a good place in the ocean is one good voice. But sometimes you have trouble seeing way down into the ocean and Aquarium. Right. And aquarium is sort of like a miniature ocean going to trip on your own aquarium. That's salt water not salt water. So we're going to put kind of regular water fresh water or tropical. There are all kinds you can make. You can just go down to the pond and get a jar full of water. Go or if you want to have tropical fish. Some of them live in truck in warm fresh water. You have to keep the temperature up but I salt water where I am.

You have to make the water just like ocean water and that's a little different a little more complicated. But you're also going to have very beautiful animals and bided a friend of mine to come today and show us some of his salt water animals and how to set up a saltwater aquarium so we'll find out about that in a couple minutes. But I thought you'd like to see these fish now you know these are real fish but they're brightly colored like some of the ocean. Can you hear me. Robin Wright this is a special kind of ribbon this pink fish is made from a special kind of ribbon that comes from Japan and one of my Japanese friends says I like the Japanese much so what's only just brought these to me today all the way from Philadelphia. And this she made out of ribbon from Japan. And this one she made out of ribbon from Philadelphia but they both look like really fancy fish

that are invisible. You can hang them up and they can go below. Well I might do that later I'm still thinking what to do with it. But my friend Mr. Stillman doesn't have any pink fish at her scary table or any green fish but he has lots of other colors will be surprised. Or are you ready to go over this just. Right. Let's go. To a lot of sort of glad you could make it with all our friends. These are my friends here on the. Are you sure they have lots of things that they would like to ask you. What would you like to know about them that you know that's from electric eel that's called a blue and yellow ribbon. That's quite a creature there. You can get a closer look at him if I bring it forward a little bit. You see that face on him he looks like he's looking like the other fish are made out of lightweight behind him and there is a hermit crab.

Just like this one right over here. You say. This is this reveal is a very expensive salt water creature How much do you think you would probably $23 what. Would you like to try a little bit higher. No not quite that much. That fish cost $40. That's right that's a very expensive way to see this. This particular air comes out of the boy in or around the Philippines and it's a long distance it's about 14000 miles. And they have to come in a little bag of water and hopefully they make it and real nice a place this one is right here. Doesn't all these melt over this one always keeps his mouth open now this is the reason why they do this is to try to scare off any larger fish that might come after them because a lot of a lot of creatures in the sea have to have some means of protecting themselves. You see your harmony right here has a shell to protect themselves from other fish. Your sea horses here have a Cub

Scout that helps to protect them against other fish or the sea horses I think sea horse will be very proper right out here and these are normally you see this sea of horses as dry creatures in a store but now these are very much alive as you can see and they will swim around your sea horses live around very shallow areas very close to shore and they will attach themselves on to just about anything that they can get that close to. It you know I don't want that don't you understand about how I grab that shell he's living in. What kind of skill was it his crap show living in. That's a snail shell that's right. Speaking of snails I'll show you one thing that is a very it's a large scale Of course you don't see many hermit crabs that can live in anything of this nature right here. But this is what

kind of shell do you think you know the name of those now like that are you got the right letter to start with. That's a white letter begins with A C and it has a large snout. It's called a conch snail. And this is a conch shell first a living creature is no longer in here field. Sure that's so very pretty. Now believe it or not the area that these come from that people like to eat these. They're a delicacy and I've eaten some of these myself believe it or not and they they call them conch fritters. The snail that lives in there right through the snails are very rare and now there's a lot of these home snails are rare but this this one is fairly common. Very interesting you know a lot of different kinds of cars. There are a lot of different types of. Life. We have some like that in Maryland a lot of people call the consul there really.

Well that's a very that's that's that's quite a lot of times Ed. So you may see some of those can collect them on the beach. We look at this funny creature here with the blue eyes. This right here has a very strange name. This is called a porcupine fish. And you can see the eyes. He can he can look at any direction that he pleases. He has almost a greenish or bluish tint to his eyes. Now when this when this. Fish is scared you see these small spines on him. He has fires all over him. Now he will blow himself up. To about his normal size. And this scares any other fish from trying to eat him. Of course it's just like with a porcupine a real live porcupine. If a larger animal tries to eat a large porcupine he gets a lot of wills and spines in his mouth so that they don't like to eat these too often think well I could scare you but they don't like to be scared too often and I'm afraid that

he would get very frightened in this small container. What does he eat this. This porcupine fish right here is his rather hog. Just about anything that that he can get hold of a little bit earlier we saw where the porcupine fish tried to eat our starfish here. And so we had to we had to remove the porcupine fish. Out of the tank and here's here's our star fish in the back. Get him out of here. Children you know what starfish can do if they accidentally lose them. He pined fish or some other enemy What's one thing they can do that night. We can't grow and that's what little is the starfish is all tangled up he feels he feels at home around this deal. But you can get a pretty good look at him right here. See this is a little bit different starfish than the type you're used to seeing. It's very pretty and he is he is called a bristle starfish. You can see all these bristles on him now. Received this this

starfish is also from the Philippines. Of course the ones that you probably are used to see are the ones that come out of the Atlantic Ocean. And they have much wider and thicker arms to them throughout some of the porcupine fish that very large You'd be surprise some of them get up over a foot. And like I've seen some very very large ones and I don't think it's scary sharks but I don't think that a shark would try to eat want to tell you that it would probably hurt so I think the Sharks probably leave them alone. You know the blue is a very beautiful fish and looks as if he were painted. Actually this is one of the it does look fluorescent In fact when the lights are shining on oneness he is he is very blue bright blue with yellow a yellow tail and he's black and he's very flat too. You know most places on the planet they're wide but this is this

particular fish is very flat and rock. Now he would like to hide in the car if he could. This is where you usually find him they will try to hide in a piece of car. In fact I have a type of coral here that they want to hide and this is this is a very beautiful type right here. Now they will actually wedge themselves right into that car in case any of the fish is after them. Because you see most of these fishes live near what's called a coral reef. And if you touch that you can feel how very sharp it is. These coral reef fish have very very tightly compacted scales you know what scales look like you've ever seen a fish scale. That's right. OK your car or fish farm to buy the car at all they can swim right into there and they do very very nicely. Course he's actually easing himself over the words that he's a call even though it's not in the water. You see that he's actually it really is that car he can he can maneuver very very nicely. Oh that's right. What's it

called. That is called a Blue Tang. Beautiful fish. He's he's very frightened at the time. Like he's trying to hide but took all the hiding places out so we could get a better look at them. Maybe you better tell the children about something else out whether you would have all these fish and want to. Normally normally in an aquarium of this size you wouldn't put this many creatures in there. You would have maybe half this particular number. The reason being that if they're too crowded they're not really very happy. Only one specially in this size tank only three or four specimens of this size. When they when they are very crowded they may get to fighting amongst themselves so you can't have that normally in a tank of this size Also you would have about three or four pieces of coral just like we have just like we just showed you that you could put in the tank which would give them some

protection some place to hide. It does take up room that's correct it makes it look nice still you know you want to make it look like oh let's put it where they came. It's pretty In fact there are so many different types of car one of the one of the major and most fun things to do with a cause to decorate the tank. Here's one type of piece of call and I might ask you what that looks like a muscle. Looks like the type of flower. In fact the living color looks very much like a flower. This is called brain coral. And this is very heavy and it looks actually like the human brain. So this is this is one of the rare and exotic pieces of call that you don't see very often very pretty. And of course in the tank itself it would be very nice something you think of as just dominoes a lot. Let's find out how he got to be so knowledgeable and tell us about all

those door several several years ago I was at the school fair and they had a ping pong throw Have you ever seen those we saw in the drive. You see these are mostly school fairs and there's a lot of them. And at any rate I was down to about my last knuckle and I went through the last ball that I had into a little jar and it landed right in the jar and I won the goldfish bowl from that point. I got very interested in keeping these fish and now I've been working in this around these aquariums for about 11 years. Do you do you work in a store you own a store I work in the store I manage I manage a store and it's Seabreeze aquarium breeze like you can go and see lots more. We have we have about 50 aquariums with all of these types of fishes we have several thousand of these. And if you can imagine that and these this is just a small sample of the many plates that you had asked me before with this yellow fish as

well. This is this yellow. This here is sort of a kissing cousin to the bluefish you might say. If you've ever heard of the breakfast drink called Tang. Well this is called the yellow tang and he's very frightened of course on the extreme what looks like a kissing fish if you know what a kissing fish is he looks very much like the kids in the first quarter. Take him out and put him in case you are a minor This is Mary. This is one of the prettiest first show I ever find it will put him right here if we can catch him first. He's going to try to get away. That's right that's right. You know around here you might just take the hermit crab right along with him. Yes he likes to splash either but other areas that you can get a very very close look at him this way and you can see how very pretty he is a little cat he would

like to stay in here a long strange shape. He lives in the grove. This fish lives in the car. And in fact he is very like the other fish and very. Not very wide and he can fit right in amongst the car very very well and I think we'll put him back in there because he like to swim around with the other ones I believe things to start from scratch on you when you're just starting out with a salt water aquarium. You have to be a little bit patient when you began. You can't just go and take all these types of fish which are rather exotic and throw them right into a tank. Your best bet is to set your tank up and take one for about a week and then you take some any expensive little fish and put them in the tank and let them stay in there for a couple weeks. After this time you can you can add some of these rare fish. Most of these fish in here for instance cost in the

neighborhood of $20 but we have an awful lot of fish a lot less expensive. There are about five ninety five each which is not cheap but they're very beautiful and very beautiful if you want to be sure you got your aquarium right before you put any. That's right and I have something here that I can show you. It is not so much like table salt but here if you look at that it's not really table salt that's a mixture of other ingredients that you find in the ocean. And of course this is the this makes of the same type of seawater if you ever go swimming in the ocean and you and you taste the salt that's in the ocean this is what makes the water very salty. Now one bag this size this is three pounds will make up about 10 gallons of water and this is 10 gallons right here so you can see there's an awful lot of salt in that water. Tremendous amount. Now besides the softly we have to be concerned with a little slice that the checks how much salt is in the water. So this is a rather important little device this is called a

hygrometer. OK this is the same thing that your father uses when he gets his antifreeze checked. Now with this we can put this right into the water and we can check exactly how much salt is in there. If this were floating in fresh water it would sink to the bottom. But since it's in flux and salt water that washed the float right up to the top there. Well right this is OK. There's a little street in here and that's 10 20 to 10 25. And that's where we'd like to keep what's called the density of the water. Density means how much salt is put in the water. If you put as much of this salt in the water. What do you think would happen. The fish would get too much salt exactly where the water would be too salty. So you have to put the right amount of salt in this is the way we check that out. Do you know the areas of the world that these fish come from. From the oceans and. How what areas do you

think they come from what countries can you think of Japan. Some of these in Japan in the Philippine Islands and our sea horses here we have some sea horses that live around Florida and we have some to come from whole rye and from the Pacific from the Indian Ocean. That's right you have to remember one thing in what are called tropical areas. Now when you hear the word tropical fish that means they live in warm water. That's very good very good. How do you think we keep that water warm. Room temperature suppose the thumb gets very cold at night say in the winter what do you do then. OK here's. A little heater. That we have in this house to keep the temperature warm I can just show you this is very easy to use. And this just sits right in the in the water basically. And. You can see what that looks

like right there. Something's making. Love. We have we have a little. Pump. That pumps air and that air is pumped through a piece of tubing. Right here. This is our air line to me and it will pump air all the way through this long tube and back. And it gives it an effect. Of looking like water is moving and of course the fish have to breathe. Just like we do. So they breathe the air and the circulation of the water. That one over there like day. It's special like this this is an interesting story this right here is called lionfish. Can you move it out. Sure. This is we have to move this one very carefully enough. Tell you why. This is called a lionfish or a turkey fish and it is very poisonous. So if you if you look on the back of the fish you see those spines of this thing

up there. OK if you want to touch those spines right there you would have a very very painful wound. OK. And there's poison in those fines. So when we handle these we really have to be very careful with them. This is not the place that you want to take out with your bare hands on. Or does he come from this this particular specimen comes from the Philippine Islands. We get we get quite a few of these are very popular because they're so so interesting looking. Around that is the beautiful this way and you can see him looking right through there towards us. I think I like. This because this looks like the lion's mane you say they poison their face generally don't try to poison any other fish they use it much like the porcupine uses his spines. They use that as a protection. If another fish comes near them they take their spines and

they jump them forward and the other fish knows better than to try to eat this thing. Because he doesn't want to mouth for spines. As it does the bacteria is almost always moving if you notice things like this it still though they're not a they're not a swimmer like a lot of these other things so like the set on a piece of coral head and they wait for their food becomes flaming by and then nothing much bothers them very well they can stay in the other ones but basically they just take one big bite and that's about it. The size of these a lot of these fish surprisingly are just babies. Now this the lion fish that we just saw for instance will sometimes get very large sometimes over a foot in length which is extremely big and you have to be very careful if you're swimming around the coral reef not the stuff. Most women for them and this now I have one of these first at home in an aquarium. You see this fish with the polka

dots right here. That's an interesting fish and fish right there will get extremely large extremely large. He will get about two feet of snow. What do you think sort of name do you think he would have with all those polka dots can you think of the name of. That was he was with polka dots. That's very close. He's in a family of fish called groupers. OK all which get almost all of which get very large. This is called a polka dot for a panther fish. Have you ever seen a panther. You want to cancel hot spots right. A leopard. There are some things called love for this is that this is a panther a lot of these fish are named for things that they look like. Princes here of little sea horses right next to the right next to the pan so they're like a horse's head. And. He was he was named sea horse because it looks like a horse that swims in the search

for anything we post in here. I think there is one little white one. The thing with the Panthers is that they get so that in itself is protection for them. The high down of the dark years. He's not very comfortable here. Because he gets very excited. We have a hole that now I really want to look at the pretty orange one right here that we have that as well as a whole lot of the little clownfish playfulness. Very very very pretty first. A lot of times you'll see a whole lot of these living together. You might see your hundred living in the school to get a break time. They're very very beautiful. You couldn't get a better look at him. He's hiding his face. In that.

So we're just we're just let him find like you're stuck in a corner OF. Your mind. You're all inspired to go home and say here how much of an investment does it take to just start out with a tank this size you can get started for between forty and fifty dollars. That's everything that you knew you would get your home when you're filtering yourself recreates really closely with only lighting a couple fish. That's right and the best way is to start off with with just a couple fish that don't cost too much to begin with. Or when you think of all these beautiful creatures like you know some of them because I think it's a part of their wars. That's really all that's beautiful collection. Yeah. Fish protect himself I don't know if you've ever heard of a little animal called the

sea anemone. Have you ever heard of one of. A sea anemone as a as a little. Hype About It looks like a jellyfish or sometimes like a flower almost like a flower and they live right in there and the sea anemones will sting any other fish that comes near them except for the clown fish. So the clown fish sees another fish beginning to gobble him up or come after him. He quickly dives into that sea anemone and in fact we have an aquarium where I work with a whole sea anemones and clown fish and you can see that very he doesn't fish and nobody is quite sure why. A couple of ideas but they live together they seem to be very good friends. Nature is like that but that was a lot of work. What do you like best care on of all the things we have here. Which one of the most interesting.

Allies that I have the save an awful lot. Thank you very much for coming. Thank you. Fast I'm learning a lot I'm sure on the job. Oh you're probably right about that. I'm glad you could go to Bob's film about how to start. Start your own. Fun next time. Were.

Were. Were. Were. Way.