We Got FULL Access to ORA’s Aquaculture Facility! You Won’t Believe What We Saw!

[music] All right, reapfers. As you can see, I am standing in quite the facility. I'm here with Jordan from O. So glad you guys could come. Thank you so much for having us. Uh, today's going to be a really awesome episode, guys. I am truly geeking out. This is something I've been hoping to be able to come and see myself in person. Uh, Jordan, let's get right into it, man. Uh, where are we standing in here today? All right. So, this is one of our growout buildings, one of several actually. This is where we're feeding all of the fish as many times as possible to get them as fat and large as possible. We can sell them and get them to our customers. Absolutely. And so, I'm sure people are kind of curious to O, oceans, reefs, and aquariums, right? How long have you guys been up in business? What's kind of the history of O? We are quickly closing in on our 30th year. So, started in 1996, have been running all the way through. Uh, it's been a really long fun ride. Absolutely. Uh, you know, this is an amazing operation. Uh, something that a lot of people don't get the chance to see and so I'm very thankful for it. Looking in this facility right here, this space that we're in, how many different species do we have? They're actively being aquaculture just in this area right here. I mean, this probably close to 20 species probably. Wow. And then in each vat, how much can you fit in each of these vats? When it comes to fish, obviously dependent on species probably. How much can you fit in? A shocking amount. I mean, thousands. multiple thousands of fish. Uh multiple thousands of dirty backs. Uh we've got blennies out here. We've got damsels out here. All this happening at the same time. As you can see, our staff is kind of uh cleaning, feeding, sorting, everything all at the same time. You know, the reef hobby is so interesting in the fact that, you know, when it first kind of started, sustainability wasn't super pushed, right? It was kind of a lot of just collecting, getting into our tanks and kind of enjoying them. I've been reefing for well over 20 years now. Um something that I really really pride myself in in the hobby now is what you guys are doing here sustainability aquaculture you know aquaculture itself kind of talk us through what is the importance of aquaculture now for our hobby at this point I mean so as you mentioned yeah 20 even 20 years ago uh it was a hard market to break into uh people couldn't compete with the pricing uh the colors weren't there the shapes weren't there uh the size wasn't there but I mean all of that's been really changing uh pretty quickly and I would say even just in the last 5 years has been a dramatic push push uh to have people have a 100% aquacultured aquarium, which has always been our goal since 1996. [music] Um, our fish have always tried to be the most colorful, the nicest size, the widest variety of species. [music] We really want the aquarist to have kind of everything, but none of it taken from the ocean, right? And conditioning the fish to live in aquarium situations, right? Also getting fish that sometimes can be a little bit harder to get into a reef tank that actually can take a little bit more to prepared [music] foods, right? So, that's a key point right there. So, one of the benefits of aquacultured fish are one, you're not shipping a fish 8,000 mi from the South Pacific, right? You're coming from a facility here in Florida, which could be a 500 mile journey overnight, right? Uh the fish are already eating prepared foods. There's none of that training. Will they will they eat? Uh the fish are going to be heartier. They're going to be more adapted to an aquarium. Um and then one of my favorite parts about it is you often times get to see a fish at a stage that's never available from the wild. So, I'm talking about pygmy angels or even marine bettas. You know, you're never going to see a fish this big, right? But in an aquarium, in aquaculture, you get to see that fish for the entire lifespan. It's it's really exciting. You made a great point. You know, these fish when they get shipped from wherever they're coming from, sometimes the [music] handling process is a little bit more rough. You know, the capturing, the handling, Exactly. multiple stops, long times in boxes. You know, here you guys have a well-rounded staff at this point that are really caring for the animals. How many people do you have here on [music] staff now at this point at this facility? anytime. We usually have about 40 40 employees. And it's more a lot of hyper fixation on the fish themselves, right? The care for the fish, ensuring their health and all of that. Oh, sure. Yeah. That's why there's only like two salespeople and the rest are all taking care of animals all day long. And some people are in the background right now kind of sorting through. What's their current job right now as they're kind of sorting through these bins? Are they picking out fish for shipments or what are they doing? Absolutely. I mean, a lot of our fish are um multiple nests of fish going in the same batch, right? So, you're going to see black ocelaris varieties mix in with [music] storms, snowflakes, uh, and all of that needs to be sorted. So, if a customer wants a long fin, uh, they're going to find it in here, uh, as opposed to having just ready to go automatically. I think some people get the idea that you can't actually mix a lot of different types of clown fish, you know, especially the designer clown. I think people seeing this like their home aquarium, they get a bunch of stars in their eyes, but this is not something you can really do long term without, you know, very careful feeding, careful selection. Uh, and over time, even in this, we see fish that become more dominant and kind of assert themselves more confidently. Absolutely. And so kind of curious too with the fish in this situation right here, this setup right as we [music] see it, how long are they in a setup like this until they're actually either a getting shipped out or are you ever kind of sorting through and looking for really unique patterns and situations where you may be like maybe we need to put this into our brood stock? Absolutely. So two things of that. Yeah. Uh these fish here probably anywhere between four to 6 months before they're ready to go. I mean, generally the fish are, especially with ocillaris, by about 8 to nine months, they're ready to be sold. Uh, as far as sorting for particular eye-catching patterns, absolutely. As they're sorting through there, if something catches their eye, something doesn't look like it's supposed to be here, they'll pull it out, they'll talk to the production manager, be like, "What do we think?" Uh, it could either go to our broodtock department, which we'll see hopefully later today. Or, uh, some lucky customer be like, "That's exactly the fish I want." And we've got customers who are [music] keeping an eye out for that kind of things. Now, the customers we're talking about, who are the people that are actually receiving from O stores like Top Shelf uh receive fish from us? Uh you've got uh your mom and pop retail stores across the country. We've got our bigger brickandmort kind of com um bigger store box stores. Uh we've got drop ship customers. So, we've got one chance to kind of get it right where it's selected and shipped direct to their front door. We've got international partners. Uh we're really an international customer or a company on a pretty global scale. There's a lot of water volume, a ton of water moving, you know, when it comes to I'm guessing this whole row is kind of connected together [music] in one pattern. And then let's talk about just the sheer amount of, you know, water volume we have here. And then also the filtration. How are we filtering the water for these systems? So, these systems run through I can't remember off top of the the absolute water volume, but it's going to be multiple tens of thousands of gallons, right? Uh water's going to be going through here. It's going to be going through our bead filters, which you see kind of on this s right here. Uh pretty [music] high-tech system that really takes out a lot of the chemicals and stuff that build up when you have this density of fish with the amount of food we're putting in there. Um, we're draining water, we're refilling water, uh, we use sand filters, we use pretty powerful UV filters. [music] Um, all that kind of stuff comes into play to make sure the water stays just where we want it. You hit something I wanted to ask about the feeding of these fish, right? So, it's obviously there's so many mouths to feed in these tanks. How often are we feeding them? You know, what's kind of the different types? Are we feeding them just one prepared food? And also, is that helping limit the aggression that's happening with some of these different species? Right. All right. So, our staff is out here probably three to four to five times a day feeding these fish [music] and then siphoning in between. Uh these fish are growing and uh eating a ton. Now, in some cases, yeah, that does actually limit a lot of the aggression. I think we touched on dybs would be a great example. You know, the more their food, they're they're not really paying attention to shredding each other's fins that way. Some of our larger fish especially, um the more food you feed them, they tend to be a bit more passive. But really, one thing we can do is we can really crank up the flow and really get a nice good whirlpool effect if some of the fish get a lot more aggressive than we want. Uh therefore, they're spending a lot of energy swimming and not eating each other, [music] right? Focused on trying to keep, you know, swimming along rather than going after each other. Mainly clown fish, dirty backs. We're seeing a lot of fish that, you know, for [music] you guys, it's a testament to what you've been able to do. The continuation of aquaculturing and being able to, you know, rear a bunch of fry. It's not something that's easy. A lot of people try to do it in their home aquariums always and they can maybe rear one or two babies in the end of it all. Uh kind of curious to hear the you know the success rate from each clutch obviously going to be dependent from species to species but what's your kind [music] of success rate that you're seeing out of your different broodtock? I mean with the sheer volume of ocillaris varieties we're we're producing it's it's pretty much 100%. I mean we're pretty good at it. Uh obviously there are losses. Uh [music] I mean one thing you touched on great is uh spawning the fish tends to be the easy part. The the challenges really lies in that real narrow range between a fish that's [music] kind of reached and past metamorphosis uh and after it's hatched out of its egg. That little band of time is when the fish is the most sensitive [music] uh needs the most specific types of food and specific sized foods. uh and that's really where our staff comes in and is dialed in on what exactly [music] each species needs in order to kind of get it through metamorphosis and get it to a commercial scale production so that we can have uh a global supply chain for that. Um what sterilization you know I'm sure keeping things super clean is like one of those very crucial biocurity is in integral part of what we do here. Yeah, I I noticed that a lot when I was working at the hatchery was biocurity was super super key. So, you know, bleaching the systems completely, draining them, getting all the water out, scrubbing [music] them completely clean. Um, anything outside of that that you guys are doing to try and, you know, maintain the biocurity. Do you, you know, the employees that are coming in and out of here? It's pretty much the same ones, right? Do you maintain the same people in the same kind of areas? Right. A lot of these employees don't go to multiple buildings. You'll notice that each building you go into has a foot bath. We typically spray with alcohol. Yeah. All that stuff is is absolutely critical. You guys have absolutely mastered [music] certain species. Kind of curious, are there some new species in the works that you guys are really trying to push and work towards? Maybe something we can't talk about on camera, but kind of curious to hear what are some of the new species we're going after? Cuz as we've developed in aquaculture, right, you guys have, you know, really mastered certain species, the dogbacks, the clown fish. What's kind of next? What's the next big step in aquaculture to get to those next species? I think people uh need to remember that like all the easy fish have all been done, right? We we've kind of [music] tackle all of that. The next big frontier is going to be those pelagic species. Uh fish that change sex the longer you have them. Rasses are a key example of that. Uh the longer you have them, you're going to have just males. And so having [music] a constant supply of new fish creates sustainability problems. Um but also kind of logistical problems and how are you going to get them to spawn before they do that? You know, become their natural behavior to form those hierarchies. Um, for us, pelagics, [music] angel fish, rabbit fish, uh, hopefully tangs in the future. Uh, those are the goals, but really our day-to-day goals are just producing enough of the fish, uh, the world already needs that we're already raising. So much to learn. I mean, you really kind of sparked something in my mind, you know, that's something I didn't even really think about until you mentioned it was rasses. As they get into that terminal male phase, [music] you're having to restock with a bunch of females in the ocean. It's easy. There's constantly fish maneuvering around. The reef is a bus and there's a bunch of different females either coming in, males moving out. [music] That's got to be something that's a little difficult for you guys as you're trying to figure out how to work that through. For the rasses, are you trying to put them in large harums in larger groups? Is that something you're trying to shoot for? Cuz with the clown fish, you kind of pair them off for species like that. Are you trying to get them into larger [music] groups potentially? Right. So, a lot of our fish we do keep in groups. Blennies are a prime example of that. Um, uh, file fish are another example of fish that we keep in groups. Um, [music] some species, yeah, the challenge is just recognizing when you've got all the same sex and to swap them out for some new ones. Uh, some fish, we've noticed in our boot department, once they start getting fed on a regular schedule, that's all they really want to do. And so, they just they just enjoy their best life just getting fed and don't have to do anything after that. Uh, and that causes us to then have to replenish their their population every once in a while. Retire them, so to speak. Right. I was going to say kind of, you know, bringing in a new stock of fish to try and kind of bring back that natural mating activity or whatever it may be. Every fish is going to be different, but really amazing to see what you guys are going after. And I'm sure every different species is going to have a unique way unique way of breeding and kind of trying to get together. So, that's another thing that I think people don't realize. If you're a farm, you're typically a monoculture farm, right? You're raising corn, you're raising soy, you're not raising 70 different types of crop. [music] uh that is an overwhelming amount of skill set that you have to kind of break down into all of your staff and you know all your paperwork and uh it's it still blow blows my mind even that we have enough staff that know how each of these species operates, how they like to be raised, how they like to be fed. Uh it's pretty incredible. You know, I I think the same thing when it comes to the farm facility at TopShelf Aquatics. You know, with all the coral we're dealing with, it's very unique. But I have to say fish in my opinion are even harder than coral cuz coral at times, you know, they're not they don't have as much personalities and quirks as fish. Each fish is so unique and dynamic. I think that's something you probably see a ton is that you just mentioned orchid dybacks. You love them. They go in every single system. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people at home that are watching are probably like, I don't want to put a dotty back in my tank because of, you know, potential aggression, how they act in the tank. I I'm sure you see a lot of unique aspects [music] of these fish and I'm, you know, really curious with the wild fish, you know, I'm sure, you [music] know, as you're getting into starting to work on the breeding, right? It's going to you're sourcing fish in one point, right? It's not going to you have to start somewhere. [music] And so with that source of fish, do you see that they transition well into the environment here? Uh, I would say we go through a pretty lengthy quarantine process with any of our wild fish. So, it's usually about six 3 to 6 months uh at a minimum for these fish. Once we know they're going to be comfortable and you know they're eating all the time, that's a great start. So, then they're shifted over into our broodtock department. Uh they get the top-of-the-line food. I mean, this is a proprietary kind of mixture of foods that we're feeding. Uh we want those fish healthy because that's really where all of this starts. Healthy fish create healthy eggs and then from healthy eggs, you get healthy offspring, right? So, uh, it's really important for us to start with that really healthy fish. We're in Florida. We run into a ton of storm [music] situations. There's a lot of situations where there may be the potential to lose some power. We've got so many mouse and so many animals that are depending on you guys here at O to be able to maintain that. What's your backup power situation? How do you deal with a storm? You know, you were just mentioning you guys have to go quite the lengths to be able to get here in the facility no matter what day it is, right? 365. you have somebody here making sure the fish are doing well. So, we are at the mercy of mother nature, right? So, we're very close to the ocean. One of the biggest things we're mostly worried about is storm surge, right? So, an elevated water level is really going to be problematic. We've had two hurricanes back to back in 2004. Uh we did remarkably well. Uh it's going to happen again, but for now, we're doing really, really well, and we've kind of mitigated the damage as best we can. Uh power is what you touched on is a really important feature. We've got a really big generator you're going to see that can power the entire facility single-handedly for up to about a week or so uh on diesel fuel. Uh and then each uh individual building has its own kind of backup uh power as well. [music] I love the natural light. I'm a big believer in natural spectrum, the full spectrum of lighting. Something that I think people don't appreciate enough is fish and natural white lighting. You utilize pretty much the sun to light a lot of your facilities. Is that correct? Uh not all. This is one of our newer buildings, but that's one of the striking things we notice almost immediately is the fish color not only looks good under the natural light, but it actually enhances their color. Uh we see some fish get a lot more bold and black outlines. Black ocillaris are a good example of that. Uh any of the percol species or varieties, uh but also just the color is much more rich and [music] vibrant. Well, Jordan, we've seen the babies. Now I'm curious to see where these all come from. So, where are we off to next? So, we're going to go to my broodstock building, and I think you're going to be shocked at just [music] how big these fish actually get at adult size. Yeah, there's a couple fish that I'm really excited to see. I've seen them in previous videos, so I am I'm super excited. Let's go ahead. You're going to love it. Yeah. [music] All right. So, we just got the chance to check out a little bit of the hatchery. Right now we are in [music] what exact location? So this is our broodtock building. This is kind of step one of the entire [music] process. This is where we keep all the mom and dad fish. Gotcha. And this is something for me guys. I'm totally geeking out. This is something I've been really excited to see. Uh I genuinely have so so many questions. Um [music] at this point, how many pairs do you think roughly we have in this facility right here? And there's groups too, right? Not just pairs. They're groups. [music] So as far as like pairs go, and we've got two of these buildings, mind you. Uh, I think when we did our last count, we were somewhere around 1,400 Wow. pairs of fish. Wow. And the clown fish, you were just mentioning too that like, you know, we talked about it a little bit off camera. Each fish is going to have a little bit of different sexual maturity level, right? So, they're going to change ever so slightly. I think people might be curious, you know, for their clowns, when would they maybe start laying eggs in their home aquarium, right? And I think some people would see uh as early as 12 months. Uh, we had some epilelette shark, which I think was a couple years. Uh, so you said it can vary quite a bit. Uh, but ocillaris tend to be pretty quick. And then we're going to see a bunch of different pairs in here. I'm sure we'll show some cool videos. I wanted to ask, you have a bunch of females as the clown fish, you know, [music] enter into that sexual maturity. They turn female, they're female forever. What do we do with the males? Are we changing the males out, trying to [music] get new different patterns and mixtures? Are we trying to maintain and keep the pairs together? Good question. So, some of these pairs, if they are producing great offspring and a great selection of patterns, uh they'll probably stay together forever until we retire them. Some fish we do swap out, right? So, let's say we need the genetics of of one fish, we'll put them with someone else that maybe produces something better or that we need more of. Um, but often times these fish are kind of this is this is the life here. I mean, they're fed uh the best foods uh kept in the most stable and clean environments. I mean, this is where I would want to be if I was a fish. That term retired kind of interesting. Uh, I just saw a couple fish that were older than me at this point. So, when is that retirement maybe come to fruition for them? And it sounds like a a scary what do we do with our retired fish? But you'll see later on. Uh, when their fish are retired, they go to our coral greenhouse. They live in essentially a replication of the reef. I mean, it is a good life there as well. It's a good way to kind of sunset out for the next 20, 30 years. All of these tanks have little notes on them, right? Let's talk about some of the notes that these may be for. What are the purpose of them? And then also we see some little tabs that have like green stickers on them. What do these mean? Okay, so a lot of this is communication for uh the staff, right? Uh how often they're spawning, how big the egg uh egg nests are. Some of these notes have very specific things like the eggs are clear. So don't wipe the tile off if you can't just because you can't visually see something right away. Uh [music] the green dots mean they're laying eggs, which is what we want to see on as many of these as possible. Some fish that people are readily breeding in their home aquariums. Yes, people [music] have clown fish that they're able to breed, but we just looked at a group of wasp fish. You guys are doing all kinds of [music] different stuff in here. So, what is the level that you guys are trying to shoot for? We talked about it a little bit earlier. You know, we're always trying to kind of break the, you know, the aquaculture barrier, right? Trying to get to that next level. Do you see that you guys are bringing in new species frequently or is it something that you guys slowly kind of work it into the rotation? I would say it's a little more slower, right? So, [music] one of the main things that I mentioned earlier is we're really trying to produce more of the fish that we're already raising. Like the demand for just what we already have is so high, uh, let alone kind of branching out into different species, uh, that may not hit the mark with kind of aquarist. But a lot of the stuff we're trying, um, I would say [music] we're we're trying to introduce to aquarius that could be something fun. Uh, the white spot pygmy file fish is a great fish for me. not on everyone's radar, but man, when people buy it, they lose their minds at how adorable they are, how hardy some of those species uh are is kind of what we're trying to do is [music] bring those to the market. Tons of damsel fish, the clown fish included, but damsels in general. Let's talk about, you know, they get a really bad rap in the hobby. They they are normally, you know, people view [music] them as the starter fish. We put a couple in, we get the tank kind of rolling. What would you say when it comes to damsels, you know, why it's so important that you guys continue to aquaculture [music] them? You said off camera, you know, there's millions of these damsels that are actively being caught and brought in through wholesale. You know, why do you guys take the [music] time, put in all the effort to aquaculture a fish that may be a cheap fish in reality, but why do you view that as [music] such an essential thing to do here at O? Uh, you touched on a great thing there. I mean, cheap is the word, right? Unfortunately, when people see a cheap fish, [music] they don't it becomes expendable or it doesn't have as much value as say your $200 tang that you bought, but that fish still has value. And for us, it's really important that we [music] we don't want these fish viewed as just something that, oh, if it dies, it dies or we use it just to get our tank started and then we can get rid of it. You know, we want all these animals to be taken care of. There's no reason for millions of those fish to be brought from the wild. if we can do our part to kind of help aquaculture a few hundred thousand, you know, uh for everybody. There's a couple fish in here that I'm really excited to see. Uh do we have the chance to be able to check out some of the older clown fish that we have here in my favorite fish to look at? Yeah, let's go ahead and check those out. That' be awesome. And inside this facility here, how many people are working in here? I know you mentioned there's, you know, a good amount over there. How many people do we have actively working in here in the broodtock area? It's like four or five per building. And these guys do bounce I think a little bit between uh I mean they're primarily in this hub but we do uh there's another Yeah, we probably 10 total. Interesting to see too the tanks you know clown fish are viewed as these hyperaggressive fish but the tanks I asked you mirrored glass but they're actually not mirror glass. I mean they can see each other and it's I mean in the wild it's not unusual to see multiple pairs in some of these more larger anemy species. So maybe in that sense they get uh they're already kind of accustomed to it, but really it doesn't stop them uh from doing what they do, which is, you know, I'm looking right here at this female kind of uh posturing for these ocillaris. And you know, they still have eggs. They're still doing fine. And then multiple different kind of things you're putting into the tanks, right? Tiles, [music] sponge, there's like a kind of a filter, floss, PVC kind of material. Some fish spawn in sand beds and stuff. So what we do whatever the fish uh requires in order to kind of get them where they need to be. Each fish is going to have their own unique tank, right? It own unique setup, but really cool to see how you guys are going, you know, above and beyond the temperature in here. Kind of warmer. Do you guys try to keep it a little bit warmer here in here or is it obviously we're in Florida, right? It's not an easy thing to maintain [music] temperatures, especially with the sheer amount of pumps and things running all the time. You know, temperature. I'm sure that's something people are curious about. So, the staff at ORY are some of the toughest people you could imagine, right? They are working in hot humid conditions all year round. Uh once these vents open up, they get floods with noiums, which as somebody who doesn't live in Florida, nos are one of the worst things you can experience. Uh they get brutalized by mosquitoes, uh hot rain. I mean, it's it's really miserable. But these guys are tough. They do a really good job 365 days a year making sure the fish that we raise have the top quality care. Everywhere you look, Jordan, there's something unique to see, something really cool to see. I've seen this fish in previous videos. It was something I really wanted to share on the channel. Let's talk through one of honestly one of the most important fish in the history of designer clown. I would go so far to say iconic even. Yeah. Uh I love coming to this building specifically for this fish as well. This is a wild caught Picasso percula. [music] Now, you know, a Picasso is pretty ubiquitous now. Everyone sees whenever maybe it has one, but this fish arriving in a fish store in 2004 would have been mind-blowing at the time. I mean, this would not have been a fish you would have seen. Uh, it's only matured into one of the most attractive fish I've ever seen. And, [music] uh, historically significant because to my understanding, all of the Picasso perculs that you see in the world came from this pairing. Absolutely amazing. You said too that designer clown fish a while back were kind of frowned upon. This fish was brought in and people initially kind of had a little bit of push back. Sure. Why was that push back occurring? I mean, people liked uh the wild type appearance of a fish, right? How it's supposed to look. Misbars were seen as something that should have been cold. Uh you know, so then now you have these same weird patterns. Uh they just didn't land well initially. Uh but now, as you've seen, people want something specific. They want something tailored to their aesthetic in their home. And so when they're going to a fish store and they see a number of different varieties of these designer clown fish, they're going to take home whatever one speaks to them. When was this fish brought into the facility? At this point, this one came in in 2004. [music] Wow. So, I mean, we're look, we're just just in the fact that it's been here, you know, over 20 years, and it's hard to even put a scale on how old the fish was even before it was caught and brought in. Yeah. And just the the amount of fish that have come out of this that, [music] you know, now occupy homes around the world. So, the fish lay eggs onto the tile. What's the next step? Where do the eggs go [music] at that point after they've been laid? I know savv for mom and dad. They don't get to see their babies anymore. What's the next step for that tile? We have an entire team and building designated for Marvel [music] Fish. I could be here all day looking at these different fish. Uh genuinely like really impressive what you guys are able to do here at O. Oh, well thank you. Uh so yeah, more of the same really, but again some real big fish. I mean like our tomato here is just holy oh my goodness so [music] big and so mean. [laughter] But yeah, I just I really like seeing these adult fish and it's also kind of fun to see like what wild accommodations you know the staff has like put together and right to see what'll happen. So we're in another broodtock building at this point. We're looking at even more pairs. It's not just the one building we were looking at. There's even more. Uh we've seen, like you just said, some wild combinations, some very unique combinations. I mean, I'm looking at one right here. Just this is it's like a gladiator snowstorm. Yeah. It's so beautiful. Uh, you know, is this something that do you allow the team here at the facility to, you know, pick and choose what they're kind of going for? Or is it something like a conjoined effort that you all know like, hey, this is a, you know, this is a male and a female. we'd love to get together and we'd like to start working on or is it maybe something where one of the main curators is like, you know, I'd really like to set up this pair in one system. Uh I think it's uh our main kind of production team has a goal uh kind of an end result and they know how to get there or at least an idea and so they'll make combinations of fish to try to figure out, you know, get there as incrementally as they can. The long fins have always been amazing to me being able to see those. How did those come about? Was that something as you guys were slowly producing fish that genetically it just started to happen and you were like grabbing [music] like you said as you sort through the thousands hundreds of babies you see that unique aspect to a fish then you try to start kind of segregating them. So some fish we do see from our own production and Gladiator is a great example. You know other hatcheries kind of actively produce that fish. Uh at the time we actually were finding it in our own production as just like an aberant fish and we ran with it. Uh the long fins. Now we've actually got two different varieties. We have our long fin and then our veil fin. Now the long fins were started I don't know almost 20 years ago um out of Tennessee and they had more of that kind of we call like a Freddy Krueger kind of a spiky look fin to them. Uh whereas the veil fins are more of a New England area kind of hatchery um fish. And we've just kind of incorporated those both uh and kind of made the distinction so that as an aquarist you know what you're getting. And there's a wide mixture too of clown fish. Looking at one right here, like this is standing out to me right away. Saddleback columnus. So many different fish. Uh it's not just your basic clown fish in a way, right? There's so many different species. I think we're up to like 38 different distinct species right now. Wow. [music] And the uh hybridization. We were talking about it a little bit off camera. Walk me through how sometimes that [music] just happens. Oh, right. So, one of the really cool things is like you may have a fish in this tank spawning, uh, as they're, you know, the male is trying to fertilize its eggs, water [music] is still going down the drain into a sump, uh, circulated back through another tank. Right now, the sperm from that male could end up on some tank way down at the end who are coincidentally also spawning, fertilize those eggs. We don't know about it until, you know, months later in the growing department where there's a fish that they've found that looks a little different than what is supposed to be in there. Uh, and so yeah, we've found [music] uh tomato ocillaris hybrids, clarky ocel parkula, uh, bicinctus hybrids. I mean, all sorts of crazy stuff. And is that something where that fry ends up, you know, coming to full fruition? Are they able to kind of maintain even through hybridization? Are they able to kind of come to full maturity? They do. and they make like really crazy fish with both of like the most great aspects of both parents kind of combined to a nice adult fish. The problem is [music] more than likely probably not a fish that you could pair and then spawn and then raise offspring for. That was my next question was if you found yourself a really unique and special hybrid is that something that you're like, "Oh, we got to get to this into the broodtock or is it simply due to [music] the fact it's so outlandish and kind of crazy you're like let's kind of keep this just as it?" Uh, yeah. Most time they [music] just they won't produce viable offspring. They just look really cool. Yeah, absolutely. What's the craziest one you guys have seen? Uh, sure. I mean, you see crazy fish all the time, but what would be one of the hybrids that like really stands out in your mind? I mean, I really like the maroon ocillaris hybrids [music] because you get like the the temperament of an ocillaris, you get the finage, you know, really beautiful fins of a of a maroon. Um, and so those kind of var variations are really interesting to see. I asked you what your favorite hybrid is, but what's your favorite clown fish type? [music] I know that you've got, like you just said, 38 different species you guys are trying to rear in here. If you had to choose the clown [music] fish that you want in your home, what would be the one you would actively try to choose then? I I would say my heart belongs to the blue stripe clown fish, uh, amphibion chrysopterus. Uh, but the next up is going to be Chrysogaster out of Maitius. Uh, or the blackfoot clown out of Sri Lanka nigripes. Hard to pick my favorite out of those. Very unique choices. Of course, you get the chance to see some amazing ones. I'm sure a lot of you at home right now are googling what [laughter] he just said cuz they're probably fish that you've never even seen before, but I think you get the chance and opportunity to see [music] some really unique and special things. There's a lot of cool clown fish out there. They're my my favorite fish. I think every tank should have some. [music] Uh they're great. They can be a little bit of brutes at times, but I agree. I think the hardiness, the way they just are so [music] iconic, and just the fact that they take really well to home aquariums. I feel they're essential in every single home. They are. Yeah. And especially if you just need something small uh in your home apartment, you've got some kids that want something that a little bit low maintenance, a pair of clown fish makes a phenomenal pet and long lived as we as we've seen. Yeah, [music] absolutely. And like you just said too, the fact that they can be in a smaller system. You know, the size of each of these tanks is something that anyone could kind of get away with when it comes to like a nano aquarium at home. And they can also live in gigantic setups as well. Even better. Yeah. [music] All right, Jordan brought me over to, in my opinion, one of the coolest things we've seen just yet. Uh, big building, some retired tanks over on the other side. This used to be kind of a home to a little bit more species of sharks. But Jordan, what are we looking at right here? Probably my favorite species of sharks, the short tail nurse sharks. And if I was flute in Latin, I would tell you their species name, which is just a mouthful of letters. But, uh, just a spectacular species for like a I guess the reasonably small home shark aquarium. And, you know, for them, this these two that we're looking at right in here, this is max size. You said max size about 24 in. Um, [music] just the the quintessential shark shape. Kind of always on the go. Really cool things. If you've been out to the Caribbean, you've seen, you know, regular nurse sharks, which get massive, but these guys have all that in a tiny little package. Very cool to see, you know, sharks. Like I was talking with you. I I've always dreamed of setting up something basically like this in my backyard. My wife would kill me, but this is something I would honestly love to do. Bunch of mangroves and then [music] have sharks in here. You've got some other pelagic species that we're kind of working with in here. Um, I asked you, they're mainly broadcast spawners. [music] So, how do you deal with that? You know, in the broodtock we were just looking at with some of the clown fish, the damsels, we're able to collect [music] a sponge or a tile, right, in a small little aquarium, right? In a small aquarium. With your pelagic species, you definitely need the volume of water, right? Cuz they need to get everything out into the water column. Um, [music] and so you're going to see a lot of that with the mandarins, you know, which do that really cool spiral dance up to lay their eggs. Uh, you got the angel fish, you've got tangs that do all that. Uh, and so we need these big tanks specifically for those types of, uh, behaviors. The nurse sharks are amazing. You said you had some other sharks in the facility at one point. What were some of the other sharks you guys were working with? Uh, epilelet sharks, which are a great other small species. Uh, they top off closer to about 36 in, though. Uh, walking sharks, if you know anything about them, man, some of their like behaviors are really mind-blowing. I mean, the fact that they can, uh, live in a complete hypoxic environment, the fact that they can walk out of their tide pool into overland into another tide pool, they can tolerate 120°ree water. I mean, they're really a cool shark. uh really nice and tough for a home aquarium as well. I think you guys get to see it firsthand better than some people as you're getting ready to rear these animals, get the fry going. The pups with the sharks, those were some that were a little bit more difficult to get going. [music] We find that it's really important to make sure that they're, you know, handfed, eating completely on their own before we even offer them for sale. Uh usually about 6 to 8 in is a good size. Um but as long as they're eating on their own, they're ready to go. But to get them to that point can be a little bit more timeconuming. Yeah. And a lot of local fish stores will bring in the shark eggs like you kind of mentioned. It's almost a trinket in a way, right? It's a novelty. Yeah. To like see the egg hatch. You can kind of they'll carve out the side. Not very good for the shark or the egg. But um yeah, it's important for us to take a species that has a pretty dismal record in the industry. Uh and often as a captain red, really tough [music] and kind of help reverse some of those trends, right? Try to, you know, education I think in this [music] hobby is constantly happening. You're you're always I mean I'm I've learned a ton today, but you're always learning something new and I feel like that's a big thing you guys are doing with aquaculture is trying to teach hobbyists, [music] you know, what is the right way. I mean, there's no real right way to reef in an aquarium, but to be more sustainable [music] and more ecosystem conscious. Yeah. I mean, we'll do our best to give you the the experiences that we have so that you can take that and improve your skill level uh to get where you want to be with your fish tank. Well, at some point once uh I uh get my wife convinced that we can set up a lagoon pond, I'm gonna have to grab myself one of these nurse sharks because these are She's gonna fall in love with these. We'll bring her by. I could definitely see that happening. Uh like you said, they're like dogs. They're just so cute. We'll get you a little plush toy just kind of like ease your way into it. Perfect. [music] Jordan, we've seen sharks. We've seen fish. Now we're getting to look at kind of more the lower end of the food chain side of things. Something a little different. And something that I think is essential to every single reef is the cleanup crew. So some of these troughs. Let's talk about what we're kind of culturing in here. So what you're looking at are millions and millions of variegated urchins. Uh a great little industrious little animal. Great for algae control. Uh rearranging your zuanthid colonies. I mean these guys love wearing all of your corals as as clothing. But if you can look past that, uh, you'll never have to see hair algae again. It's gotten to the point where, you know, the biggest limitation for you guys on these, you are able to bring up as much fry as possible. It's food source now, right? Yeah. So, a lot of these need pretty substantial amount of ulva, which their preferred diet. So, not only that, we have to like raise this ulva in order to sustain these. Um, and their appetite is insatiable. It's like a little cattle farm in here. You're trying to raise enough grass for the cows and now you've got all this over. You're trying to get in here. Yeah. I think, you know, reminder for everyone at home that's watching, your cleanup crew are going to be essential. And having the fact that you have aquacultured cleanup crew, it's just like, like you said, it's amazing to see how far the hobby has developed to now [music] where you said we could have a fully aquaculture tank. That's always been the goal. And again, it's kind of fun to remind people that, you know, without aquacultured urchins, there's people out there just collecting these off rocks somewhere and chipping them. And uh, you know, we're trying to limit that. You know, keep the wild where it needs to be. Uh, we've got everything you need right here, right? Stripping away from the natural environment, which in turn can then allow other things to take over. And it's that, you know, it's the food chain that's already set in stone out in the reefs. And if we pop a, you know, a peg out of that board, it kind of can start to tumble in a way. It can be a house card at times for sure. These are these are a fun little species to have. These the snails that we raise uh everything to kind of help aquarists keep their tank clean and not uh impact the wild environment. Something that a lot of reef keepers would never think of, right? Having a tank where you're actively throwing more algae into. Rather than trying to take algae out, they throw algae in. [music] Uh, all right. So, this is just the the laral department. I mean, here's a kind of a good rundown, uh, where you can see fish at different ages and say life stages. I feel like this is a tank in somebody's dreams, right? Just a hundreds of tiny little baby clowns. They're they're really adorable. They're so cute. This this for me uh you know if you've done the saltwater aquarium and you've done the reef tank and you've done coral fragging you know if you want like the next challenge try raising the fish that you keep I really think it adds a whole other level of of commitment and [music] um interest and motivator. Uh I really loved it when I raised clown fish. It was really cool to learn about how to every step of the way to ros raising roifers and keeping green water and it's much more harder to do in a commercial scale. All right. Anybody can like raise fish on a home scale and really I think they are leading the charge in many of these newer species. Um [music] the the challenge for us has always been how do we expand that to a commercial scale so that everyone can enjoy in that species as a captive bread option. They [music] start to slowly grow older and older and older and then they'll come from here and they'll make their way all the way to the other side of the hatchery kind of area. From here, this is where they go to grow out. So, those giant systems all the way down. They'll fill each of those tanks with uh each [music] of these batches of fry. Again, ramp up that feeding. Once they once they get past this stage, this is like the most sensitive area. So [music] the staff here um really has needs to have the highest level of kind of observation uh knowledge because yeah this this is where we can lose everything. Absolutely. I mean this is really [music] where this is where it all begins. This is the beginning of the life of them. And then about what age are they getting ready to make that [music] transition over? Usually a month or two for some species. And you have the smaller tanks. And then we've got bigger troughs here as well. Some some of these larger systems just do better for the type of fish that we're raising. One of the more insatiable species that we we raise are uh peppermint shrimp. Peppermints are funny because they don't look like peppermint shrimps their entire life cycle. They look like lobster baby. They look like these weird alien [laughter] like dust particles. You know, something you get stuck in your eye if you driving on a motorcycle or something. But like they're great. Great. And then again, they met metamorphosize into a little peppermint shrimp and will absolutely devour all of your aptasia and become a very useful little uh cleanup crew item. I was going to say big shout out to you guys. I recently had a little bit of issue with some uh aptasia that had popped up. We had an order of your peppermints come in. I decided to bring three of them into my tank. I gave it I think that's something people tend to forget is like give it a little time. They're not going to do it overnight. It's not instant. And after a 3 week period, I have not been able to find any. So that's that's a great point. It does take about 2 weeks and then one day you're going to come into your tank and you're going to be like, "Where's all the aptasia?" You know, it just happens. Uh but not overnight. This is a very instant gratification hobby. Uh be patient. And then for the peppermint shrimp, curious to hear from you. As they have worked through the aptasia, they're now done with the aptasia. What's the, you know, some do you try to feed your tank a little bit heavier so that they're not turning their eye to something else in the tank to try to go after? They're not picky. They'll they'll take any of the food you put in there and they'll eat it as voraciously as your fish will. Um they're going to keep eating your your detritus. Uh you know, rarely will they pick on corals. Um they may kind of uh if they're not as feted as heavily, kind of nip a little bit at your clam mantles or your more fleshy corals, but really they're mostly reef safe. [music] Uh a great item to have in every aquarium. Yeah. Again, not just fish. Uh we're looking at all kinds of different species here at Oite. Very cool. Water quality has got to be one of probably the top priorities here in these tanks in particular. Obviously everywhere, but probably in here super high priority. Is that kind of why we're seeing some of the water actively being cycled out and it's brand new water coming in all the time? We use a lot of water in here because not only do you have such high density of fish, you also have high density of the food that's in feeding the fish. So a lot of the nut nutrients in the water uh can spell disaster for your water quality. uh which in turn affects the fish's health, their confirmation uh and what they look like as an adult. So, it's really crucial to have the most clean water at this point. The drain pipes, it's funny, each of them will have its own, you know, size depending on the mesh, but for this one, it is the tiniest little mesh to make sure I mean, you can see these fish are the size of like commas right now. I mean, they are so tiny. [music] Uh, all right. So, this is our coral greenhouse. This is the one I'm really excited for. I love this building. So, it's kind of a a neat testament to [music] to be growing corals in a greenhouse, you know, in a climate like Florida where it's just relentlessly hot. Um, so we do that obviously with these giant uh makeshift temperature controllers that look like AC units, but man, they keep the water nice and cool for us. Uh, not so much for the staff. [laughter] when the sun's nice and kind of overhead is where we get like the nicest views a lot of these. Uh but being where we're winter, the sun is very low in the sky. So you're going to see kind of a a difference in coloration than you would see during the summer months. And then at this point, how many species of corals are you guys actively growing in the farmhouse? [music] I think there's something around 150 varieties uh with, you know, [music] 70 to 100 kind of in active production any any time. So cool to see the pink bird's nests. Truly pink. Truly pink. Truly pink. [music] Sunlight pink. Yeah. I mean, I love the colors. Now, what's also kind of, you know, a lot of some people say that a lot of these colors are more muted, but man, you put them underneath a a radon with the blue spectrum. They're going to just pop just as well as they do uh any of your your Indo Maraculture pieces. Is this where the fish go to retire? This is where Yeah, we're going to see. So, we've got these [music] big sumps here, and you are going to see quite the odd selection of fish in each one. I like the uh trash can method you guys are utilizing for filtration, too. Trying [music] to keep it very simple, but it's doing exactly what it needs to do. So, the biggest difference between us and say an indoor farm like yours is [music] electricity is uh like I said, a currency out here. We don't, in order to achieve the same amount of water motion, we'd have to [music] have, you know, vortex in each quarter with a extension cord and power. Uh, this is filled with one pump, fills up, you know, 45 gallons and then is shot through a 6-in pipe [music] uh at varying intervals, which creates a very natural and a very like large amount of water motion for these corals. So you get not only um [music] a lot less detritus stuff building up in the tank, but the corals actually grow like they would in the ocean because they're getting that variable flow. And for everybody watching, I'm sure they're like, "Where are the lights?" Ah, good point. But no need for a light when we're in the greenhouse, right? Absolutely. Yeah. So 365 days a year, we've got sunlight right overhead, uh providing [music] uh an intense amount of light, sometimes even too intense. People ask us, "Oh, what are these growing under?" I mean, I don't think it even register on the scale. It's so bright. And as you see, a lot of these corals are under, you know, 6 in of water. Um, and it does really, really wonders for them. And then outside of, you know, some of the sump areas, like you were just talking about, a lot of the fish in the systems are the utility fish, right? So, you'll see tangs in here for algae control. Um, which is primarily what we we battle in here. It's just again with sunlight. It's one of the reasons why they say don't put your aquarium next to a window. You're going to get algae. Uh, unfortunately we are under a window and we get lots of algae. So, here's my favorite anemmy of all time. This is a super big Holy cow. Heteractus magnifica. Oh my gosh. This is crazy. It's huge. Yeah, that's a pretty much a wild size right there. Oh my gosh. And it's like just this section right here is like its own little natural reef. You've got this giant leather, [music] the ne and then just a blast of water. blasts of water and then just this whole just wall full of mushrooms. And as you look, you're going to see, you know, our kind of colonies of Ben cardinals in there. Our giant toad stool that uh you may remember from your herm in your home aquarium. Yes. Uh how old is this ne at this point? I mean, it's been here since I've been here, so at least 11 years. Not quite sure longer than that. Wow. Some of the bigger kind of colonies hanging out in here. These are some of the, you know, like the pectinas we have over here. Some of the birds nest. These are the ones that haven't been fragged yet or they still in grow out phase, right? And so very different from your kind of traditional uh aquaculture [music] coral farm is we don't just bring in a bunch of colonies, glue a couple sticks down and say, "Oh, we've aquaculture." These have been in continuous production, many for decades. Um Stuper Stag is a great example of a coral that's been in production since the 80s. Um but we take frags of frags of frags [music] of frags of frags of frags. Uh so a lot of these corals uh have just been in aquarium conditions uh and are so adjusted to that that they're just a seamless transition into your home aquarium. Yeah. You know flow is one of those things I talk about in like every single video that it's become for some reason something that people have started to put a little lower on their list to be, you know, like it's like oh the lighting, oh the parameters. But I feel like flow is one of those things that should be almost the top [music] priority on your list. At least with my home personal aquariums, I think uh a high flow velocity reef is like where it's at. I think your corals are going to respond better. Your fish are going to like it better. Uh I think overall your aquarium is just going to look a lot nicer. It's funny, too, cuz people will look at this setup right here and be like, "That's not that much water moving through, but it's the sheer size of that is a short it's it's one of the main reasons why in all each of these systems, [music] we have the frag plug that we use that is is the bane of most people. mainly because it's not designed for a home reef. You don't It's not meant so that you can put it in your reef and advantages. It's so that because there's so much flow coming out of these pipes. If we had anything else other than something rigidly designed to fit an egg crate, it would just blow everywhere. You know, in our farm facility, we, you know, try to do very similar in what you're doing, you know, frags on frags on frags, but you guys have gone above and beyond with certain species. You know, we'll have couple select colonies that we'll do the cut to order and we'll have singular [music] frags here and there, but it's just like fields of these frags. It's so many, right? And is this something that's actively going out just as much as your guys' fish? It is. It is. Uh our corals are very popular. Um again, because they tend to be so resilient. They're underneath the beautiful sun right now. Is there any issue with their transition to the home aquarium with lighting, the the blue lighting as everybody loves? I call it Gucci mode when you go straight blues, but what's the uh you know, how is that transition period for that? [music] It's actually quite seamless. I mean, it's it's definitely uh one of the most asked questions. Uh but I just don't think the PAR in most home aquariums even touches what they're getting here under the sun. So, it really is an easy transition. [music] Now, the spectrum is where you're going to be getting a little bit more issue. Um you know, a lot of those LEDs produce very narrow bands. Uh, and so it can be kind of a trial and error when you put your coral in your tank to see like where is it going to do the best? Lower in the rock work, higher up in the rock work. Uh, but again, our corals are forgiving enough that it it's usually pretty easy. Similar to how we utilize PVC in the farm, you guys have a bunch of egg crate. Uh, you know, like this one I'm standing right in front of is a little bit cleaner. Is it something that you guys are kind of swapping in and out as things kind of maybe get a little bit dirtied up or there might be some algae? It's just an easy way to swap things in and out. It is. Yeah, it's definitely a crucial part of the maintenance is swapping out the egg crate uh after you've kind of hand uh cleaned each individual frag um and place it on the tray. Amazing that you're aquaculturing the inverts over and a couple rows down and then here they are right next to me getting put to work. Getting put straight to work. Yeah, I think that's the beautiful thing of it is you guys have a whole ecosystem at this point that you guys have developed. you know, whether it be the hatchery of the fish, you know, the urchins, the shrimp, I mean, you guys have it all. Um, and then when you retire, you come here and get to hang out, right? And then you get to retire and come over here. I know there was one thing that I've seen in every video that is been allowed to come over here. Uh, Jordan, this thing is like a dream for me. This is unbelievable. So, this tank actually has two of my most favorite things. a large gigas and then one of our uh hybrid maximus famos we got probably eight to nine years ago at this point it is probably the most breathtaking clam I've ever seen in my entire life when it opens I'll show you but man it is great but this still has another two feet left to go crazy I and that's what's so funny is people will buy these at their local fish stores top shelf through you guys whenever it may be so little they're such little guys and then they [music] turn into these monsters This isn't even that old. This is probably 5 years old. Wow. Crazy. This is five and that's even, you know, several years older than this. Absolutely. These grow much faster. Uh but I think the whole draw of this clam is it adds that like iconic element to your reef tank. It [music] kind of just completes it. It makes it look like the National Geographic picture, you know? Absolutely. This clam's so big. The mantle's hanging out of the water. And it's not even the biggest clam we have out here. There's a big There's a bigger clam. There's a bigger clam. I'll show you. All right. So, here's probably the largest deresa I've ever seen in my entire life. [laughter] Oh my gosh, I love this clam. So, this actually was purchased here, sold to the mom of uh Vanessa, our production manager for this building, this building. Uh when it got too big, it came back here and it's just been here ever since. And now it's probably full size. I mean, that's as big as they get. That is so impressive. I think of the one that sits on my desk tank, one of your guys' clams. Okay. And it's, you know, that big. And I laugh. I look at this and it's as big as its mouth. I mean, it is, this is truly such a huge, huge clam. Yeah. They just look better and better as they get bigger. The It's funny, too, in most these setups, [music] there's corals just growing everywhere. Oh, yes. Right. And then you're getting them on the walls. They're just growing, you know, at some points a little out of control. Is that something you have to work on cutting back a little bit at times? Obviously, like the Zena, that's one of those things. Zenthelia, things of that sort that kind of get a little crazy and invasive. They do, but again, uh our Zenia is is one that we can't sell enough of. I mean, it's it doesn't melt when you ship it like some of the more wild varieties do. Uh I would say the only concerning coral that gets out of control is silapora. Yeah. I mean, it spawns and you see it just start taking over everywhere and it's uh infectious if you will. Yeah. This Jordan, this is amazing. something that I feel like every reef keeper would love to have. We got the chance to be down in LA at one point. The gentleman, he had Dave, he had outdoor [music] frag tanks that were really cool and it's just something that's very unique. I think something with the natural [music] sunlight on these corals in their quote unquote natural environment is so special. Uh yeah, thank you so much for showing us not just the fish over there, but this too. This is something that's really near and dear to us at TopShelf Aquatics. You know, there's a lot of pieces [music] that we have from you guys. I know that the O Red Gani is like such an iconic piece and to be able to kind of see where it stems from is very, very humbling to be able to see something like this. You know, I feel like we get the chance to really enjoy our farm facility, but [laughter] this is on another level of very cool and dynamic and setup of what you guys have got going on. [music] All right, Jordan, we are sitting in a front of a field of clam Dreams. My favorite place to be. Yeah, this is amazing. I wanted to kind of cap off today's video. You know, first of all, thank you for letting me see all the [music] different parts of the facility. But the clams, you guys get in an amazing selection. Yep. Let's talk a little bit about clams. [music] You know, some really good tips for people at home. I know a lot of people get deterred from clams, especially [music] sometimes in a smaller size, they don't think it might be a good thing to add to their home aquarium. There are those like reoccurring myths that if they're under 2 in, you know, they they tend to need to be fed or something. But I'll I'll be the first one to tell you, we don't feed these plans at [music] all. They're fed just on light, uh the nutrients in the water, and as long as you're keeping your parameters uh in check that are good enough for aquaporus, you're going to be just fine with these. Uh [music] these this particular species, your maximus tend to be a little bit more sensitive than say a deresa clam, which is much more forgiving. If you're wanting to kind of get your feet wet into the world of clams, start with one of those. But as you develop, man, it's going to be hard to stay away from collecting these. Every pattern is different. Every color is amazing. I mean, they're just incr