(upbeat music)
- What's up fish tank people?
Fishtanktv.com, Dustin's Fish Tanks.
Bringing it to you with
why I don't keep rams.
How's everybody doing?
I hope you're doing well.
In last week's video, in
my top five small cichlids,
I talked about a number of great cichlids.
I talked about convicts,
I talked about leleupi.
I talked about shell dwellers,
talked about apistos,
talked about a couple other fish.
But I did not put rams, on my list.
And today's video, we're
gonna talk about why
German blue rams and small ram cichlids
did not take my top five
small cichlids list.
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Okay.
So why no rams?
They're an amazing looking
fish, they've got all kinds of
great colors on 'em, they look cool,
they don't destroy a planted tank.
Dusty, why didn't you
put rams in your top
five small cichlids list?
I'll tell you why.
Like most good fish tank stories,
this story starts with mother nature.
This story starts in the jungle.
(groovy music)
And so if you're new to my channel,
hit the subscribe button,
notification button.
You'll get more of my
videos, and blah, blah, blah,
helps me help you, the whole deal.
And if you haven't seen,
I have been to the Amazon
River basin not once but twice,
and I've said time and
time, and time again,
that when you think of the Amazon,
do not think of it as one
entirely connected body.
The Amazon River is made up of all kinds
of tiny tributaries, canals,
and all sorts of rivers,
that weave and frow, and bob,
and aren't necessarily all
connected, all the time.
Here's where it gets fun.
And while I was traveling
down in South America,
in the Amazon River basin,
I will never forget the
day we were traveling
on one of the tributaries
of the Napo River.
It had rained most of the morning,
but it was that kinda
like chilled out, calm,
relaxing rain, if you will.
We're rolling down the
channel of the Napo,
when slowly the clouds began to break.
The sun is slowly shining
through this thick clouds
to give you this amazing,
dense Amazon rays of sunshine.
Shining through, like the
stomachs of the Care Bears,
if you're familiar with those
cartoons back in the 80s.
The sky was slowly breaking
at the same time the channel
we were going through was getting
wider, and wider, and wider.
Okay, imagine this: you're going
down the Amazon River,
the river's getting wider,
and as it's been a rainy, kinda
chill day, all of a sudden
the beams of sunlight,
shining out through the river,
and the river's getting bigger.
Ah, it was amazing.
It's getting wider and wider,
and you can see the jungle
on the shore, as you can see
it waking up, you could feel
like the whole mood of
the entire area, kinda
getting excited, lightening
as Mother Nature shined
her happy sun rays down, on
what was a rainy morning.
And I remember, I'm standing
on the boat with excitement.
I had this like,
anticipation, or something.
I'm watching the sun hit all
these trees on the shore,
and the trees are just
like, shining and bustling.
Remember, I can watch
plants grow, and I'm watching
these trees after a heavy rain
get hit with bright, Amazon,
four degrees from the equator, sun, okay.
And I've got this like,
excitement, anticipation,
almost anxiety, about it.
Kinda like I felt when
I was a kid, when I would
walk with my dad, up to the
old Cleveland Browns stadium,
when they were actually
in the playoffs.
Yes, I said, the Cleveland
Browns and the playoffs,
in the same sentence.
I felt like the boat was
going faster, and faster.
I had techno beats bumpin' in my head.
There was no music, but I had these like,
just boom boom just like pumping,
in my head, like excitement.
The footage you see here, is actually
not the footage that I took
while this was going on.
I didn't have my camera
with me, but that footage is
actually at the bottom of
the Amazon, but more on that
in a second.
So, we're pumping through,
the sun is rolling,
life is great.
And as we pull into the
ever widening canal,
I notice something: I notice
the water change color.
We had left a darker color
water, and the faster we went,
the further we went into the main canal,
the more milky-white-color the water got.
(groovy music)
I promise you, I'm getting
to the cichlids soon.
And, what greeted me as we
came from the dark, black water
to the faster-moving, white water?
The botos,
the bufeo,
the pink Amazon river dolphins.
Look, you've been to the
beach, when everybody spots
a dolphin, everybody in the
entire shore loses their mind,
and goes out on the water.
Imagine seeing 1five pink
Amazon river dolphins.
All at once, greeting you,
when you're already in the most epic mood.
Watching it go from a rainy
day to the bright sunlight,
hitting you on the face in
the Amazon, as you go from
a narrow canal into a wider canal.
And as you hit this wider canal,
the pink Amazon river dolphins, a creature
that you studied when you
were a 14-year-old boy,
click links around here for those videos,
is greeting you.
Why were the dolphins here though, Dusty?
What was bringing the dolphins
to this exact location,
at this exact time?
(groovy music)
But why were the dolphins here?
Were they just hanging out?
Did they know that Daddy
"I-wish-I-was-a-dolphin" Dustin
was hanging around?
I like to think so, but probably not.
What was making the dolphins
hang out in this particular
area, at this particular time?
They were hanging around
here because this is where
the water changed, this
is where we went from
the black water tributary,
into the larger body of white water.
This is where the food was.
You see, pink Amazon river dolphins hunt
where the fish are confused.
They hunt where the hunting is easiest.
They hunt where the fish
are stunned, when they go in
from the black water to the
white water, and vice versa.
It's easier for them to eat, when the fish
are here confused.
Let's get back to the cichlids.
(groovy music)
Now, let's go back to the
ram cichlids for a second.
Rams, I love rams.
Their colors are amazing, they have
small size, they don't
mess with plants, they're
fantastic looking but they're
fantastic looking fish that
I'm not trying to keep.
Why?
Why, Dusty?
Dusty has, what I consider, white water.
I run my tanks at a pH slightly
above seven, when I test it.
I don't run a pH of five, or a pH of six.
Let's not forget folks, that
a pH of six is 10 imes more
acidic than a pH of seven.
A pH of five is a hundred times
more acidic than a pH of seven.
You can see what Sandy at
Segrest had to say about
the pH where some of these fish come from.
Level with us, why are we standin' here?
- So, five years ago,
I went on expedition on
the Rio Negro, with Project
Piaba, and I came back
to the US wondering how the
industry really could support
the fishery of the Rio Negro here.
The biggest challenge we have, in the US,
on getting fish from the Rio Negro,
is we have a huge fluctuation in pH.
We have really high pH
hard water, in the US.
Most people, like 85% of the US,
has a pH in excess of 7.8.
- And what was the pH you
just told me a minute ago?
- The pH that we tested in
the Rio Negro varied from,
at the lowest, 3.5, which was
unbelievable, there was no
insect activity up to about 5.0.
And then up to Manaus,
it gets to about 6.0.
- Really?
So, it's all below seven
around Manaus and Brazil.
Why weren't rams on my
top five small cichlids?
It's simple.
The water that rams come
from, does not match
the water that I run in
my current aquariums.
I'm not gonna mess with the
big pH swing of trying to bring
my pH, that's slightly above seven,
down to a pH of five or even six, okay?
I'm not gonna do the work,
to keep these rams healthy
and happy, at a low pH.
I'm also not gonna run my tanks
at the preferred, around 80
degrees that they prefer,
because, guess what,
my plants don't like it
around 80 degrees.
The lesson is simple here folks,
I love to look at rams, I think
they're fantastic-looking,
I love their size, I love
they don't mess with plants,
I just think they're
wicked cool looking, but
rams do not match what I'm trying
to do with my current aquariums.
I'm gonna have to work too hard
to make rams work, in my aquarium.
I've killed some rams, too.
Do me a favor folks, if
you like what I'm doing,
hit the subscribe button and
that notification button,
cause I do go live periodically.
And you'll be notified
when I got more videos.
And then drop me a comment on if you are
keeping rams, what type
of rams are your favorite,
there are a bunch of great varieties,
what varieties are you keeping, and why?
How do you keep them?
Maybe I got this all wrong,
and you say you can keep rams at a seven
and they live just fine.
I'd love any of your comments,
on rams specifically.
If you like what I'm doing,
subscribe, make it an awesome
week, talk to you mañana,
and tank on.
Like!
(boat engine whirring)
(faint upbeat music and chatter)
(boat engine whirring)
(mumbles)
- [Speaker] Catfish.
It's predatory, anything he can eat,
he'll stuff in his mouth, up to two feet.
(water babbling
(engine whirring)
(twigs crunching)
- [Dustin] There's the field
where I was chased by...
(insects chirping)
You get the idea.
(bird chirping)
That's my favorite bird.
(imitation of bird)
Whoever makes that little sound.
