Agreed, I think it's inspiring. It's easy to get caught up in the melancholy of big problems, death and disaster but the truth is that it's our attitude and outlook in the face of that diversity that determines our future. It's nice to be reminded of that and I need that inspiration sometimes when all seems so bad. There's always an opportunity to rebuild and grow 😊
Your knowledge and love, combined with your ability to talk, update, and hang out with us and let us know what's going on, is incredible!! What a wonderful update! I enjoyed all the underwater footage along with what has survived, what hasn't survived and how your system is balancing back out is just miraculous!! Much love from my family to yours!!! Thank you Mr Charles, Susie, Carl, Stormy for sharing with us every chance you can ❤️🙏💯💪🌿🐟🌿
What you do is so inspiring. I like to say hope you get back on your feet but I’m sure you will, hopefully it’s a good year and nature gives back what it took.
PS... The weak stomachs and what y'all had to work with in some of the green houses... Stormy and Carl you had me laughing so hard! Just walk fast 🤣🤣 You guys are great, thanks for keeping it real and thanks for sharing that 🤣🤣🤣💪🙏🙏🙏🙏
You seem like an absolutely wonderful person Charles, your green houses inspire me so much, 23 years old and looking to get my first property out in WA. Keep up the awesome work man. take care! :)
There are up and down days (even up and down minutes). The good news is we have enough survivors to start rebuilding many of our breeding colonies. We focus on the saves rather than the losses. Charles
@@SynthToshi that's one thing I always think to myself when he mentions surviving fish stock having inherent cold hardy genetics, etc...Look at what he's gone/going through, his genetics must be on another level completely
I've been a fan since I saw your Aquarium Co-op tour, and I'm sad to hear you had these losses. Glad to hear you've got a plan and hoping for positive updates soon!
Thank you. Carl was gone for Spring Break this week, but Susie and I made a bunch of short videos that Carl will post soon. Cory and @aquariumcoop have been great to us. Charles
I wouldn't watch it! I haven't watched any of these videos. I can't stand watching myself; I always think, "I should have said that differently." Besides, don't the Kardashians have a copyright on that? Charles
You're my role model, i love what you're doing and i love your attitude. My dream for my older days is to do something similar, but most likely in a much smaller scale. I hope that you will have an amazing summer this year, and many years to come.
It is peaceful to watch the fish live in almost natural conditions (not quite natural due to the lack of lots of predators, other than the occasional snake), courting, challenging, mating, etc. Charles
Congratulations on your Endler find. Hold on to your little victories. Pitty gold Mystery snails aren't worth $20 each, you'd be a millionaire. I've had to buy duckweed a few times and the ball that you lifted out of the bucket would be worth around $30 in Australia. Scuds look just like Amphipods in saltwater tanks. Poor Stormy won't like you showing her throwing up! 🤣. Great to see you looking at expansion. Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day and giving us an update. 🐸🐌
Thank you. The Endler's were a very pleasant surprise. Hmmmm...maybe we need to rethink an import/export license to Australia. We pull a lot of duckweed out each day. The scuds are in Amphipoda, a family with over 10,000 species, and related to the marine species. Stormy is supposedly a country girl, but with her queasy stomach, I'm skeptical. I was shocked that Susie (wife and tyrannical business manager) allowed the words "another greenhouse" to cross her lips. I'm busy planning Greenhouse 4 before she can recant. Thank you for watching. We did some more short videos today. I think I said they are day 25 or something like that. It's very likely my count is off and Carl will fix it in the introduction. I'm notoriously "calendar impaired." Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Thank you Charles for your wealth of knowledge. P.s. we finally got rain, but as usual it's a lot and just south of us it's flooding pretty bad. If it don't rain, it pours! 😉
So happy to hear ya'll are excited about expanding! Purple and Magenta mystery snails are the most difficult for a home hobbyist to acquire. Would be amazing if you started breeding more colors!
We plan to acquire additional colors of Mystery Snails and will consider those two colors. We have some Gold Mystery Snails that are very orange. I imagine a Red Mystery Snail and will begin selecting in that direction. Charles
Am in San Angelo TX. Was going to send off for P. velifera Isla de Mujeres, blue variatus and scuds , but Harvey hit. Will keep an eye out for progeny of black sailfish. Lost all my fish to a vengeful crazy lady last summer. Can't replace my colony red alpha swords. Petu Ivanov Ivanov the breeder passed about the same time, so irreplaceable. Had spent mucho dinero on them and was finally getting good at growing them, so frustrating. Was a botanic garden nurseyman and breeder for 35yrs+, so enjoy your thoughts on genetics. I get 2 checks a month as long as I keep breathing so I don't have skin in the game like you. Admire your resilience and sense of humor.
Sorry to hear about your fish losses. By the way, you might want to check with Bobby Ellermann about red alpha swords. You can email me at charles@goliadfarms.com for his contact information. I found we have a really nice Black Sailfin male. He got the Black Sailfin females we had left. Our Green Sailfins survived fairly well. The mollies that made it probably have a lot of Poecilia latipinna heritage. P. latipinna is a temperate zone molly. Charles
Oso and Maya were born on the farm. They spend almost all their time with us. Whenever possible, they go to town with me and are well known at Tractor Supply, Lowe's, Home Depot, Northside Feed, FedEx, etc. Charles
Duckweed is a plant you want until you get them. Like dwarf water lettuce, I wanted all my 15tanks cover, until they all got covered. I would have to dump buckets of them out every week.
@@goliadfarms7029 I've thought of recycling my dwarf water lattice, by cooking it and then blending it with "additives" brine, krill, bugs, etc. for taste, afterwards try feeding it to guppies and otocinclus, they wouldn't eat it. I haven't try feeding pleco or "farm" animals though, I think feeding a worm culture might work too, but I haven't thought about it in a while, after condensing the "water lettuce" to only 20% of each tank per surface area. I'll figure something out at some point. Dumping buckets of them feels so wasteful whenever I have to dump them out.
9:30 genetic bottleneck....that reminds me of the huge problems with salmon farms where federal hatcheries almost devastated the wild populations of salmon in the united states because of genetic bottleneck!!! The federal fish and wildlife approach in the united states is from a agricultural aspect instead of a biological one where we have now polluted wild salmon dna with domestic salmon dna weakening the genepool and making the fisheries worst then before which defeats the purpose of hatcheries to begin with however it can also be a good thing if we're talking about aquarium hobby, stronger tolerance to temperature difference etc.
Would digging your sumps/vaults deeper, or putting them deeper in the ground, allow you to take more advantage of the ground temperature for heating/cooling/insulation?
Love to see a tree frog video. We don't have them here. Hope you can keep finding fish you thought were lost. Glad you didn't call your dogs Fred. They would get confused. Im Fred. No I am Fred. 🤣Godbless you. Onwards and upwards. Love your stuff. Find it really interesting and inspiring. ❤️👍
Thank you. One night this week I'll audio record the cacaphony of the tree frogs singing at night. I think Carl has video on one singing. Our kids managed to sort our being called Fred. Our German Shepherds are at least that smart. Charles
I get $20 a kilo of duck weed here in Australia. You should do well selling it. It's a food for goldfish and koi. I also feed my angels it as I grow them out its cut feeding costs nicely.
You guys are incredible, a lot would just quit. Poor Stormy, hope you can get rid of the stink in your truck! Charles, do you ship to Canada? I would love to support you by buying fish from you. God bless.
Thank you. I apparently don't know how to quit. Stormy is a wimp. The smell is not that bad. We don't ship to Canada, but would like to. Does anyone have some advice about that? Charles
Thank you. In Carl's absence this week (he was on Spring Break with wife and two of our grandbrats), Susie and I did a bunch of short videos. Carl will be processing and posting them maybe starting tomorrow. We'll do another long video shortly. Charles
I just discovered your channel. I'm also in TX and I'm sorry to hear of your fish loss. I would have been devastated. I was barely able to keep my 200g Tropheus tank going during the freeze. I'm curious, do you raise any Tanganyikan's or just Malawi?
Thank you. The only Tanganyikans we currently raised was C. frontosa. We use to raise Neolamprologus pulcher and Neolamprologus leleupi, but haven't in years. Charles
Thank you. By the way, there is a large, surviving Hypostomus plecostomus (pleco) in one of the gutters in Greenhouse 3. We will video our efforts to catch and rehome it. Since we had to quit attempting to heat Greenhouse 3 after the second day of the storm, that fish tolerated some very low water temperatures. Charles
I had a thought about the whole feeding cherryshrimp to enhance colours thing Isnt the pigment turning those shrimp red just carotine? If so, shouldnt it be possible to have a vat of scuds being fed carrot scraps to substitute the red shrimp? Because i know that in europe rainbow trout are being fed pellets containing high amounts of carotine to turn the meat red and sell it as "salmon trout". They also usually have rather intense green and red pigmentation on the outside as well. Wishing you all the best with recovery and expansion :)
@@goliadfarms7029 Charles, thats actually incredibly cool. Some (now extinct in the wild) species of Sulawesi and even Caridina shrimps have sort of a symbiotic relationship with different types of freshwater sponges. I only learned such things existed a few years back. With your knowledge and care, it would be amazing to see you try your hand at any of those harder shrimps
so unfortunate, sorry for your loss! I know if this happened to me I would want to figure a way to combat it from happening again, as I'm sure you have, so I'm just thinking out loud here. On the new house or all the houses, I wonder if you could bury a steel pipe that you could connect to a wood/pellet burner to heat the sump.. plumb it so the exhaust heat passes through the pipe to heat the ground beside the existing sump walls and under or on the inside wall of the new house. We used to heat our sand and water barrels this way doing masonry work in the winter months here in Ohio. or have some sort of water heater that you can put in a vat or the sump that gets red hot you could run off a generator (like how an element works in a hot water tank).. or maybe some kind of rig that you can attach inline. I guess all that is depending on being able to circulate the water off alt power as well. I know it's a freak occurrence And I hope you never have to deal with it again but "if" it could happen again should think up an emergency plan.
We've tried a number of solutions in the past with mixed results and found that the heating systems we used for 20 years without issue didn't handle the unique 2021 Winter Storm. We are planning hardening up our systems in the event we experience another storm like it. I like heating water instead of air. We are considering adding solar panels to power heaters and chillers. During winter months (about three here) we could run the water temperature up in anticipation of coming cold. The chillers could be used to cool water temperatures during the rest of the year when we struggle to keep temperatures lower. Charles
The floor of the greenhouses are covered with pond liner. The sumps were dug with a backhoe and lined with 8"x8"x16" concrete blocks and then lined with pond liner. Charles
Thank you. Yes, the gene pools of our fish have certainly been impacted by the loss of non-cold tolerant fish. I'm ready for Greenhouse 4, but Susie insists we finish the recovery tasks in front of us first. Charles
I'm planning to use the two gutters in Greenhouse 3 this summer for rainbowfishes and mollies by deepening both into raceways. I'm not sure about Greenhouse 4 schedule since I have to negotiate with Susie on that. But she did utter the words, "another greenhouse." Charles
Looks like things are recovering nicely. Beautiful shepard's. Have a fear of them since I was a toddler, one attacked me back then and had stitches on my face. But I'm an animal lover, still a tad nervous around large dogs, but after yrs of managing pet shops have learned to work around that fear. Elkhounds are some of my favorite dogs. Love endlers too... Such a large variety of them. I remember as a kid with my early aquariums, a breed of fish called Egyptian Mouth breeders.. haven't seen them around for yrs!! But they were a treat as I remember. Live-bearers are a fav of mine as well. Thanks Charles... Enjoy each vid release. 🐸 👍😎
Thank you. Sorry to hear a German Shepherd did that. I've been bitten by more Chihuahuas than German Shepherds. Oso and Maya are very friendly. But Maya does not like other dogs except for Oso and her daughter Blue. Elkhounds are very impressive. It's a shame they have such short lifespans. I like Endler's, especially the wild populations. I remember Egyptian Mouthbrooders. I wonder what happened to them. We are starting to process some of our livebearers and will video them. Charles
Good Idea on the plants and the smaller killie fish perhapse doing shinners or sunfish maybe an idea as well many people are keeping under 3 inch fish as they are more conducive to the apartment and mobile lifestyles. Unfortunatlly a large percentage of these fish are wild caught.
We used to raise killies. I like them. I'm also considering dwarf cichlids from the Americas. I've also raised sunfish. Some are very beautiful. I agree that some fish are unfortunately harvested unsustainably from the wild. Charles
A lot of our customers are offering fish. One afforded Xenotoca eiseni 'Rio Tamazula' he'd gotten from us, but today we discovered we have at least 150 of them that survived the storm. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Perhaps make a storm memorial page for the website of all the varieties wiped out? Those are the scale babies that could use some back up ponds around the country. 🙏
Oso and Maya live a good life. They go to town with me where they are welcomed at our feed store (Northside Feed), FedEx, Lowe's, Home Depot, Tractor Supply, etc. Charles
He adds a few percent from his well every day to them. It's a recirculating system so adding fresh water anywhere will still benefit. If I remember right it's just slowly trickled in
Strange question and I don't expect a answer but is there possibly a livestock insurance that could have covered this? I imagine cattle farmers have some type of animal insurance maybe something similar exists for fish?
We have tried to get our livestock (fish) insured in Texas and couldn't get an underwriter. I wonder if the Florida fish farms can get insurance. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 oh man! Didn't expect a answer thanks. Glad to see your recovery videos and the natural way you raise fish. Sending positivity your way!
Can you start a daphnia colony. Also I think it would be awesome if ya started raising some turtles too. When do you think you would get those snakes running around the greenhouse again?
Coincidently, I got a start of Daphnia magnum about 10 days ago. They are doing well, but not as well as the Moina macrocopa I got at the same time; they are exploding in numbers. We'll do a video on raising both of those soon. Carl and one of our grandbrats have Texas Map Turtles (Graptemys versa), They chow down on duckweed and hornwort from our systems. We had a feral Graptemys versa in Greenhouse 3 before the storm. I haven't seen it since. They are still in the greenhouses. I've seen a Gulf Coast Ribbon Snake (Thamnophis proximus orarius) in Greenhouse 1 several times the last week. The Diamondback Water Snakes (Nerodia rhombifer) are making a comeback now that we've reduced the raccoon population significantly. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Yeah, Moina are more hardy, I raised them too, my moina lasted a yr and half and then crashed, my magna culture just crashed due to over feeding, and not having a big platform of hornwort to combat an amoina spike over a month ago but has recovered thx to having a back up culture. My newts love to eat scuds and daphnia.I been thinking for the past couple of months to start up a aquatic isopod culture. But thats awesome you got them going, Id imagine you'd have trillions in the set up you got.
The plecos stir up the mulm so that it does not build up too much. I saw in another video that there is no mechanical filtration, so what happens to all the mulm?
Okay, good question. The answer is complex. As the mulm is stirred up into the water column it becomes available to small organisms such as Paramecium, copepods, and scuds as food. The not eaten mulm will overflow into the floor gutters and sumps. Since we have so many fish there, it cannot accumulate and is kept in the water column. That mulm which is not utilized by the aforementioned organisms either ends up 1) overflowing out of the greenhouses with water used to irrigate plants or 2) it ends up in a vat without a lot of fish to stir it up. Let me explain both of these. Each day that we process fish, we siphon about 500 gallons of water from the vats we are working. That is excess water that flows from the greenhouses and waters about two acres of trees and other plants. Some of the mulm exits with that water. Also, the mulm that is collected in the bottom of vats is netted out with 10" brine shrimp nets and placed in buckets. That mulm, probably 50-75 pounds a day is put into litter worm beds and compost piles and ends up as very good potting soil. Charles
Maybe if you posted a list of species you are looking to breed. There is a bunch of us hobbyists out here who would probably find them for you or point you in the right direction.
When I collect wild Mollies and Heterandria Formosa here in Sarasota, FL, its almost the complete opposite for how the Molly act. I've only managed a dozen or so total but they rarely hide in the hornwort ball and they stay in the open area more often. (Edit; also managed a few Variable Platy last year near Orlando...that was very cool!) The Heterandria are a big love of mine. I was hooked on them from the instant I learned how small they are, and when I found some in my net one day I almost screamed 😅 that taught me to check natural ranges more thoroughly!! I managed to keep around 200 Heterandria in a ~20gal tote! Charles, do you have any experience with any of the Pygmy Sunfish species? I'm having some breeding difficulties, along with issues actually sourcing some new stock...
Could you set up #3 to be the plant filter for everything else you've got going on? I was also going to recommend cramming it with scuds but then you said it 😅. You name everything Fred and around here when we go fishing all the birds are named Fred!
Interesting that your mollies behave differently. We are outside the Heterandria formosa range here. They are interesting livebearers. I haven't raised any of the Pygmy Sunfish, but would like to. Charles
I've considered converting Greenhouse 3 into a plant filter. Having some to the plants in the other greenhouses can cause problems, so that could fix that issue. So, I'm not the only one naming everything Fred? Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 naming birds Fred is a thing fishermen are picking up on along the Gulf coast from Anglerup with Brant and Bama Beach Bum, two fishing RUclipsrs. When walking along the lake behind my house, every 10-15 ft you can see schools of mollies mixed with mosquito fish, they're definitely not shy in this specific area. The melanistic mosquito fish are very cool to see.
My dad was a funeral director. His solution was to also gently hold your tong between your front teeth. It helps to prevent the gag reflex. I use it all the time and it works for me.
We have sold feral fish to some wholesale customers. When the pandemic is under control, we are considering a fish festival in which the sump fish are harvested and offered to attendees. Charles
At our website (goliadfarms.com/). We have suspended most sales as we inventory and rebuild breeding colonies, but will be listing fish and plants starting later this week. Charles
Oso was named after an earlier German Shepherd, Bear, that we had. Oso, like Bear, is big for a German Shepherd hence the names Bear and Oso (Spanish for bear). Susie (wife) says we should have named Oso "Toro" since he's like a bull in a China shop. They have never shown ill effects from eating fish other than horrendous, smelly...I can't think of a better way to describe this...farts. They do graze on lemon grass and a local winter grass after eating the rotten fish. I guess that provides some roughage. Charles
We were selling Ancistrus cirrhosus before the storm killed them all. We haven't marketed Hypostomus plecostomus before because we haven't done controlled breeding of them. They reproduce on their own in the sumps. We use them in 300-gallon vats for algae and snail control. I'm planning on doing controlled breeding of them so we can have smaller sized plecos available. Charles
I havent tried it, but do those fancy cartridge filter masks which work for blocking solvent smells also work for dead fish? I ask as some of the videos I have seen of those people who go in to clear out dead bodies and clean houses/etc wear that kind of mask, but maybe it is for the solvents they use.
@@goliadfarms7029 You still could even if they wore the mask (or just get one and see which one gets to it first), but then they would get more done too. :) Though hopefully you will have better weather etc and not so many issues with lots of dead fish.
So are you going to invest in some drums for fuel, and proper generators and heaters for the green house so this doesnt happen again ? You have hundreds of thousands probably invested in all this i can tell, but you had no backup plans for power loss ?
This was an unprecedented weather event. We had cold cloudy weather for two weeks with record cold for five days with little grid power. Evidence of it being unprecedented is what happened to the rest of Texas. Our normal winter in this part of the State is 2-3 light freezes (~30F) a year. It occasionally gets colder than that, in the mid-teens, but that is associated with dry front with which we get ample sunlight. With sunlight, the greenhouses heat up rapidly. We usually don't bother to heat unless we have several days of cloudy weather. While we have experienced power failures with our electric Coop, never for the amount of time we did this time. A two-hour outage is cause for us to loudly complain to our Coop. In this event our Coop was not to blame; the State grid operator, ERCOT, ordered the shutdowns. Are we going to harden our systems? Yes, we will such as additional propane storage, completion of the installation of our new generator, and the addition of more propane heaters. By the way, we use propane not diesel for our generator, including our newer, much larger one. In this event, no propane deliveries were available due to propane shortages caused by frozen natural gas pipelines. Saying we had no backup plan for what happened is akin to asking Napa Valley wine growers why they had no backup plans for the unprecedented fires that swept through their vineyards, homes, and towns. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 those people chose to live ina desert in california. No sympathy for them with the wild fires. Same with people who live on the coast snd get their stuff destroyed by hurricanes. Or tornado alley and so forth. Called me a hard ass.. but i just dont have sympathy for people like that who chose to live in areas like that.
@@jeepsblackpowderandlights4305 You do seem to lack empathy. But, then I suppose you support the Central American refugees at the Texas/Mexico border since they are doing something about living in "areas like that." Charles
They are doing very well. itis.gov (our go-to taxonomic source since federal regulations refer to it) says they Caridina denticulata, so we are using that name. We polyculture them with livebearers and since we've been working on livebearers there are some upcoming videos about them. Susie does our breeder selection on them. She's been processing about 1,000 a day for the last couple of weeks. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 This threw me for a bit, and I had do to a bit of digging, but I've figured out why we have different names for this. Looks like itis.gov is still using the original 1844 description of this species from De Haan. But more recently, it's been moved a couple times: www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=586595 I believe you're keeping something that is now called "Neocaridina denticulata sinensis" aka "N. davidi" which is your common Neo shrimp. Very hardy, very colorful, stays small, excellent species all around!
We do have tropical water lilies in an outside pond and are considering adding more ponds and plants. We have 122 acres (~49 hectares) so there is lots of room for expansion. Charles
Carl and Susie are working on t-shirt stuff, I just raise fish. Apparently they plan to offer t-shirts. That seems a bit too commercial for me... Charles
Do you sell your mystery snails? If you do were I looked on your online website couldn’t find them would love to buy a whole bunch of them for my puffer fish mystery snails is there main food source
We have sold them to wholesale customers. Due to the storm we took down most of our retail sale items. As we recover, we'll begin to offer them again. We do need to look into the permits required to ship snails interstate before offering them. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 OK let me know when you figure out that interstate shipping permit I live in California would definitely be interested in buying a large wholesale order of them just wondering what was your price?
Yes. As a rancher told me once, "If you raise livestock, you sometimes get deadstock." We are working on restoring what we can, and we'll reacquire what we can't. Charles
Charles, I'm a science teacher and my 7th graders are just learning ecology and the carbon cycle. I have one who I was expecting to challenge me on global warming but he was quiet as a mouse today. I was looking forward to the discussion but it didn't happen.
They were and will be again once we finish our inventories in a couple of weeks. Fish for sale will be posted on our website (goliadfarms.com/). We are currently selling only scuds and Red Cherry Shrimp. Charles
We consider it a nuisance. But, my theory is that when a weed becomes profitable, it becomes impossible to raise. So, once we start selling it, duckweed will refuse to grow. Either way, I guess, is good. Charles
"Hindsight's great, foresight is not."
I want that on my tombstone
I can go for that.
Charles
Oso appreciates really expensive sushi. Got my laughing hard.
Oso is not as discerning as Maya about sushi. Maya often turns up her nose on sushi that is not properly aged. Oso eats her rejections.
Charles
Love the attitude. We had a disaster let's expand !!
Susie (wife and tyrannical business manager) claims I'm hopelessly optimistic, but this time it was "another greenhouse" that passed her lips!
Charles
Agreed, I think it's inspiring. It's easy to get caught up in the melancholy of big problems, death and disaster but the truth is that it's our attitude and outlook in the face of that diversity that determines our future. It's nice to be reminded of that and I need that inspiration sometimes when all seems so bad. There's always an opportunity to rebuild and grow 😊
I find myself mesmerized by these videos.
Thank you. We have more on the way.
Charles
Your knowledge and love, combined with your ability to talk, update, and hang out with us and let us know what's going on, is incredible!!
What a wonderful update! I enjoyed all the underwater footage along with what has survived, what hasn't survived and how your system is balancing back out is just miraculous!! Much love from my family to yours!!! Thank you Mr Charles, Susie, Carl, Stormy for sharing with us every chance you can ❤️🙏💯💪🌿🐟🌿
Thank you. It'll take a year or so to get our fish numbers back up, but we are making progress.
Charles
FELLOW, YOU ARE A GREAT MAN. WE THE OLDEST ARE A EXAMPLE TO YOUTH PEOPLE. BEST PERSONAL REGARDS FROM BUENOS AIRES CITY ARGENTINA. STRONG HUG!!!
Thank for your kind words.
Charles
What you do is so inspiring. I like to say hope you get back on your feet but I’m sure you will, hopefully it’s a good year and nature gives back what it took.
Thank you. We will recover.
Charles
Wow that dogs looking amazing and beautiful nice video❤️😊👍
Thank you. Oso and Maya are great dogs.
Charles
Glad you got a wireless mic Charles. Happy things are getting a little better. Thanks for continuing the updates, I really enjoy them
Thank you. We are gradually getting the hang of effective audio and video. We hope to have daily updates.
Charles
PS... The weak stomachs and what y'all had to work with in some of the green houses... Stormy and Carl you had me laughing so hard! Just walk fast 🤣🤣
You guys are great, thanks for keeping it real and thanks for sharing that 🤣🤣🤣💪🙏🙏🙏🙏
Carl and Stormy won't live this down since I'll remind them every chance I get.
Charles
You seem like an absolutely wonderful person Charles, your green houses inspire me so much, 23 years old and looking to get my first property out in WA. Keep up the awesome work man. take care! :)
Thank you. What part of WA? I lived in Yakima for a bit in high school.
Charles
Looking forward to the future development of greenhouse 3 and 4
Me too! I can't believe Susie said yes!
Charles
This video just makes me sad man, Sorry for all the lost sir. You will come back stronger!
There are up and down days (even up and down minutes). The good news is we have enough survivors to start rebuilding many of our breeding colonies. We focus on the saves rather than the losses.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Most definitely, I'm sure you have super resilient genetics as well now.
@@SynthToshi that's one thing I always think to myself when he mentions surviving fish stock having inherent cold hardy genetics, etc...Look at what he's gone/going through, his genetics must be on another level completely
@@chris6054 most definitely.
Oooh expanding!!! That will be awsome to watch and see!! Goodluck!!!
Thank you. I'm still in shock that Susie (wife and business manager) said yes.
Charles
I've been a fan since I saw your Aquarium Co-op tour, and I'm sad to hear you had these losses. Glad to hear you've got a plan and hoping for positive updates soon!
Thank you. Carl was gone for Spring Break this week, but Susie and I made a bunch of short videos that Carl will post soon.
Cory and @aquariumcoop have been great to us.
Charles
I think you need to do a show called "Keeping up with Charles and Goliad Farms" ! I would watch all the time!!
I wouldn't watch it! I haven't watched any of these videos. I can't stand watching myself; I always think, "I should have said that differently." Besides, don't the Kardashians have a copyright on that?
Charles
I don't think many like to watch themselves, but WE love watching you and your crew in action. Thank you for always sharing the highs and lows.
We are definitely keeping up with Mr Charles and Goliad Farms❤️❤️🌿🐟🌿💪💯🙏🤣🤣
You're my role model, i love what you're doing and i love your attitude. My dream for my older days is to do something similar, but most likely in a much smaller scale.
I hope that you will have an amazing summer this year, and many years to come.
Thank you. The fish and the work that comes with them helps keep me active and happy.
Charles
I want to go over there just to watch the fish all day 😅😅
It is peaceful to watch the fish live in almost natural conditions (not quite natural due to the lack of lots of predators, other than the occasional snake), courting, challenging, mating, etc.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 i just like to watch the fish behavior.and how they swim. especially with guppies or the sailfin mollies.😊😊
I love the hoards of various African cichlids below your feet.
And also lots of mollies, Gambusia, and swordtails.
Charles
Congratulations on your Endler find. Hold on to your little victories. Pitty gold Mystery snails aren't worth $20 each, you'd be a millionaire. I've had to buy duckweed a few times and the ball that you lifted out of the bucket would be worth around $30 in Australia. Scuds look just like Amphipods in saltwater tanks. Poor Stormy won't like you showing her throwing up! 🤣. Great to see you looking at expansion. Thanks so much for taking time out of your busy day and giving us an update. 🐸🐌
Thank you. The Endler's were a very pleasant surprise.
Hmmmm...maybe we need to rethink an import/export license to Australia. We pull a lot of duckweed out each day.
The scuds are in Amphipoda, a family with over 10,000 species, and related to the marine species.
Stormy is supposedly a country girl, but with her queasy stomach, I'm skeptical.
I was shocked that Susie (wife and tyrannical business manager) allowed the words "another greenhouse" to cross her lips. I'm busy planning Greenhouse 4 before she can recant.
Thank you for watching. We did some more short videos today. I think I said they are day 25 or something like that. It's very likely my count is off and Carl will fix it in the introduction. I'm notoriously "calendar impaired."
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Thank you Charles for your wealth of knowledge. P.s. we finally got rain, but as usual it's a lot and just south of us it's flooding pretty bad. If it don't rain, it pours! 😉
So happy to hear ya'll are excited about expanding! Purple and Magenta mystery snails are the most difficult for a home hobbyist to acquire. Would be amazing if you started breeding more colors!
We plan to acquire additional colors of Mystery Snails and will consider those two colors. We have some Gold Mystery Snails that are very orange. I imagine a Red Mystery Snail and will begin selecting in that direction.
Charles
So thankful for your guys's content wish the best for you guys
Thank you. We will continue to offer content.
Charles
lol, "my truck stinks!" thank you for that.
It was so bad!
@@Stormy-xp2vi 🤣
As my wife's chief of police father would say to Stormy, "You'd complain about being hung with a new rope."
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 lol me too.
@@goliadfarms7029 no I wouldn't . I don't complain that much
Love all your work . Glad your recovering 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Thank you.
Charles
Gambusia pintada from Cuba, I’m Cuban and I never seen temperature going lower than 52 degrees maybe only for a few hours
We have Gambusia punctata, the blue eyed Gambusia. They did well. Cuban should be a good location for fish farms.
Charles
Giant male swordtail in the sump looks incredible.
If I could catch him, he would join one of our breeding colonies. We're selecting for size.
Charles
Saddened by your losses and hope you get back up to operations soon.
Thank you. We will recover.
Charles
Am in San Angelo TX. Was going to send off for P. velifera Isla de Mujeres, blue variatus and scuds , but Harvey hit. Will keep an eye out for progeny of black sailfish. Lost all my fish to a vengeful crazy lady last summer. Can't replace my colony red alpha swords. Petu Ivanov Ivanov the breeder passed about the same time, so irreplaceable. Had spent mucho dinero on them and was finally getting good at growing them, so frustrating. Was a botanic garden nurseyman and breeder for 35yrs+, so enjoy your thoughts on genetics. I get 2 checks a month as long as I keep breathing so I don't have skin in the game like you. Admire your resilience and sense of humor.
Sorry to hear about your fish losses. By the way, you might want to check with Bobby Ellermann about red alpha swords. You can email me at charles@goliadfarms.com for his contact information.
I found we have a really nice Black Sailfin male. He got the Black Sailfin females we had left. Our Green Sailfins survived fairly well. The mollies that made it probably have a lot of Poecilia latipinna heritage. P. latipinna is a temperate zone molly.
Charles
Those dogs are living the life
Oso and Maya were born on the farm. They spend almost all their time with us. Whenever possible, they go to town with me and are well known at Tractor Supply, Lowe's, Home Depot, Northside Feed, FedEx, etc.
Charles
May the force be with you
Guess I should start carrying a lightsaber.
Charles
I don't understand much of the speech, but I like it.
Sorry, I only speak Texan and that not well. Maybe someone will make a translation program.
Charles
Duckweed is a plant you want until you get them.
Like dwarf water lettuce, I wanted all my 15tanks cover, until they all got covered.
I would have to dump buckets of them out every week.
When we had chickens, they loved it. We feed it to our worm beds and compost it now.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029
I've thought of recycling my dwarf water lattice, by cooking it and then blending it with "additives" brine, krill, bugs, etc. for taste, afterwards try feeding it to guppies and otocinclus, they wouldn't eat it.
I haven't try feeding pleco or "farm" animals though, I think feeding a worm culture might work too,
but I haven't thought about it in a while,
after condensing the "water lettuce" to only 20% of each tank per surface area. I'll figure something out at some point.
Dumping buckets of them feels so wasteful whenever I have to dump them out.
Just amazes me cichlids and guppies and swordtails together
They do surprisingly well together. I wasn't sure it would work, but when feeder guppies thrived with cichlids, I decided to experiment.
Charles
Love the videos and can’t wait to see more. God Bless! Did I see some mollies in the sump!? 😀
Thank you. Yes, a lot of mollies survived the storm. We will videoed some today while setting up breeding colonies. Carl will post that soon.
Charles
9:30 genetic bottleneck....that reminds me of the huge problems with salmon farms where federal hatcheries almost devastated the wild populations of salmon in the united states because of genetic bottleneck!!! The federal fish and wildlife approach in the united states is from a agricultural aspect instead of a biological one where we have now polluted wild salmon dna with domestic salmon dna weakening the genepool and making the fisheries worst then before which defeats the purpose of hatcheries to begin with however it can also be a good thing if we're talking about aquarium hobby, stronger tolerance to temperature difference etc.
It is important to protect wild fish populations from cultured fish.
Charles
Would digging your sumps/vaults deeper, or putting them deeper in the ground, allow you to take more advantage of the ground temperature for heating/cooling/insulation?
Probably not. Our well water from 175 feet (~53 meters) comes up at 73F (~23C). We have thought about installing well heat pumps.
Charles
You are so nice to answer everyone’s questions.
They are kind enough to watch our videos, so they deserve a response.
Charles
I just declare your fish to be healthier and more prosperous than ever before in the name of JESUS!
Thank you!
Charles
fk man its brutal ya lost so much. Hope you get back on track soon!
godspeed mate
Thank you. We are recovering!
Charles
Love to see a tree frog video. We don't have them here. Hope you can keep finding fish you thought were lost. Glad you didn't call your dogs Fred. They would get confused. Im Fred. No I am Fred. 🤣Godbless you. Onwards and upwards. Love your stuff. Find it really interesting and inspiring. ❤️👍
Thank you.
One night this week I'll audio record the cacaphony of the tree frogs singing at night. I think Carl has video on one singing.
Our kids managed to sort our being called Fred. Our German Shepherds are at least that smart.
Charles
The book on the table!
Thank you, I think,
Charles
I get $20 a kilo of duck weed here in Australia. You should do well selling it. It's a food for goldfish and koi. I also feed my angels it as I grow them out its cut feeding costs nicely.
I knew goldfish and Koi would eat it, but didn't know about angels. We are considering raising angels again and that's good to know.
Charles
I wish you fast recovery!
Thank you. We are working on it.
Charles
You guys are incredible, a lot would just quit. Poor Stormy, hope you can get rid of the stink in your truck! Charles, do you ship to Canada? I would love to support you by buying fish from you. God bless.
I had to leave the windows down the whole way home
Thank you. I apparently don't know how to quit.
Stormy is a wimp. The smell is not that bad.
We don't ship to Canada, but would like to. Does anyone have some advice about that?
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I am not a wimp. There is something wrong with your nose where you cant smell anything
Appreciate these videos guys! Great work filming and editing along with everything else you do
Thank you. I raise fish. Susie and Carl video. Carl does the editing. I'm glad they do that.
Charles
I enjoy seeing your updates. I wish you continued success.
Thank you. In Carl's absence this week (he was on Spring Break with wife and two of our grandbrats), Susie and I did a bunch of short videos. Carl will be processing and posting them maybe starting tomorrow. We'll do another long video shortly.
Charles
I just discovered your channel. I'm also in TX and I'm sorry to hear of your fish loss. I would have been devastated. I was barely able to keep my 200g Tropheus tank going during the freeze. I'm curious, do you raise any Tanganyikan's or just Malawi?
Thank you.
The only Tanganyikans we currently raised was C. frontosa. We use to raise Neolamprologus pulcher and Neolamprologus leleupi, but haven't in years.
Charles
One of your best video’s I think
Thank you. By the way, there is a large, surviving Hypostomus plecostomus (pleco) in one of the gutters in Greenhouse 3. We will video our efforts to catch and rehome it. Since we had to quit attempting to heat Greenhouse 3 after the second day of the storm, that fish tolerated some very low water temperatures.
Charles
Love his dogs.
Oso and Maya are great dogs. They love working in the greenhouses when it's not too hot.
Charles
I had a thought about the whole feeding cherryshrimp to enhance colours thing
Isnt the pigment turning those shrimp red just carotine?
If so, shouldnt it be possible to have a vat of scuds being fed carrot scraps to substitute the red shrimp?
Because i know that in europe rainbow trout are being fed pellets containing high amounts of carotine to turn the meat red and sell it as "salmon trout".
They also usually have rather intense green and red pigmentation on the outside as well.
Wishing you all the best with recovery and expansion :)
Most commercial color foods use carotenes. We've tried a couple of color foods, but our fish don't seem to like them.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Maybe gutloading scuds with this food or carrots is an option then
It's great that you're expanding your invertebrates! They've exploded in popularity and you'll get more money for other colors!
We have some strange invertebrates. Here's a blog about one of them:
goliadfarms.com/bryozoan-to-be-or-not-to-be/
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 oooooo i love bryozoans. A local small lake near me has some awesome colonies.
@@goliadfarms7029 Charles, thats actually incredibly cool. Some (now extinct in the wild) species of Sulawesi and even Caridina shrimps have sort of a symbiotic relationship with different types of freshwater sponges. I only learned such things existed a few years back. With your knowledge and care, it would be amazing to see you try your hand at any of those harder shrimps
Keep driving forward! Thanks for the vid
Thank you. We will continue.
Charles
More great info. Thank you!
Thank you. We hope to continue posting some good content.
Charles
so unfortunate, sorry for your loss! I know if this happened to me I would want to figure a way to combat it from happening again, as I'm sure you have, so I'm just thinking out loud here. On the new house or all the houses, I wonder if you could bury a steel pipe that you could connect to a wood/pellet burner to heat the sump.. plumb it so the exhaust heat passes through the pipe to heat the ground beside the existing sump walls and under or on the inside wall of the new house. We used to heat our sand and water barrels this way doing masonry work in the winter months here in Ohio. or have some sort of water heater that you can put in a vat or the sump that gets red hot you could run off a generator (like how an element works in a hot water tank).. or maybe some kind of rig that you can attach inline. I guess all that is depending on being able to circulate the water off alt power as well. I know it's a freak occurrence And I hope you never have to deal with it again but "if" it could happen again should think up an emergency plan.
We've tried a number of solutions in the past with mixed results and found that the heating systems we used for 20 years without issue didn't handle the unique 2021 Winter Storm. We are planning hardening up our systems in the event we experience another storm like it.
I like heating water instead of air. We are considering adding solar panels to power heaters and chillers. During winter months (about three here) we could run the water temperature up in anticipation of coming cold. The chillers could be used to cool water temperatures during the rest of the year when we struggle to keep temperatures lower.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 excellent idea! I look forward to the updates. Take care!
Poor Stormy. I can only imagine. 😂
Stormy just has to gut it up and put up with things. The smell was not that bad!
Charles
Love this series!
Thank you. We will keep posting on our recovery.
Charles
Hello, is the floor of the greenhouse covered with a pond liner? And can you explain how the sump is constructed? Thank you!
The floor of the greenhouses are covered with pond liner. The sumps were dug with a backhoe and lined with 8"x8"x16" concrete blocks and then lined with pond liner.
Charles
Awesome video! Glad things are looking up!
Thank you. We continue to recover!
Charles
Great news about the endlers!
I'm glad to have saved them. We've had them since May, 2008.
Charles
Bottlenecking indeed has occurred, glad to hear you are recovering, and expanding!
Thank you. Yes, the gene pools of our fish have certainly been impacted by the loss of non-cold tolerant fish.
I'm ready for Greenhouse 4, but Susie insists we finish the recovery tasks in front of us first.
Charles
Things are coming on up! Would love to see a video of how you catch fish out of the sumps.
We will video that. If the pandemic gets under control, we are considering a fish festival including harvesting and offering the sump fish.
Charles
Curious what the plan might be for processing the smaller greenhouse and what the timeline might be for the 4th greenhouse. :)
I'm planning to use the two gutters in Greenhouse 3 this summer for rainbowfishes and mollies by deepening both into raceways. I'm not sure about Greenhouse 4 schedule since I have to negotiate with Susie on that. But she did utter the words, "another greenhouse."
Charles
Your sense of humor kills me. Love all of the Freds.
Thank you. There are probably more Freds on the way.
Charles
So what ta doing to prevent next time?.. up north use ground for heat.. see guy in snow belt grows plants citrus too all year ..uses ground heat...
We've looked into using ground heat and heat pumps, but our water at 250 feet deep is only 73F.
Charles
Peter, what is Guy's channel called?
Looks like things are recovering nicely. Beautiful shepard's. Have a fear of them since I was a toddler, one attacked me back then and had stitches on my face. But I'm an animal lover, still a tad nervous around large dogs, but after yrs of managing pet shops have learned to work around that fear. Elkhounds are some of my favorite dogs. Love endlers too... Such a large variety of them. I remember as a kid with my early aquariums, a breed of fish called Egyptian Mouth breeders.. haven't seen them around for yrs!! But they were a treat as I remember. Live-bearers are a fav of mine as well. Thanks Charles... Enjoy each vid release. 🐸
👍😎
Thank you. Sorry to hear a German Shepherd did that. I've been bitten by more Chihuahuas than German Shepherds. Oso and Maya are very friendly. But Maya does not like other dogs except for Oso and her daughter Blue.
Elkhounds are very impressive. It's a shame they have such short lifespans.
I like Endler's, especially the wild populations.
I remember Egyptian Mouthbrooders. I wonder what happened to them.
We are starting to process some of our livebearers and will video them.
Charles
Wanna visit one day. I love the greenhouses.
We will be allowing visitors in the future especially after the pandemic is under control.
Charles
Yes, please expand for more plants. 28:45
We are certainly planning on that now that Susie (wife and tyrannical business manager) allowed the words, "another greenhouse" pass her lips.
Charles
Please put a camera on the dogs so we can see their perspective when they are drinking water and watching or catching the fish 💦🐟😁
These are the only dogs I know that enjoy no seasoned sushi daily and enjoys it.
That's a good idea. We'll look into it.
Charles
Good Idea on the plants and the smaller killie fish perhapse doing shinners or sunfish maybe an idea as well many people are keeping under 3 inch fish as they are more conducive to the apartment and mobile lifestyles. Unfortunatlly a large percentage of these fish are wild caught.
We used to raise killies. I like them. I'm also considering dwarf cichlids from the Americas. I've also raised sunfish. Some are very beautiful.
I agree that some fish are unfortunately harvested unsustainably from the wild.
Charles
We should join together and send him the fish to restore the farm to where it needs to be
A lot of our customers are offering fish. One afforded Xenotoca eiseni 'Rio Tamazula' he'd gotten from us, but today we discovered we have at least 150 of them that survived the storm.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Perhaps make a storm memorial page for the website of all the varieties wiped out? Those are the scale babies that could use some back up ponds around the country. 🙏
I love this
Thank you.
Charles
The dogs have a good life enjoying non seasoned sushi daily while enjoying it.
Oso and Maya live a good life. They go to town with me where they are welcomed at our feed store (Northside Feed), FedEx, Lowe's, Home Depot, Tractor Supply, etc.
Charles
If or when you add fresh/new water How would you do that?
Thank you
He adds a few percent from his well every day to them. It's a recirculating system so adding fresh water anywhere will still benefit. If I remember right it's just slowly trickled in
We only add water to replace water used up in our operations or through evaporation. Summertime cooling uses a lot of water.
Charles
Strange question and I don't expect a answer but is there possibly a livestock insurance that could have covered this? I imagine cattle farmers have some type of animal insurance maybe something similar exists for fish?
We have tried to get our livestock (fish) insured in Texas and couldn't get an underwriter. I wonder if the Florida fish farms can get insurance.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 oh man! Didn't expect a answer thanks. Glad to see your recovery videos and the natural way you raise fish. Sending positivity your way!
@@blitzen850 Answered questions are like making notes to ponder ideas later. Great suggestion ❤️
Can you start a daphnia colony. Also I think it would be awesome if ya started raising some turtles too. When do you think you would get those snakes running around the greenhouse again?
Coincidently, I got a start of Daphnia magnum about 10 days ago. They are doing well, but not as well as the Moina macrocopa I got at the same time; they are exploding in numbers. We'll do a video on raising both of those soon.
Carl and one of our grandbrats have Texas Map Turtles (Graptemys versa), They chow down on duckweed and hornwort from our systems. We had a feral Graptemys versa in Greenhouse 3 before the storm. I haven't seen it since.
They are still in the greenhouses. I've seen a Gulf Coast Ribbon Snake (Thamnophis proximus orarius) in Greenhouse 1 several times the last week. The Diamondback Water Snakes (Nerodia rhombifer) are making a comeback now that we've reduced the raccoon population significantly.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Yeah, Moina are more hardy, I raised them too, my moina lasted a yr and half and then crashed, my magna culture just crashed due to over feeding, and not having a big platform of hornwort to combat an amoina spike over a month ago but has recovered thx to having a back up culture. My newts love to eat scuds and daphnia.I been thinking for the past couple of months to start up a aquatic isopod culture. But thats awesome you got them going, Id imagine you'd have trillions in the set up you got.
The plecos stir up the mulm so that it does not build up too much. I saw in another video that there is no mechanical filtration, so what happens to all the mulm?
Okay, good question. The answer is complex.
As the mulm is stirred up into the water column it becomes available to small organisms such as Paramecium, copepods, and scuds as food. The not eaten mulm will overflow into the floor gutters and sumps. Since we have so many fish there, it cannot accumulate and is kept in the water column. That mulm which is not utilized by the aforementioned organisms either ends up 1) overflowing out of the greenhouses with water used to irrigate plants or 2) it ends up in a vat without a lot of fish to stir it up.
Let me explain both of these. Each day that we process fish, we siphon about 500 gallons of water from the vats we are working. That is excess water that flows from the greenhouses and waters about two acres of trees and other plants. Some of the mulm exits with that water. Also, the mulm that is collected in the bottom of vats is netted out with 10" brine shrimp nets and placed in buckets. That mulm, probably 50-75 pounds a day is put into litter worm beds and compost piles and ends up as very good potting soil.
Charles
Maybe if you posted a list of species you are looking to breed. There is a bunch of us hobbyists out here who would probably find them for you or point you in the right direction.
That is a good idea. Once we finish inventorying, we'll do that.
Charles
for a second i thought its Mark Hamills Aquaponic Channel
Well...no...but once Yoda cryptically told me, "Go live with the fishies." I may have misunderstood his intent.
Charles
When I collect wild Mollies and Heterandria Formosa here in Sarasota, FL, its almost the complete opposite for how the Molly act. I've only managed a dozen or so total but they rarely hide in the hornwort ball and they stay in the open area more often. (Edit; also managed a few Variable Platy last year near Orlando...that was very cool!)
The Heterandria are a big love of mine. I was hooked on them from the instant I learned how small they are, and when I found some in my net one day I almost screamed 😅 that taught me to check natural ranges more thoroughly!! I managed to keep around 200 Heterandria in a ~20gal tote!
Charles, do you have any experience with any of the Pygmy Sunfish species? I'm having some breeding difficulties, along with issues actually sourcing some new stock...
Could you set up #3 to be the plant filter for everything else you've got going on? I was also going to recommend cramming it with scuds but then you said it 😅. You name everything Fred and around here when we go fishing all the birds are named Fred!
Interesting that your mollies behave differently.
We are outside the Heterandria formosa range here. They are interesting livebearers.
I haven't raised any of the Pygmy Sunfish, but would like to.
Charles
I've considered converting Greenhouse 3 into a plant filter. Having some to the plants in the other greenhouses can cause problems, so that could fix that issue.
So, I'm not the only one naming everything Fred?
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 naming birds Fred is a thing fishermen are picking up on along the Gulf coast from Anglerup with Brant and Bama Beach Bum, two fishing RUclipsrs.
When walking along the lake behind my house, every 10-15 ft you can see schools of mollies mixed with mosquito fish, they're definitely not shy in this specific area. The melanistic mosquito fish are very cool to see.
In the salt river here in Arizona the mollies are vibrant red and blue, and seem very cold hardy
There is no smell in nature, quite like rotting fish ,being a fish keeper myself, it is a smell all its own 👊🤜🤛👍😁🇭🇲
And some of us can handle it, but Carl and Stormy can't.
Charles
old trick by coroners deputies. . .put a small dab of Vick's Vaporub in each nostril. It can kill really awful odors.
Carl and Stormy are just wimps. The smell was NOT that bad!
Charles
My dad was a funeral director. His solution was to also gently hold your tong between your front teeth. It helps to prevent the gag reflex. I use it all the time and it works for me.
Do yall sale the wild ones I'd love to buy a scoop full of whatever is in there they are awesome looking
We have sold feral fish to some wholesale customers. When the pandemic is under control, we are considering a fish festival in which the sump fish are harvested and offered to attendees.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Oh boy sign me up for that, let me start cycling another one now! If it helps me skip the line I've already had my second poke 😂
Hello where could I see what fish you have for sell and plants? Keep up the great work
At our website (goliadfarms.com/). We have suspended most sales as we inventory and rebuild breeding colonies, but will be listing fish and plants starting later this week.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 right I understand
@@rodrigovillalva6917 We will be posting fish soon.
@@goliadfarms7029 keep the head up and better times are coming very soon
Nice to see y'all are recovering...do the dogs ever get ill eating the dead fish? I love their names....why Oso?
Oso means bear in Spanish, (and man is that a tall lookin boy) that's just what a bunch of commenters have pointed out :)
Oso was named after an earlier German Shepherd, Bear, that we had. Oso, like Bear, is big for a German Shepherd hence the names Bear and Oso (Spanish for bear). Susie (wife) says we should have named Oso "Toro" since he's like a bull in a China shop.
They have never shown ill effects from eating fish other than horrendous, smelly...I can't think of a better way to describe this...farts. They do graze on lemon grass and a local winter grass after eating the rotten fish. I guess that provides some roughage.
Charles
thanks to teach us how to stay strong and positive after a lot of things happens.
We owe it to the surviving fish to continue.
Charles
Hello, do you guys normally sell pleco’s?
We were selling Ancistrus cirrhosus before the storm killed them all. We haven't marketed Hypostomus plecostomus before because we haven't done controlled breeding of them. They reproduce on their own in the sumps. We use them in 300-gallon vats for algae and snail control. I'm planning on doing controlled breeding of them so we can have smaller sized plecos available.
Charles
I'd totally pay for a pair of random sump fish if I had a tank that could hold fish that big. Not much I can do with the twenty I have.
A 20-gallon is a bit small for most of the larger sump fish, but there are mollies, swordtails, and guppies too.
Charles
I havent tried it, but do those fancy cartridge filter masks which work for blocking solvent smells also work for dead fish? I ask as some of the videos I have seen of those people who go in to clear out dead bodies and clean houses/etc wear that kind of mask, but maybe it is for the solvents they use.
Carl and Stormy are wimps. The smell is NOT that bad!
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Even if it isnt that bad, if you give them a 'placebo' cartridge mask to use maybe they will complain less? ;)
@@josephkrug8579 That might work, but I'd rather hassle them for their weak stomachs.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 You still could even if they wore the mask (or just get one and see which one gets to it first), but then they would get more done too. :) Though hopefully you will have better weather etc and not so many issues with lots of dead fish.
So are you going to invest in some drums for fuel, and proper generators and heaters for the green house so this doesnt happen again ? You have hundreds of thousands probably invested in all this i can tell, but you had no backup plans for power loss ?
This was an unprecedented weather event. We had cold cloudy weather for two weeks with record cold for five days with little grid power. Evidence of it being unprecedented is what happened to the rest of Texas.
Our normal winter in this part of the State is 2-3 light freezes (~30F) a year. It occasionally gets colder than that, in the mid-teens, but that is associated with dry front with which we get ample sunlight. With sunlight, the greenhouses heat up rapidly. We usually don't bother to heat unless we have several days of cloudy weather.
While we have experienced power failures with our electric Coop, never for the amount of time we did this time. A two-hour outage is cause for us to loudly complain to our Coop. In this event our Coop was not to blame; the State grid operator, ERCOT, ordered the shutdowns.
Are we going to harden our systems? Yes, we will such as additional propane storage, completion of the installation of our new generator, and the addition of more propane heaters. By the way, we use propane not diesel for our generator, including our newer, much larger one. In this event, no propane deliveries were available due to propane shortages caused by frozen natural gas pipelines.
Saying we had no backup plan for what happened is akin to asking Napa Valley wine growers why they had no backup plans for the unprecedented fires that swept through their vineyards, homes, and towns.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 those people chose to live ina desert in california. No sympathy for them with the wild fires. Same with people who live on the coast snd get their stuff destroyed by hurricanes. Or tornado alley and so forth.
Called me a hard ass.. but i just dont have sympathy for people like that who chose to live in areas like that.
@@jeepsblackpowderandlights4305 You do seem to lack empathy. But, then I suppose you support the Central American refugees at the Texas/Mexico border since they are doing something about living in "areas like that."
Charles
Carl and Stormy could use some nose plugs like swimmers use.
Unfortunately, you taste it while mouth breathing...it's unstoppable
Carl
THAT'S MY GRAND PA
Megan, is one of my grandbrats using your profile?
Charles
Hey it's been a minute, how are your Neocaridina going? I mean at least I guess it's neos, you said "red cherry shrimp" so I assumed lol
They are doing very well. itis.gov (our go-to taxonomic source since federal regulations refer to it) says they Caridina denticulata, so we are using that name. We polyculture them with livebearers and since we've been working on livebearers there are some upcoming videos about them. Susie does our breeder selection on them. She's been processing about 1,000 a day for the last couple of weeks.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 This threw me for a bit, and I had do to a bit of digging, but I've figured out why we have different names for this. Looks like itis.gov is still using the original 1844 description of this species from De Haan. But more recently, it's been moved a couple times: www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=586595 I believe you're keeping something that is now called "Neocaridina denticulata sinensis" aka "N. davidi" which is your common Neo shrimp. Very hardy, very colorful, stays small, excellent species all around!
pond plants may be a good idir
We do have tropical water lilies in an outside pond and are considering adding more ponds and plants. We have 122 acres (~49 hectares) so there is lots of room for expansion.
Charles
I want one of your shirts, do you sell them?
Carl and Susie are working on t-shirt stuff, I just raise fish. Apparently they plan to offer t-shirts. That seems a bit too commercial for me...
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I agree, perhaps a tattoo design for the most dedicated fans? 😂❤️😀🙏
Do you sell your mystery snails? If you do were I looked on your online website couldn’t find them would love to buy a whole bunch of them for my puffer fish mystery snails is there main food source
We have sold them to wholesale customers. Due to the storm we took down most of our retail sale items. As we recover, we'll begin to offer them again. We do need to look into the permits required to ship snails interstate before offering them.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 OK let me know when you figure out that interstate shipping permit I live in California would definitely be interested in buying a large wholesale order of them just wondering what was your price?
heartbreaking to hear of all the types or strains that you lost
Yes. As a rancher told me once, "If you raise livestock, you sometimes get deadstock."
We are working on restoring what we can, and we'll reacquire what we can't.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 good luck to you. Wish I could get some of your stock over here in Ireland
I emailed you guys a couple of times. Please check.
I have checked and just searched again! Did you email me at charles@goliadfarms.com?
Charles
Flat Earthers not believing! I love it. I just recently started thinking of them as flat Earthers. Great minds think alike!
Cheers,
Chris
The data and facts are clear. The planet is warming up. You might argue about the causes, but the warming trend is happening.
Charles
Charles, I'm a science teacher and my 7th graders are just learning ecology and the carbon cycle. I have one who I was expecting to challenge me on global warming but he was quiet as a mouse today. I was looking forward to the discussion but it didn't happen.
Fish available online?
They were and will be again once we finish our inventories in a couple of weeks. Fish for sale will be posted on our website (goliadfarms.com/). We are currently selling only scuds and Red Cherry Shrimp.
Charles
People will absolutely buy duckweed. I purposely grow it in a couple of tanks, then move it over as a snack for my herbivores.
We consider it a nuisance. But, my theory is that when a weed becomes profitable, it becomes impossible to raise. So, once we start selling it, duckweed will refuse to grow. Either way, I guess, is good.
Charles