Only a non-educated person will complain about a natural ecosystem for breeding fish. Nature is nasty to only people who want a perfect world. I personally love the longer videos keep them coming!
We plan more long videos as long as people put up with them. We do only those things that impact the health of the fish. Everything else is simply non-productive. Charles
If we worried about the appearance and did something about it, we wouldn't have time to raise fish. Also, the fish don't seem to care much about the esthetics. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 when we ran Moorman Manor Farms in WA, people loved the taste of the ducks and the eggs.... and were horrified we weren't "modernized" when they came out to visit. USDA couldn't understand how our birds were free range, out in the fresh air every day, cleaning up bugs in the apple orchards and pasture...and *always* tested clean for salmonella, avian flu, and anything else the USDA wanted to test for. My answer, 'we don't keep swine and our neighbors agreed to not keep swine' apparently wasn't clear enough. If we work with nature, our lives are easier and the health of the animals and plants are improved. Wish you could ship the duckweed. It's super nutrient dense, and fabulous for the turtles. Have a great Memorial day weekend, and thank you for taking the time to explain your process.
Plus, the algae helps filter the water, lol. People bought into 'cleanliness is next to godliness' and they fail to appreciate how colonization has separated us from neture. Homeostasis happens when all needs of the ecosystem are met. The fact that you still have breeding stock after 2 massive natural disasters says you are doing a great job meeting the needs of the ecosystem.
@@carl-goliadfarms566 most people are so disconnected from the land and water, and your longer videos help rebuild connection. Wish you were still in Santa Fe, lol. Could benefit from a local breeder to talk shop with, especially genetics!
Thank you, Sir, for this wonderful video. I grew up working with my dad, and mom on a dairy farm. My dad introduced me to the guppy keeping hobby. At thirteen years old, I had fifteen horse troughs full of red and blue delta guppies. That was in the eighties. I am now fifty seven, and love to breed the Endler live bearers. I fully appreciate your wonderful come back spirit. One again, thank you. Sincerely Joseph.
Another Goliad Farm video where Charles gives us tons of information on selective breeding of fish. I haven't seen this level of detailed information anywhere else. I know doing these videos is a lot of work, but please keep producing them.
This was so fascinating! There’s a lot I could say, but something that really gave me so much respect for what you guys are doing is something Charles mentioned towards the end. He mentioned that he could augment the breeding colonies by purchasing more fish of each strain but wanted to preserve the genetics that gave his colony cold and ammonia hardiness. I admire that foresight and integrity so much. Thanks for taking the time to let us see more of what y’all are doing.
If anyone has something negative to say they are clueless. This is the best setup in the world. It’s all natural. It’s being run by a genius. This to me is the coolest of all fish keeping. Your videos are priceless. Hurricanes are vicious and hard to prepare against.
Thank for your kind comments. By the way, we are carefully watching a potentially early mid-Atlantic system that might become tropical storm and then Hurricane Bret. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Charles. The world is heating up at a very fast rate. Everyone should be planting trees and get rid of all the grass in the world. Let people work from home instead of driving. It’s happening fast. Be safe.
We plan to do a mix of long and short videos. Starting in June we'll begin processing the earliest of the breeding colonies we rebuilt after the Storm. We'll video that process. Charles
Did you ever see Aquarium-Coop's long video of the farm? It was post-Hurricane Harvey, but pre-2021 Texas Winter Storm. Cory and crew did a wonderful job on it. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 ever since the day that video came out I have been a fan of your farm! very glad I got to watch it and always thoroughly enjoy seeing how your farm is doing. I don't ever skip a video about Goliad Farms!
I to breed my fish like this, I think it is the best way, you have been unlucky with a couple of natural disasters but breeding them like this naturally makes for a lot tougher and healthier fish in my opinion, most fish you would get in a pet shop that have been bread clinically would probably die the first sign of a bit of cooler weather outdoors, I have slowly toughened some of my livebearers to withstand much colder environments then a shop fish would ever be able to withstand and breeding them naturally like this really brings out their colours, I think you are doing a great job! as you said you aren't doing it to show off, you are doing it to produce good quality stock, maybe the duckweed would be worth some money here in some of the bigger cities in Australia but mostly we do what you do with it, I am forever fishing it out along with the Hornwort and throwing it in the compost, I used to feed it to my turtles when I was breeding them, they used to love it, I Love watching your videos, Thanks for sharing 🙂
Thank you for your kind words. I thought Stormy's tortoise would like duckweed, but she claims he doesn't. I just collected about 25 pounds (~12 Kg) of duckweed and froze it. I'm going to extract the oils and have them sent off for analysis. Aquaculture needs omega-3 from plant sources to reduce the harvest of fish the oceans to feed cultured fish. Duckweed is supposed to be rich in omega-3. In the meantime, most of it gets fed to our worm beds and turned into rich compost. Charles
Charles, you and your crew do a great job. Love the natural look, and the water quality is an essential thing. I learned early on as hobbyist not to remove all the bacteria. Lost many a fish, now I focus more on water changes and keeping those water parameters consistent. Don’t lose many fish anymore. Keep up the good work!!
Thank you. We deliberately leave some mulm in every vat as we process them. The mulm is loaded with beneficial bacteria and food items like Paramecium for fish fry. It seems you've learned some good fishkeeping tactics. Charles
It is. We run this operation with 2.5 full time people. Susie and I are full time, and we have a parttime employee, currently Ashley. Carl handles video processing and works on major projects (several of which are coming up this year). Charles
I hope that your tutorial videos inspire people to breed fish not common and some that are that they adore. Thank you so much for sharing your techniques and passion with others so that in the future people might actually make a difference in saving things that may one day be extinct. I plan on ordering some scuds in the future. I'm sure they won't last long against the puffers and mulches but I'll be breeding them and it is the circle of life. Cheers!
Every single video you make I learn more and more and more, even about fish that ive kept your years, to be able to pick your brain would be worth sooooo much!!!! Keep it up guys you rock!
Hey stormy 😊✌️ and hello to all at Goliad great job y'all are so awesome and doing such really cool things for the hobby!!!!! Keep up the hard work!!!!!!
I love this type if video, very educational! I leaned so much about the breeding process from you, keep up these type of videos! Your really making me want to start up a new community tank ...LOL
Nice job you you have so much knowledge sir I'm learning from the Master Breeder plus I wouldn't have even addressed that lady brother do you your an inspiration to me. Thank You
This has been an absolutely incredible video! Thank you so much for sharing this! 💖 Love seeing stuff about the Livebearers. As for the "cleanliness" issue, I think overcleaning is a MAJOR issue in the aquarium hobby right now. I also think overcleaning leads to weaker fish overall. Fish need to be able to withstand normal conditions. Too clean environments lead to die offs when the inevitable happens and the tanks get a bit too dirty, like when a person gets sick and can't keep up on a ridiculous maintenance routine. As you said, you're not keeping fish for aesthetics but for production and breeding. Your place isn't "nasty." It's a functional animal production environment. Some people are just ridiculous...
Thank you for your kind comments. We endeavor to raise lots of good, healthy fish with the least effort possible. Keeping things spic and span would would leave no time for the fish. Soon we'll start the next breeding cycle, first for cichlids and then for livebearers and we'll show more details of how we do things. Charles
Yep, 1000% agree. My shrimp colony crashed when I got covid last year. Meanwhile, the guppies living with the turtle (and high nitrates) have thrived, and I am playing with genetics now. They are hardy, and thriving in 68° to 72° water, with nitrates that work there way up to 180 ppm. It took 8 months to establish the hardy babies surviving and breeding, now I am selectively breeding for color and tail shape. Thank you
@@Lazy_Fish_Keeper Sorry to hear about you getting Covid-19 and your shrimp colony crashing. Glad your guppies are getting hardier. They're so much more fun to work with when you aren't struggling to keep them alive. Mine have survived a recent spike of nitrates of about 120. Maintenance of course is determined by multiple factors and we want to keep our fish in a healthy environment. But they need to be easy to keep and be able to withstand the occasional issues that might come up. Hope you have fun working with their colors and such now. 😊
@@ReneesZooTube as soon as I got better and tested all the water, I had surprise fry with the zebra danios and a guppy population explosion in the turtle pond... along with nitrates of 180 ppm😳 No clue why the shrimp colony crashed, TDS were at the low end of normal for the tank, and 0 ppm on ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Only thing I can figure is biofilm wasn't sufficient to sustain the size of the colony🤷♂️ or calcium levels dipped, and then shells from the sheds remineralized the water? No clue, except that the shrimp died en masse.
Wonderfully informative and educational video as always! Don’t mind the detractors, not everyone understands or can appreciate what it is you all are doing there. These are the consequences of RUclips “stardom!!!” 😉 I for one, am absolutely enamored with what you have created and it has actually inspired me to attempt to replicate it in the near future on a much smaller scale. Thanks again for sharing your wealth of information. Good fishkeeping!
Love your channel and the work you do. And i also appreciate your love for all creatures good or bad ... You crack me up with the raccoons and the German shepherds. My wife cracks me up when you talk about genes because she knows all those terms and what you are explaining she had to take all those classes to get her RN and she also has her engineering degree 4.0 student. Im proud of her .. She is also a outstanding artist ..
In college I once tutored pre-med students and nursing students for a two-semester vertebrate physiology class. The nursing students were a joy to tutor since they seemed to like learning. The pre-med students just wanted an A. Your wife sounds like she likes to learn. Congratulations for finding her! Charles
@@kevinwilson3398 I'm lucky Susie has put up with me. She is currently in the warehouse which is gradually being converted into her workshop. She is building new kitchen cabinets. That's a project I don't understand since it has nothing to do with raising fish... Charles
I loved this video, I think your ecosystem is beautiful not nasty. The person complaining probably cleans everything in their aquarium with a toothbrush and wonders why their water is always cloudy...lol
We handle 100s of vats with only three people. If we kept things sparkly clean, we wouldn't have time for the fish. Also, too much cleanliness isn't necessarily good for the fish. We allow mulm (some call detritus) to accumulate in the bottoms of the vats since it is loaded with beneficial nitrifying bacteria and Paramecium and scuds for the fish to eat. Charles
Your greenhouses and vats look fabulous for fish! My best home breeding tanks are aged and have plants, plant litter, mulm, snails, wood, rocks, a bit of algae (and did I say mulm?).
Yes, you said mulm. I think it is a mistake to keep aquaria too clean. Just take a look at nature and you'll find all those things you listed, including mulm. Charles
Sorry for the tardy reply. Computer problems. Do so! I just got an email with photos from someone working to duplicate our systems. If you need any advice, don't hesitate to ask. By the way, I experimented with much smaller systems before launching the larger ones. Charles
Well, some people think forest's are dirty. What can you do. It's an eco system and it sure doesn't care about an opinion of someone who doesn't know what he/she is seeing. Thanks for the video, i really like it.
he for 3 years wrote a column for tropical fish hobbies for live bears. that is one hell of a thing to have on your resume. watching this video I'm not surprised. I mean clearly he's educated and it's really cool that he made this video I would love to pick his brain
Whoever complains about cleanliness at your farm is obviously not aware of how to keep fish. Particularly, at farm level. Algae and mulm are healthy parts of a thriving eco system. What I love about Goliad is how nature is used to the fullest. Fish look amazing and water stays on point. I love to see the algae and the patina from the aging process of a healthy eco system- even in vats and tubs. Don’t ever let anyone get you down from RUclips- they obviously have no clue.
Appreciate showing more of the process and your patience taking time showing us more of what you're describing. The sweet spot is 20-30minutes with a lot of the process for each. Does Charles get soaked all the way through from running around? Suzie doesn't seem to get soaked. :)
I was an August baby in South Texas when most people didn't have air conditioning. Apparently the number of sweat glands you have is determined by the climate in your first year. Susie was born in the cooler and much drier Texas Panhandle and grew up in New Mexico. She doesn't seem to sweat, whereas I do...a lot. Charles
I like livebearers. The second fish I ever bred (long, long ago) was Gambusia affinis that I collected from a nearby creek. I learned a lot from those fish. Charles
Sorry for the tardy reply. Computer problems. It would be easier if we were further south too. But we are on land that's been in my family since 1870. It's difficult to consider selling it and moving to Mexico or Central America. There isn't much of Texas south of us, so that move wouldn't help much. Charles
Have you had any run-ins when mycobacterium? Seems to me it's in many systems but only wreaks havoc in some. Those are some cool looking platies. I love red and orange in livebearers Also I know who I'm nominating for director of the year "count to 3 in your head" 🤣
I suspect Mycobacterium marinum (fish tuberculosis) is endemic in the hobby. We've found that even rainbowfishes which were once very susceptible to it, aren't anymore. We see no evidence of it in our fish and fish pathologists haven't found any evidence since around 2002 when we had an outbreak in our rainbowfishes. The surviving rainbowfishes seemed resistant. I suspect most commercially raised fish these days are resistant, natural selection at work. Virgin populations of fish, such as recently wild caught fish and their descendants, that haven't been exposed before are probably at great risk from Mycobacterium. That could account for outbreaks. Both Susie and Carl deserve a lot credit for their attempts to direct me. I've been told that is a difficult task.
Most of our evaporation occurs in the summer when we are running cooling fans. Each greenhouse loses about 3,000 gallons of water a day to evaporation then. Charles
Duckweed: either a scourge or godsend depending on what you're doing and raising. In our systems, it is a very fine ammonia control plant, but it does interfere with feeding, trapping the food above the water. We used to feed it to our chickens, but during the Chicken Yard Massacre the raccoons wiped out our chickens when the electric fence shorted out. When we have time, we'll repair the fence and restock. In the meantime, we feed the duckweed to our litter worms. They convert it to very rich soil. Charles
I am from Australia my duckweeds was free when I purchased a few plecos ,i now have it in every tank. Constantly netting the stuff out even my Turtles won't eat it. I don't anyone who's is paying 20 bucks for the stuff here.
@@gordana8931 I can't imagine paying for it since if you have one today you have two tomorrow and four the next, the eight...well, you can see the problem. Duckweed grows like a weed and reproduces like rabbits. Charles
Thats a really great biotopic greenhouse you run there . I love it so much I could stay there for days !! . I want to ask what is that big plant with heart shaped leaves you have there ?
That is a Central American herb called Hoja Santa (Piper auritum). It is used in cooking. Meats and fish are wrapped to improve flavor (it is also called "root beer plant). Susie has used it to remove the fishy taste of some fish dishes. It is also used to make moles. In Austin and Houston fresh leaves sell for $0.50 to $1.00 each. Charles
That was so cool to see the snake in there...although it might make lunch out of a fish! In California, we call those striped racers and they eat lizards (mostly western fence.) I once walked out of the house and saw a striped racer grab a bluebelly and disappear in a flash with it. What do you call that snake? Garter?
Common name: Texas Garter Snake. Scientific name Thamnophis sirtalis annectans. It is a livebearer and has established a breeding population the greenhouses. They do take an occasional fish, but mostly feral fish from the floor gutters. Charles
Charles, I remember you mentioning your livebearer problems I believe back in the aquarium Coop video aswell. I've been scratching my head for a few months now because I caught some absolutely massive mollies locally (Venice, FL) and they seem to be fat and healthy...but no fry yet? I did catch the fish from a lake with an abundance of leaf litter, etc.. Does that "birth control" effect ever fade, or should I just try somewhere else?
It didn't fade with most of our mollies. It did seem to fade with the xiphophorines. When did you catch the mollies? If your fish are Poecilia latipinna, which is likely from that location, then that species has a winter diapause. The females under natural light cease dropping fry by early November and don't start up again until March. Also, they do not seem to store sperm over that diapause, so they'll need to be exposed to males starting in February. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I did catch them from Nov-Feb so that seems one good explanation! I'm pretty sure they're P. latipinna. I actually moved them indoors over the weekend just to see if there would be a change, and to free up that outdoor tub for a new collecting trip. I'll need to keep an eye out for a male then most likely, I wasn't able to catch any and wasn't so worried figuring the females would explode with a bunch of babies!
@@chris6054 Males get very rare during the winter in wild populations due to predation. Those big dorsals and bright colors say, "Eat me!" I once had to collect P. latipinna for a German university in December/January. They wanted 250 pairs. It was very easy to get 250 females, but I could only get about a dozen males. They had to take those and put them under 12+ hours of light daily and they had plenty of fry soon. Be sure to get a male soon to make sure your females are bred. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I have a few different spots that usually have healthy pops of males just based on the tail colors I see, but accessibility is...a bit different story. One would mainly be kayaking 2mi one way with all the gear required, then extra water weight coming back, but sadly it looks the best. I have been tempted to put a few barrel traps back there, but worried the gators would tear them up. I remember reading that article on your website, and I will do my best!
@@chris6054 Good luck catching a male. One will do! There are some alligators in Coleto Creek a few miles away, but none on the farm. The most likely critter to tear up traps here would be feral hogs. Charles
We usually have around 200 livebearer vats, but due to the two disasters (Hurricane Harvey and the 2021 Texas Winter Storm) about 80 of those are sitting empty. They will be filled as the rebuilt breeding colonies begin producing and as we replace breeding stock we lost entirely. We don't currently have Green Swords. Charles
I have three stock tanks outdoors in the Florida panhandle. I never clean them. My filtration is massive amounts of live plants.No mechanical filtration or airation. Water gets changed when it rains.
Plants provide the most natural and the best filtration. Also, I suspect your tanks have a layer of mulm on the bottom. That mulm will be rife with beneficial bacteria. Charles
@@RobertKeeney We try not to remove all the mulm when we clean a vat so that we maintain the beneficial bacteria not to mention the swarms of Paramecium in the mulm. Charles
I have 2 filters on both my fish tanks at home, they are 125Litre/33Gallon. I have one canister filter(800Litre per hour/240L tank size) on them and one Fluval U3 on them(150l tank size), the canister filters I only got in January and I have not cleaned them or opened them up at all in 4.5 months, the fluval ones I clean like once a months just swish around in a plastic tub of tank water. Im not sure how long I will leave the canisters, probably until I notice a problem or worsening water quality, maybe i'll do them once they are 6 months old just to see.
Great video. Answered so many questions. Would Love to hear more on how you bred and grew out your Betta splendens (particularly jarring the males in your system) I believe you said in a previous video that you out 30 breeder shrimp in each vat? Also, when you do purchase new fish how do quarantine them into your system without risking your existing setup? Thank you as always from the land of Oz.
We raised Betta males in trays filled with cups made of 1/4" (~1/2cm) aquaculture netting. One male to a cup. The mesh prevented fighting but allowed water flow through the cups and the trays. Feeding was simple since the food could float through all the cups. Also, since the water recirculated through our plant filters, we didn't have to bother with water changes, allowing for heavier feeding and faster growth. Interestingly enough, I found that male of Betta fry raised together in large, shallow vats under crowded conditions don't fight much. We stock each livebearer vat with around 30 really good Red Cherry Shrimp breeders. We've found that the shrimp do better when polycultured with fish and the fish don't seem to suffer from having shrimp with them. Susie likes this double use of greenhouse floor space, so we don't raise shrimp by themselves anymore. We only acquire new stock during the warm months here, at least eight months of the year. We have outside vats that are not on the recirculating systems. Those are used for quarantine. We place the new fish in those vats and observe them for at least a month. If no problems are found, we then add a group of fish representative of the fish on our systems to those vats. If they do well, then the new fish are removed from quarantine. Why that second step? Because we once quarantined some Limia vittata without issue. But, when we added them to our recirculating system, our L. perugiae began dying and we lost hundreds (all of them) of them over a couple of weeks. The L. perugiae had no discernable symptoms...they just died. Our fish pathologist couldn't find a cause. No other fish were affected. I suspect the L. vittata carried a virus that the L. perugiae were susceptible to. The L. perugiae were highly inbred, having descended from six fish. A couple of years later we acquired some more L. perugiae and they and their offspring thrived. Either whatever had caused the first L. perugiae to die was gone, or the second group was resistant. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 thank you for such a detailed reply. That clears slot up for me. Were the trays just sitting in your reservoirs? Also may I ask what you fed 'netted' fish? Thank you as always
@@bustermichaels The trays were mounted above the vats with a water line feeding water to one end of tray. A drain hole in the side of the tray drained water out to maintain the water level in the tray. We used bus trays purchased from a restaurant supply house. Each tray housed about 30 males. We fed the Bettas the same food we feed all our fish: Purina AquaMax foods of various grinds. Charles
This is an ecosystem not a display setup. Who cares if there snails and algae and whatever. Does this person go out and clean up the rivers and ponds where fish live naturally? People drive me nuts.
Enjoying the vids for breeder selection. Do you ever offer the "mutt" shrimp for sale? I have a tank with several variety of guppies and shrimp, would love to add a different strain. Thanks!!!
Your platies are quite beautiful, ive never kept any livebearers other than endler's livebearers, but some of those fish ive seen in your videos are very nice and I am definitely going to need to get me some at some point. Im also very curious about the very large sailfin mollies you got, ive read that some mollies can get 6 inches in the wild. I personally love fish ive never kept or fish that are unique, ive mostly only kept South American and Asian fish in planted aquariums, but the cichlids and livebearers you have are very interesting and very nice to look at. The pike livebearers that ive seen around also look very interesting, but from what ive read they are hard to breed due to how carnivorous they are I'm also pretty sure that they occur in your state, just wondering if you have experience with them.
Six inch mollies in the wild are rare, especially males since they are usually eaten by a year old. Mollies do most of their growing the first year, but can live to be three years old and continue to grow a bit. Pike livebearers (Belonesox belizanus) are now illegal to possess in Texas, so we don't have any. They aren't currently reported in Texas and were only reported in the headwaters of the San Antonio River. The last report was in 1980. Charles
I would love to work there, I like platys and I would get shrimp but I have Bristlenose, Corydoras and Honey Gouramis in with my platys, the Corys probably take up their space, the Bristlenose might eat them even accidentally and Honey Gouramis might also see them as snacks so i've never had shrimp.
Our Red Cherry Shrimp do surprisingly well with fish. We polyculture them with livebearers and, when we had them, they did well with Ancistrus. We lost most if not all our Ancistrus in the 2021 Texas Winter Storm. But, today, I saw what appeared to be an inch Ancistrus in the Greenhouse 1 floor gutter. It might have been a plecostomus, but looked a lot like an Ancistrus. It quickly hid before I could get a close enough look. I'm keeping an eye out for it. If it is an Ancistrus, then we must have at least a surviving pair in the Greenhouse 1 somewhere. Charles
Only that one person cares about how clean an area is. Overlceaning a tank is bad and it's a greenhouse, nature doesn't care how clean or dirty something is, as long as it doesn't spread disease or make people sick, it doesn't matter what it looks like 🤷♀️🙂 don't let people's comments about "clean" in the aquarium hobby get to you. You know what works for you when it comes to keeping fish 👍🙂
@@goliadfarms7029 Dallas, TX. Your videos are encouraging me to buy a house and have some outside tubs, which I will do if I live to see that day, thanks for your reply
Our climate is almost subtropical, so we rarely have to heat. The greenhouses gain a lot of heat during the day when it's sunny. Most winters we heat a few nights during long cloudy periods. We use propane heaters, but I hope to test compost heaters next winter. Charles
5:07 Part of the problem is that in texas it's "commercial power" instead of "municipal power." The responsibility for keeping the lights on needs to stay as close as home as possible.
One issue Texas has is it does not connect to other grids. Also, Texas regulators have not required providers to adequately protect their systems. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Haha, I'm actually familiar with the Texas grid situation because my dad works on generation systems and he has endless contempt for the Texas power grid (despite generally being a libertarian when it comes to utilities). But he doesn't mind the steady stream of work fixing up badly run turbines :p
Frankly I love it! Let nature do as much of the work for you as you can figure out! And when you don't coddle the fish you get strong fish that are better able to survive in the tanks of inexperienced fishkeepers! Let the haters buy all their delicate fish from pristine glass boxes and watch them die within a week due to some slight variation in the conditions!
Yes, fish that survive our system are certainly fit. Our fry have to be strong and quick to avoid predation and to get adequate food. Those that aren't don't make it. I plan on a video soon discussing how fish handle environmental change. For example, our water temperatures are rising rapidly from the low 70sF into the low 80sF. That change can be stressful and weak fish often succumb. Charles
Yes. Each greenhouse is a large interconnected recirculating system. The floors are covered in water to about 6 inches (~15 cm). Water flows from each vat though drain holes into the floor gutter. The water gravity feeds into a 4 foot (~1.2 m) deep sump at one end of the greenhouse. Large pumps take the water from the sump back to the vats via 2 inch (~5 cm) PVC pipes. There are feral fish in the floor gutters and sumps. When we are working fish some jump into the floor gutters and instantly become feral fish. Charles
A quick calculation - two employees working 60 hours a week, one part timer working let's say 30 hours. That's 150 man-hours a week. Divide your time equally between 800 vats and you get a grand total of 9 minutes 7 1/2 seconds you can devote to each vat per week and that assumes you have nothing else to do like sorting fish, bagging and posting fish etc. I'm not remotely surprised the place is not spic and span, I'm surprised you can keep it running let alone spend time on cleaning.
@@goliadfarms7029 I'm fairly sure that your average Micky Mouse Platy doesn't care too much about whether your buckets are neatly stacked as long as they have healthy water and a decent food supply.
Before moving our hatchery from Santa Fe, New Mexico to here we looked at a place in Carlsbad, California. But it seems we'd be trading hurricanes for fires and earthquakes. Charles
We call the sediment "mulm." Mulm comes from decaying plant material, fish waste, excess food, etc. It is loaded with Paramecium, scuds, beneficial bacteria, etc. It is beneficial to the fish since it hosts food organisms and nitrifying bacteria that remove ammonia and its metabolites. Charles
@@LloydGFernandes I guess it depends on how you define "occur naturally." We accidentally acquired our scuds from Texas State University in 2008 along with some Poecilia mexicana. Since they are small and rugged enough to pass through our pumps and pump filters, they colonized the system. Sometime after that we began to deliberately culture them. They establish populations with cichlids and livebearers in our 300-gallon breeding vats but don't survive in 55-gallon vats that are densely populated with fish. They survive in the 300-gallon vats due to the fry cages, cichlid hotels, and hornwort we provide for fry refuge. Charles
Don't worry about the haters guys!! You're doing great! It's a fish farm, the fish are doing well and are healthy. The haters will keep hating lol so maybe they should you watch a sterile hospital video instead 😂😂😂 might make their nasty asses happy 😂😂😂
Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. When I ran cupola for melting iron also when I ran molding line maintenance guys would always borrow my my pry bars 3/4 steel bars 5 foot long and never bring them back costing me downtime cuz I couldn’t find bar. My solution was 1 1/2 inch bars 6 foot long too darn heavy for average yahoo to use
Our well water comes up neutral but rapidly rises to about 8 as the carbon dioxide gases out. The well water is hard, 285 ppm calcium carbonate. If you drip a faucet a stalactite and stalagmite form. Due to the plants in the system and full sunlight, pH in the system vary from about 8.2 in the morning to 8.5 in the evening. The hardness of the system water is very stable despite evaporate loss of water. The excess calcium carbonate precipitates out forming calcium sheets on the sides of the vats. Charles
For most of our mouth-brooding cichlids we prefer a breeding colony of three males and 40-50 females. With livebearers we usually have six males to about 50 females. The cichlid breeding colonies are in 300-gallon vats. The livebearers are in either 55-gallon or 110-gallon vats. We find inbreeding to be a great tool for removing deleterious genes (technically alleles) and concentrating good characteristics such as coloration, size, health, etc. When creating a new strain from spectacular male we will often mate him not only to his daughters, but also grand-daughters and great-grand-daughters. Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 thank you very much, im not that big a breeder i juat find it fun getting something a little different or more beautiful when breeding fish. If i may add, your recovery series is like a webinr i have been watching since day 1. Thank you for all you do.
Depending on the time of the year, we process breeding colonies every three to four months. Next month we'll start processing the cichlid breeders we set up in late February. We'll begin processing some livebearers late May and early June. We plan to do videos showing this entire process, but I'll summarize it here. First, the cichlids. When we aren't dealing with a disaster like the 2021 Texas Winter Storm, each cichlid strain has five 55-gallon vats and 300-gallon breeder vat. At the beginning of the breeding cycle, one 55-gallon vat houses 1-2" fish, another 2-3", one for 3-4", one for adult females, and one for adult males. We process the two adult vats first, netting out the fish and sorting them. Then the other three vats are then netted out and the fish size and sex sorted. Finally the 300-gallon breeding vat is netted out and siphoned down to insure all but the smallest fry have been removed. The breeders are sorted out and the young fish size sorted. The breeders are inventoried and returned to their 300-gallon vat. Replacement breeders, if needed, are selected from among the adult males and adult females and added to the breeding colony. The other fish are placed in the appropriate vats. For livebearers, the process is a bit different since we usually have just three 55-gallon vats per strain. One vat houses breeders. That vat is netted out and siphoned down to get all the larger fish. We don't worry about newly born fish, they can remain in the vat and it's best not to handle them anyway. The breeders are inventoried and held for a while in buckets. The remainder of the fish from the breeder vat is sorted into juveniles and adults (by the end of a breeding cycle some livebearers have achieved adulthood). The other two vats, one had housed juveniles and the other adults to be sold, are then netted out and cleaned, using 10" brine shrimp nets to net out most of the accumulated mulm. The vat that had housed adults for sale is then set up as a breeding vat. In it is placed a fry cage (a cylinder made of aquaculture netting) and some hornwort to provide cover for fry. The other fish are sorted. Any replacement breeders selected and the remainder split in juvenile and adult fish. The juveniles are added to the old breeder vat with the fry that were left in it. The adults are counted and placed in what was the old juvenile vat. As I said above, we we video this entire process for both types once we start the next breeding cycle. Charles
We're in a drought this year. I've only seen one mosquito this year. If we get a tropical storm with lots of rain and standing water, we'll have tons of mosquitoes. Charles
There is something weird with the sound. It seems like the microphone is to dominant over the background sounds. It sounds like it was narrated after the video was shot.
The audio and video were done concurrently. There is lots of background noise due to water flow and air fans. We try to optimize the audio to overcome that background noise. Carl processes the videos. I don't know what he does to further augment audio. Charles
Yes, the Simpson Hifin gene found in platies and swords is a homozygous lethal. Any fish inheriting two copies dies as an embryo. Therefore, all Simpson hifins are heterozygous. Mating two Simpson hifins together will produce on average 2/3 hifins and 1/3 normals. Usually when mating two dominant heterozygotes you'd on average yield 3/4 dominants and 1/4 recessives. But in this case you are missing the homozygous dominants. What I call the True Breeding Hifin gene appears to not be a homozygous lethal. This allows you to produce a true breeding hifin strain. Charles
Someone said that. It is interesting that even in the US some people are willing to pay for duckweed. It is a good ammonia control plant, but it is too much of a nuisance to use it for that purpose. We are exploring the possibility of extracting omega-3 oil from it. The aquaculture industry would like to lessen its dependence on fish oils. Charles
We have several species of emersed plants. The tall, large leafed plants are Oja Santa (Piper auritum), a Central American herb used in cooking. The yellow variegated, long large leafed plant is a variety of Dieffenbachia, a house plant. We have two mangroves: Red Mangrove (Rhizophora mangle), which we are phasing out since it is a host to a nasty little caterpillar with stinging hairs, and Black Mangrove (Avicennia germinans). There are also some house ivies (Pothos). Charles
I still think my thoughts in the blog below are right. Whatever it was, sailfin mollies were most impacted. Shortfin mollies fared better, and xiphophorines (swords, variatus, and platies) recovered even better. Gambusia punctata laughed at whatever it was. Here's the link to the blog: goliadfarms.com/teas-fish-and-chickens/ Charles
I'm trying to pronounce "mulm," but my Texas accent probably messes that up. Mulm is the detritus on the bottom of the vats. It consists of broken-down plant, excess food, lots of beneficial bacteria, scuds, etc. It's the stuff most aquarists siphon out of their tanks to keep them looking clean. Charles
Sorry for the tardy reply. We are located in Goliad County, Texas, hence the name. Goliad is an anagram of Hildago. He was famous in Mexican history, and Texas used to be part of Mexico. The "h" in Hidalgo wasn't used since it is silent in Spanish. Charles
Only a non-educated person will complain about a natural ecosystem for breeding fish. Nature is nasty to only people who want a perfect world. I personally love the longer videos keep them coming!
We plan more long videos as long as people put up with them.
We do only those things that impact the health of the fish. Everything else is simply non-productive.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I would pay to receive the knowledge you provide. Your channel has provided great fish keeping!
@@nrfishinman009 Thank you. I hope to continue providing useful information.
Charles
@@nrfishinman009 Thank you. I try to be informative as well as entertaining.
Charles
I plan to keep on.
Charles
Dont let people get to you about the looks of the farm. Everything there is natural and beneficial. It's literally a working farm and I love it.
If we worried about the appearance and did something about it, we wouldn't have time to raise fish. Also, the fish don't seem to care much about the esthetics.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Yes, the wellbeing of the fish is more important than the esthetics. Real fish enthusiasts will understand that.
@@juliemcgugan1244 Thank you.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 when we ran Moorman Manor Farms in WA, people loved the taste of the ducks and the eggs.... and were horrified we weren't "modernized" when they came out to visit.
USDA couldn't understand how our birds were free range, out in the fresh air every day, cleaning up bugs in the apple orchards and pasture...and *always* tested clean for salmonella, avian flu, and anything else the USDA wanted to test for. My answer, 'we don't keep swine and our neighbors agreed to not keep swine' apparently wasn't clear enough.
If we work with nature, our lives are easier and the health of the animals and plants are improved.
Wish you could ship the duckweed. It's super nutrient dense, and fabulous for the turtles.
Have a great Memorial day weekend, and thank you for taking the time to explain your process.
Plus, the algae helps filter the water, lol.
People bought into 'cleanliness is next to godliness' and they fail to appreciate how colonization has separated us from neture. Homeostasis happens when all needs of the ecosystem are met.
The fact that you still have breeding stock after 2 massive natural disasters says you are doing a great job meeting the needs of the ecosystem.
The natural look of the farm is what attracted me to your videos anyway.
Thank you. We concentrate on raising fish in as natural a way as possible.
Charles
Your green houses look like paradise to me!!! Someone has a untreated case of OCD. Beautiful fish and nice long informative video, thank you.
Thank you. We plan on more long videos so I can ramble on.
A neat freak would soon flee our farm for a stainless steel environment.
Charles
love all the vids but the 1 hour ones are the best ♥ thanks !
They sure are!
We will keep producing long ones if people keep watching them.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I assure you we will. I like the way you explain the operations and your processes.
Glad y'all like the long videos. We'll work on producing more of them.
@@carl-goliadfarms566 most people are so disconnected from the land and water, and your longer videos help rebuild connection.
Wish you were still in Santa Fe, lol. Could benefit from a local breeder to talk shop with, especially genetics!
this is a marvelous example of fish keeping ingenuity. we are privileged to enjoy these videos thank you
Thank you for watching. Our systems and techniques have evolved over the years by trial and error (lots of errors) and constant research.
Charles
Thank you, Sir, for this wonderful video. I grew up working with my dad, and mom on a dairy farm.
My dad introduced me to the guppy keeping hobby.
At thirteen years old, I had fifteen horse troughs full of red and blue delta guppies.
That was in the eighties.
I am now fifty seven, and love to breed the Endler live bearers.
I fully appreciate your wonderful come back spirit.
One again, thank you.
Sincerely Joseph.
Guppies show great colors when raised naturally in sunlight.
Charles
Another Goliad Farm video where Charles gives us tons of information on selective breeding of fish. I haven't seen this level of detailed information anywhere else. I know doing these videos is a lot of work, but please keep producing them.
Thank you. I try to be informative and even sometimes entertaining. Fishkeeping is fun.
Charles
This was so fascinating! There’s a lot I could say, but something that really gave me so much respect for what you guys are doing is something Charles mentioned towards the end. He mentioned that he could augment the breeding colonies by purchasing more fish of each strain but wanted to preserve the genetics that gave his colony cold and ammonia hardiness. I admire that foresight and integrity so much. Thanks for taking the time to let us see more of what y’all are doing.
Thank you. Whenever possible I like to work with fish that are already adapted to our conditions.
Charles
I appreciate these videos so much. So much experience and knowledge being shared.
Thank you. We will continue.
Charles
If anyone has something negative to say they are clueless. This is the best setup in the world. It’s all natural. It’s being run by a genius. This to me is the coolest of all fish keeping. Your videos are priceless. Hurricanes are vicious and hard to prepare against.
Thank for your kind comments. By the way, we are carefully watching a potentially early mid-Atlantic system that might become tropical storm and then Hurricane Bret.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 we used to live in Florida. These storms are scary. Keep yourself and the fish safe.
@@davidcammilleri5526 We were hoping for a calm hurricane season, but that looks unlikely due to the very warm Atlantic water temperatures.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Charles. The world is heating up at a very fast rate. Everyone should be planting trees and get rid of all the grass in the world. Let people work from home instead of driving. It’s happening fast. Be safe.
I love these longer videos with just you explaining things.
We plan to do a mix of long and short videos. Starting in June we'll begin processing the earliest of the breeding colonies we rebuilt after the Storm. We'll video that process.
Charles
I want a history channel television show about your farm!! Always entertaining
Did you ever see Aquarium-Coop's long video of the farm? It was post-Hurricane Harvey, but pre-2021 Texas Winter Storm. Cory and crew did a wonderful job on it.
Charles
Charles yes i watched it 3 times 🤣
@@goliadfarms7029 ever since the day that video came out I have been a fan of your farm! very glad I got to watch it and always thoroughly enjoy seeing how your farm is doing. I don't ever skip a video about Goliad Farms!
Those are huge red shrimp! Wow!
When Susie selects breeders, she picks large, colorful, healthy ones.
Charles
I to breed my fish like this, I think it is the best way, you have been unlucky with a couple of natural disasters but breeding them like this naturally makes for a lot tougher and healthier fish in my opinion, most fish you would get in a pet shop that have been bread clinically would probably die the first sign of a bit of cooler weather outdoors, I have slowly toughened some of my livebearers to withstand much colder environments then a shop fish would ever be able to withstand and breeding them naturally like this really brings out their colours, I think you are doing a great job! as you said you aren't doing it to show off, you are doing it to produce good quality stock, maybe the duckweed would be worth some money here in some of the bigger cities in Australia but mostly we do what you do with it, I am forever fishing it out along with the Hornwort and throwing it in the compost, I used to feed it to my turtles when I was breeding them, they used to love it, I Love watching your videos, Thanks for sharing 🙂
Thank you for your kind words.
I thought Stormy's tortoise would like duckweed, but she claims he doesn't. I just collected about 25 pounds (~12 Kg) of duckweed and froze it. I'm going to extract the oils and have them sent off for analysis. Aquaculture needs omega-3 from plant sources to reduce the harvest of fish the oceans to feed cultured fish. Duckweed is supposed to be rich in omega-3. In the meantime, most of it gets fed to our worm beds and turned into rich compost.
Charles
Charles, you and your crew do a great job. Love the natural look, and the water quality is an essential thing. I learned early on as hobbyist not to remove all the bacteria. Lost many a fish, now I focus more on water changes and keeping those water parameters consistent. Don’t lose many fish anymore. Keep up the good work!!
Thank you. We deliberately leave some mulm in every vat as we process them. The mulm is loaded with beneficial bacteria and food items like Paramecium for fish fry.
It seems you've learned some good fishkeeping tactics.
Charles
You've got so much going on there.
I'm going to bet it's a very FULL TIME job running your farm.
It is. We run this operation with 2.5 full time people. Susie and I are full time, and we have a parttime employee, currently Ashley. Carl handles video processing and works on major projects (several of which are coming up this year).
Charles
I hope that your tutorial videos inspire people to breed fish not common and some that are that they adore. Thank you so much for sharing your techniques and passion with others so that in the future people might actually make a difference in saving things that may one day be extinct. I plan on ordering some scuds in the future. I'm sure they won't last long against the puffers and mulches but I'll be breeding them and it is the circle of life. Cheers!
There have been so many interesting strains of fish, especially livebearers, that have been lost to the hobby because no one raised them.
Charles
You can't argue with success. I love your greenhouses. They're natural and the most beautiful thing I ever seen. 🥰
Thank you! We like to work with nature, not against it.
Charles
Absolutely LOVE these long videos! Si relaxing watch every night before bed
We plan to do a mix of long and short videos. Thank you for watching.
Charles
I can see the passion and love you guys have for the farm. keep up the hard work.
Thank you. We will continue!
Charles
It’s very cool to see you rebuilding and very interesting to hear your thought process to and as you go forward....
Thank you. Starting next month we'll begin processing the first breeding colonies we rebuilt to gauge our progress.
Charles
Every single video you make I learn more and more and more, even about fish that ive kept your years, to be able to pick your brain would be worth sooooo much!!!! Keep it up guys you rock!
Thank you! We try to be entertaining and informative.
Charles
Hey stormy 😊✌️ and hello to all at Goliad great job y'all are so awesome and doing such really cool things for the hobby!!!!! Keep up the hard work!!!!!!
Thank you.
Charles
I love this type if video, very educational! I leaned so much about the breeding process from you, keep up these type of videos! Your really making me want to start up a new community tank ...LOL
You should get multiple tanks!
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I have a 10 gallon quarantine tank , a 55 gal and 32 hex :)
@@janiefable You obviously need more tanks!
Charles
Nice job you you have so much knowledge sir I'm learning from the Master Breeder plus I wouldn't have even addressed that lady brother do you your an inspiration to me. Thank You
Thank you for your kind words. We'll try to keep on earning the praise.
Charles
The platies are awesome. So colorful. I have only seen common ones. But ur fishes are really colorful❤💛💚💙💜❤💛💚💙💜❤💛💚💙💜❤💛💚💙💜
We select for color, form, and health. It will take a while to restore our platies to what they were. We lost some very nice breeders.
Charles
This has been an absolutely incredible video! Thank you so much for sharing this! 💖 Love seeing stuff about the Livebearers.
As for the "cleanliness" issue, I think overcleaning is a MAJOR issue in the aquarium hobby right now. I also think overcleaning leads to weaker fish overall. Fish need to be able to withstand normal conditions. Too clean environments lead to die offs when the inevitable happens and the tanks get a bit too dirty, like when a person gets sick and can't keep up on a ridiculous maintenance routine.
As you said, you're not keeping fish for aesthetics but for production and breeding. Your place isn't "nasty." It's a functional animal production environment. Some people are just ridiculous...
Thank you for your kind comments. We endeavor to raise lots of good, healthy fish with the least effort possible. Keeping things spic and span would would leave no time for the fish.
Soon we'll start the next breeding cycle, first for cichlids and then for livebearers and we'll show more details of how we do things.
Charles
Yep, 1000% agree.
My shrimp colony crashed when I got covid last year.
Meanwhile, the guppies living with the turtle (and high nitrates) have thrived, and I am playing with genetics now.
They are hardy, and thriving in 68° to 72° water, with nitrates that work there way up to 180 ppm.
It took 8 months to establish the hardy babies surviving and breeding, now I am selectively breeding for color and tail shape.
Thank you
@@Lazy_Fish_Keeper Sorry to hear about you getting Covid-19 and your shrimp colony crashing. Glad your guppies are getting hardier. They're so much more fun to work with when you aren't struggling to keep them alive. Mine have survived a recent spike of nitrates of about 120. Maintenance of course is determined by multiple factors and we want to keep our fish in a healthy environment. But they need to be easy to keep and be able to withstand the occasional issues that might come up. Hope you have fun working with their colors and such now. 😊
@@ReneesZooTube as soon as I got better and tested all the water, I had surprise fry with the zebra danios and a guppy population explosion in the turtle pond... along with nitrates of 180 ppm😳
No clue why the shrimp colony crashed, TDS were at the low end of normal for the tank, and 0 ppm on ammonia, nitrites and nitrates. Only thing I can figure is biofilm wasn't sufficient to sustain the size of the colony🤷♂️ or calcium levels dipped, and then shells from the sheds remineralized the water?
No clue, except that the shrimp died en masse.
Wow nice sir... Morevideos and subs to come... Watching here in Philippines..
Many more videos in progress.
Charles
Wonderfully informative and educational video as always! Don’t mind the detractors, not everyone understands or can appreciate what it is you all are doing there. These are the consequences of RUclips “stardom!!!” 😉 I for one, am absolutely enamored with what you have created and it has actually inspired me to attempt to replicate it in the near future on a much smaller scale. Thanks again for sharing your wealth of information. Good fishkeeping!
Thank you.
Please keep me posted on your progress.
Charles
I think what your doing is phenomenal ...I would love to work with you on that farm! You have a great system that works for you!
Thank you. We've developed our systems by trial and error coupled with tons of research.
Charles
Love your channel and the work you do. And i also appreciate your love for all creatures good or bad ... You crack me up with the raccoons and the German shepherds. My wife cracks me up when you talk about genes because she knows all those terms and what you are explaining she had to take all those classes to get her RN and she also has her engineering degree 4.0 student. Im proud of her .. She is also a outstanding artist ..
In college I once tutored pre-med students and nursing students for a two-semester vertebrate physiology class. The nursing students were a joy to tutor since they seemed to like learning. The pre-med students just wanted an A. Your wife sounds like she likes to learn. Congratulations for finding her!
Charles
Yes Patricia loved microbiology class. She is in the kitchen making soap now lol. I am lucky to have her in my life ..
@@kevinwilson3398 I'm lucky Susie has put up with me. She is currently in the warehouse which is gradually being converted into her workshop. She is building new kitchen cabinets. That's a project I don't understand since it has nothing to do with raising fish...
Charles
This was so relaxing to watch! Plus I picked up some barrel management tips, thank you so much
Thank you for watching. We try to be informative and entertaining.
Charles
I loved this video, I think your ecosystem is beautiful not nasty. The person complaining probably cleans everything in their aquarium with a toothbrush and wonders why their water is always cloudy...lol
We handle 100s of vats with only three people. If we kept things sparkly clean, we wouldn't have time for the fish. Also, too much cleanliness isn't necessarily good for the fish. We allow mulm (some call detritus) to accumulate in the bottoms of the vats since it is loaded with beneficial nitrifying bacteria and Paramecium and scuds for the fish to eat.
Charles
Your greenhouses and vats look fabulous for fish! My best home breeding tanks are aged and have plants, plant litter, mulm, snails, wood, rocks, a bit of algae (and did I say mulm?).
Yes, you said mulm. I think it is a mistake to keep aquaria too clean. Just take a look at nature and you'll find all those things you listed, including mulm.
Charles
Utterly beautiful natural ecosystem! I hope to build a much smaller version of it someday.
Sorry for the tardy reply. Computer problems.
Do so! I just got an email with photos from someone working to duplicate our systems. If you need any advice, don't hesitate to ask. By the way, I experimented with much smaller systems before launching the larger ones.
Charles
Well, some people think forest's are dirty. What can you do.
It's an eco system and it sure doesn't care about an opinion of someone who doesn't know what he/she is seeing.
Thanks for the video, i really like it.
Thank you. We worry only about what it takes to raise good, healthy fish.
Charles
he for 3 years wrote a column for tropical fish hobbies for live bears. that is one hell of a thing to have on your resume. watching this video I'm not surprised. I mean clearly he's educated and it's really cool that he made this video I would love to pick his brain
Thank you. I apologize for the tardy response. We've had a lot of things going on. Charles
Very educational, though a bit long. I enjoy watching the process there. Thanks for sharing.
Some like the long videos, some don't. We'll try to do a mix of short and long ones.
Charles
Whoever complains about cleanliness at your farm is obviously not aware of how to keep fish. Particularly, at farm level. Algae and mulm are healthy parts of a thriving eco system. What I love about Goliad is how nature is used to the fullest. Fish look amazing and water stays on point. I love to see the algae and the patina from the aging process of a healthy eco system- even in vats and tubs. Don’t ever let anyone get you down from RUclips- they obviously have no clue.
Thank for you kind comments. We try to coexist with the ecosystems that have developed.
Charles
Very informative sir, great video !
Thank you. We hope to be informative.
Charles
God Bless all..
and keep up the Good work...
Thank you for watching our videos. We will continue to recover from the Storm.
Charles
Appreciate showing more of the process and your patience taking time showing us more of what you're describing. The sweet spot is 20-30minutes with a lot of the process for each. Does Charles get soaked all the way through from running around? Suzie doesn't seem to get soaked. :)
I was an August baby in South Texas when most people didn't have air conditioning. Apparently the number of sweat glands you have is determined by the climate in your first year. Susie was born in the cooler and much drier Texas Panhandle and grew up in New Mexico. She doesn't seem to sweat, whereas I do...a lot.
Charles
Some of that is water for the days he desides he wants to have water fights 😂😂😂
Wonderfull show! Livebearers are great they don’t get huge , just give the fry cover. You have a nice school.
I like livebearers. The second fish I ever bred (long, long ago) was Gambusia affinis that I collected from a nearby creek. I learned a lot from those fish.
Charles
You guys work hard! Best regards.
We try to work just hard enough to raise lots of good fish.
Charles
Gawd, I'd love to do that kind of work again. I'd also like to be quite a bit farther South than I am now.
Sorry for the tardy reply. Computer problems.
It would be easier if we were further south too. But we are on land that's been in my family since 1870. It's difficult to consider selling it and moving to Mexico or Central America. There isn't much of Texas south of us, so that move wouldn't help much.
Charles
Have you had any run-ins when mycobacterium? Seems to me it's in many systems but only wreaks havoc in some.
Those are some cool looking platies. I love red and orange in livebearers
Also I know who I'm nominating for director of the year "count to 3 in your head" 🤣
I suspect Mycobacterium marinum (fish tuberculosis) is endemic in the hobby. We've found that even rainbowfishes which were once very susceptible to it, aren't anymore. We see no evidence of it in our fish and fish pathologists haven't found any evidence since around 2002 when we had an outbreak in our rainbowfishes. The surviving rainbowfishes seemed resistant. I suspect most commercially raised fish these days are resistant, natural selection at work. Virgin populations of fish, such as recently wild caught fish and their descendants, that haven't been exposed before are probably at great risk from Mycobacterium. That could account for outbreaks.
Both Susie and Carl deserve a lot credit for their attempts to direct me. I've been told that is a difficult task.
Hmm, interesting setup you've got there.
I bet you have ALOT of evaporation during the winter months when the humidity is low.
Most of our evaporation occurs in the summer when we are running cooling fans. Each greenhouse loses about 3,000 gallons of water a day to evaporation then.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 wow !,3000 gallons a day.
Good thing you are on a well.
I'm from Australia and that is completely true about the duckweed.
Duckweed: either a scourge or godsend depending on what you're doing and raising. In our systems, it is a very fine ammonia control plant, but it does interfere with feeding, trapping the food above the water. We used to feed it to our chickens, but during the Chicken Yard Massacre the raccoons wiped out our chickens when the electric fence shorted out. When we have time, we'll repair the fence and restock. In the meantime, we feed the duckweed to our litter worms. They convert it to very rich soil.
Charles
I am from Australia my duckweeds was free when I purchased a few plecos ,i now have it in every tank. Constantly netting the stuff out even my Turtles won't eat it. I don't anyone who's is paying 20 bucks for the stuff here.
@@gordana8931 I can't imagine paying for it since if you have one today you have two tomorrow and four the next, the eight...well, you can see the problem. Duckweed grows like a weed and reproduces like rabbits.
Charles
@@gordana8931 what part of Australia are you in. I’m around Mackay, in the Whitsundays Queensland
Thats a really great biotopic greenhouse you run there . I love it so much I could stay there for days !! . I want to ask what is that big plant with heart shaped leaves you have there ?
That is a Central American herb called Hoja Santa (Piper auritum). It is used in cooking. Meats and fish are wrapped to improve flavor (it is also called "root beer plant). Susie has used it to remove the fishy taste of some fish dishes. It is also used to make moles. In Austin and Houston fresh leaves sell for $0.50 to $1.00 each.
Charles
That was so cool to see the snake in there...although it might make lunch out of a fish!
In California, we call those striped racers and they eat lizards (mostly western fence.)
I once walked out of the house and saw a striped racer grab a bluebelly and disappear in a flash with it.
What do you call that snake? Garter?
Common name: Texas Garter Snake. Scientific name Thamnophis sirtalis annectans. It is a livebearer and has established a breeding population the greenhouses. They do take an occasional fish, but mostly feral fish from the floor gutters.
Charles
Charles, I remember you mentioning your livebearer problems I believe back in the aquarium Coop video aswell. I've been scratching my head for a few months now because I caught some absolutely massive mollies locally (Venice, FL) and they seem to be fat and healthy...but no fry yet? I did catch the fish from a lake with an abundance of leaf litter, etc.. Does that "birth control" effect ever fade, or should I just try somewhere else?
It didn't fade with most of our mollies. It did seem to fade with the xiphophorines.
When did you catch the mollies? If your fish are Poecilia latipinna, which is likely from that location, then that species has a winter diapause. The females under natural light cease dropping fry by early November and don't start up again until March. Also, they do not seem to store sperm over that diapause, so they'll need to be exposed to males starting in February.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I did catch them from Nov-Feb so that seems one good explanation! I'm pretty sure they're P. latipinna. I actually moved them indoors over the weekend just to see if there would be a change, and to free up that outdoor tub for a new collecting trip. I'll need to keep an eye out for a male then most likely, I wasn't able to catch any and wasn't so worried figuring the females would explode with a bunch of babies!
@@chris6054 Males get very rare during the winter in wild populations due to predation. Those big dorsals and bright colors say, "Eat me!" I once had to collect P. latipinna for a German university in December/January. They wanted 250 pairs. It was very easy to get 250 females, but I could only get about a dozen males. They had to take those and put them under 12+ hours of light daily and they had plenty of fry soon.
Be sure to get a male soon to make sure your females are bred.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I have a few different spots that usually have healthy pops of males just based on the tail colors I see, but accessibility is...a bit different story. One would mainly be kayaking 2mi one way with all the gear required, then extra water weight coming back, but sadly it looks the best. I have been tempted to put a few barrel traps back there, but worried the gators would tear them up.
I remember reading that article on your website, and I will do my best!
@@chris6054 Good luck catching a male. One will do!
There are some alligators in Coleto Creek a few miles away, but none on the farm. The most likely critter to tear up traps here would be feral hogs.
Charles
Excellent job buddy
Thank you. We work hard to produce lots of nice fish.
Charles
Very interesting video, you all are doing an outstanding job. How many livebearer vats do you have? Do you have green swordtails?
We usually have around 200 livebearer vats, but due to the two disasters (Hurricane Harvey and the 2021 Texas Winter Storm) about 80 of those are sitting empty. They will be filled as the rebuilt breeding colonies begin producing and as we replace breeding stock we lost entirely.
We don't currently have Green Swords.
Charles
Algae is needed for breeding fish. Like you talked about your mulm being a food source for fry.
Very true. Algae and mulm are critical aspects of aquatic environments.
Charles
I have three stock tanks outdoors in the Florida panhandle. I never clean them. My filtration is massive amounts of live plants.No mechanical filtration or airation. Water gets changed when it rains.
Plants provide the most natural and the best filtration. Also, I suspect your tanks have a layer of mulm on the bottom. That mulm will be rife with beneficial bacteria.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I had to move one recienly and the mulm was about 5 inches deep.
@@RobertKeeney We try not to remove all the mulm when we clean a vat so that we maintain the beneficial bacteria not to mention the swarms of Paramecium in the mulm.
Charles
I have 2 filters on both my fish tanks at home, they are 125Litre/33Gallon. I have one canister filter(800Litre per hour/240L tank size) on them and one Fluval U3 on them(150l tank size), the canister filters I only got in January and I have not cleaned them or opened them up at all in 4.5 months, the fluval ones I clean like once a months just swish around in a plastic tub of tank water. Im not sure how long I will leave the canisters, probably until I notice a problem or worsening water quality, maybe i'll do them once they are 6 months old just to see.
I think some hobbyists over clean their filters. As long as there is sufficient water flow, I say leave them alone.
Charles
Great video.
Answered so many questions.
Would Love to hear more on how you bred and grew out your Betta splendens (particularly jarring the males in your system)
I believe you said in a previous video that you out 30 breeder shrimp in each vat?
Also, when you do purchase new fish how do quarantine them into your system without risking your existing setup?
Thank you as always from the land of Oz.
We raised Betta males in trays filled with cups made of 1/4" (~1/2cm) aquaculture netting. One male to a cup. The mesh prevented fighting but allowed water flow through the cups and the trays. Feeding was simple since the food could float through all the cups. Also, since the water recirculated through our plant filters, we didn't have to bother with water changes, allowing for heavier feeding and faster growth.
Interestingly enough, I found that male of Betta fry raised together in large, shallow vats under crowded conditions don't fight much.
We stock each livebearer vat with around 30 really good Red Cherry Shrimp breeders. We've found that the shrimp do better when polycultured with fish and the fish don't seem to suffer from having shrimp with them. Susie likes this double use of greenhouse floor space, so we don't raise shrimp by themselves anymore.
We only acquire new stock during the warm months here, at least eight months of the year. We have outside vats that are not on the recirculating systems. Those are used for quarantine. We place the new fish in those vats and observe them for at least a month. If no problems are found, we then add a group of fish representative of the fish on our systems to those vats. If they do well, then the new fish are removed from quarantine.
Why that second step? Because we once quarantined some Limia vittata without issue. But, when we added them to our recirculating system, our L. perugiae began dying and we lost hundreds (all of them) of them over a couple of weeks. The L. perugiae had no discernable symptoms...they just died. Our fish pathologist couldn't find a cause. No other fish were affected. I suspect the L. vittata carried a virus that the L. perugiae were susceptible to. The L. perugiae were highly inbred, having descended from six fish. A couple of years later we acquired some more L. perugiae and they and their offspring thrived. Either whatever had caused the first L. perugiae to die was gone, or the second group was resistant.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 thank you for such a detailed reply.
That clears slot up for me.
Were the trays just sitting in your reservoirs?
Also may I ask what you fed 'netted' fish?
Thank you as always
@@bustermichaels The trays were mounted above the vats with a water line feeding water to one end of tray. A drain hole in the side of the tray drained water out to maintain the water level in the tray. We used bus trays purchased from a restaurant supply house. Each tray housed about 30 males.
We fed the Bettas the same food we feed all our fish: Purina AquaMax foods of various grinds.
Charles
This is an ecosystem not a display setup. Who cares if there snails and algae and whatever. Does this person go out and clean up the rivers and ponds where fish live naturally? People drive me nuts.
Very good points!
Charles
Thanks for sharing 💪 ✌
Thank you for watching!
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Houston, Texas With you 💪 ✌
Enjoying the vids for breeder selection. Do you ever offer the "mutt" shrimp for sale? I have a tank with several variety of guppies and shrimp, would love to add a different strain. Thanks!!!
The culls are used to feed our cichlids. We do offer nicely colored ones on our website at goliadfarms.com/shop/.
Charles
Your platies are quite beautiful, ive never kept any livebearers other than endler's livebearers, but some of those fish ive seen in your videos are very nice and I am definitely going to need to get me some at some point. Im also very curious about the very large sailfin mollies you got, ive read that some mollies can get 6 inches in the wild. I personally love fish ive never kept or fish that are unique, ive mostly only kept South American and Asian fish in planted aquariums, but the cichlids and livebearers you have are very interesting and very nice to look at.
The pike livebearers that ive seen around also look very interesting, but from what ive read they are hard to breed due to how carnivorous they are I'm also pretty sure that they occur in your state, just wondering if you have experience with them.
Six inch mollies in the wild are rare, especially males since they are usually eaten by a year old. Mollies do most of their growing the first year, but can live to be three years old and continue to grow a bit.
Pike livebearers (Belonesox belizanus) are now illegal to possess in Texas, so we don't have any. They aren't currently reported in Texas and were only reported in the headwaters of the San Antonio River. The last report was in 1980.
Charles
I would love to work there, I like platys and I would get shrimp but I have Bristlenose, Corydoras and Honey Gouramis in with my platys, the Corys probably take up their space, the Bristlenose might eat them even accidentally and Honey Gouramis might also see them as snacks so i've never had shrimp.
Our Red Cherry Shrimp do surprisingly well with fish. We polyculture them with livebearers and, when we had them, they did well with Ancistrus. We lost most if not all our Ancistrus in the 2021 Texas Winter Storm. But, today, I saw what appeared to be an inch Ancistrus in the Greenhouse 1 floor gutter. It might have been a plecostomus, but looked a lot like an Ancistrus. It quickly hid before I could get a close enough look. I'm keeping an eye out for it. If it is an Ancistrus, then we must have at least a surviving pair in the Greenhouse 1 somewhere.
Charles
Only that one person cares about how clean an area is. Overlceaning a tank is bad and it's a greenhouse, nature doesn't care how clean or dirty something is, as long as it doesn't spread disease or make people sick, it doesn't matter what it looks like 🤷♀️🙂 don't let people's comments about "clean" in the aquarium hobby get to you. You know what works for you when it comes to keeping fish 👍🙂
All good points. We do what is necessary to raise healthy fish. All else is effort we don't have time for.
Charles
Great video again, you could use a toilet brush to clean the buckets out real easey.
I'll have to get a brush for Stormy to use when she cleans buckets, but some of that algae is resistant to scrubbing.
Charles
Dont give him any ideas. That would take to long with all the buckets I have to clean
My dream will come true when I manage to have 3 same size tubs All life bear fish 🐟, great job
Are your tubs to be outside? What is your climate?
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Dallas, TX. Your videos are encouraging me to buy a house and have some outside tubs, which I will do if I live to see that day, thanks for your reply
So now you got some bomb proof horses.
Hope so.
Charles
Wonderful.
Thank you for watching.
Charles
Daer sir, how do you heat your greenhouse..?? how is the weather in your area...??? thanks for your answer.
Our climate is almost subtropical, so we rarely have to heat. The greenhouses gain a lot of heat during the day when it's sunny. Most winters we heat a few nights during long cloudy periods. We use propane heaters, but I hope to test compost heaters next winter.
Charles
5:07 Part of the problem is that in texas it's "commercial power" instead of "municipal power." The responsibility for keeping the lights on needs to stay as close as home as possible.
One issue Texas has is it does not connect to other grids. Also, Texas regulators have not required providers to adequately protect their systems.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 Haha, I'm actually familiar with the Texas grid situation because my dad works on generation systems and he has endless contempt for the Texas power grid (despite generally being a libertarian when it comes to utilities). But he doesn't mind the steady stream of work fixing up badly run turbines :p
Loving this
Thank you. We are resuming posting videos beginning today.
Charles
Stormy, beautiful as always.
You are going to make Stormy blush!
Charles
Aw thank you!
@@goliadfarms7029 your right I did blush
@@Stormy-xp2vi How's it is going with the firefighting?
Frankly I love it! Let nature do as much of the work for you as you can figure out! And when you don't coddle the fish you get strong fish that are better able to survive in the tanks of inexperienced fishkeepers! Let the haters buy all their delicate fish from pristine glass boxes and watch them die within a week due to some slight variation in the conditions!
Yes, fish that survive our system are certainly fit. Our fry have to be strong and quick to avoid predation and to get adequate food. Those that aren't don't make it. I plan on a video soon discussing how fish handle environmental change. For example, our water temperatures are rising rapidly from the low 70sF into the low 80sF. That change can be stressful and weak fish often succumb.
Charles
Wait so this greenhouse is essentially (or literally) one giant pond? So there are feral fish underneath the walking stones in the sump?
Yes. Each greenhouse is a large interconnected recirculating system. The floors are covered in water to about 6 inches (~15 cm). Water flows from each vat though drain holes into the floor gutter. The water gravity feeds into a 4 foot (~1.2 m) deep sump at one end of the greenhouse. Large pumps take the water from the sump back to the vats via 2 inch (~5 cm) PVC pipes.
There are feral fish in the floor gutters and sumps. When we are working fish some jump into the floor gutters and instantly become feral fish.
Charles
Hi Charles, do you feed your newborn fish with special food?
We feed all our fish Purina Aquamax foods. Cichlid and livebearer fry get Aquamax 100 crumbles. and Aquamax 500 floating pellets to nimble on.
Charles
A quick calculation - two employees working 60 hours a week, one part timer working let's say 30 hours. That's 150 man-hours a week. Divide your time equally between 800 vats and you get a grand total of 9 minutes 7 1/2 seconds you can devote to each vat per week and that assumes you have nothing else to do like sorting fish, bagging and posting fish etc. I'm not remotely surprised the place is not spic and span, I'm surprised you can keep it running let alone spend time on cleaning.
Nice calculations. You can easily see why we don't concern ourselves with anything that doesn't directly benefit the fish.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 I'm fairly sure that your average Micky Mouse Platy doesn't care too much about whether your buckets are neatly stacked as long as they have healthy water and a decent food supply.
Lobe the videos very cool but I think you need to move to California to avoid all the hassle of the storms
Before moving our hatchery from Santa Fe, New Mexico to here we looked at a place in Carlsbad, California. But it seems we'd be trading hurricanes for fires and earthquakes.
Charles
Very attractive fish there
We work at improving the strains we raise, selecting for color, size, form, and health.
Charles
Hi Charles
What do you call the sediment at the bottom of the vats
Where does it come from
How is it benificial or detrimental to the fish
We call the sediment "mulm." Mulm comes from decaying plant material, fish waste, excess food, etc. It is loaded with Paramecium, scuds, beneficial bacteria, etc. It is beneficial to the fish since it hosts food organisms and nitrifying bacteria that remove ammonia and its metabolites.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 hello Charles
Thank you for your response.
Do scuds occur naturally in the mulm.
I'm from johannesburg south africa
@@LloydGFernandes I guess it depends on how you define "occur naturally." We accidentally acquired our scuds from Texas State University in 2008 along with some Poecilia mexicana. Since they are small and rugged enough to pass through our pumps and pump filters, they colonized the system. Sometime after that we began to deliberately culture them. They establish populations with cichlids and livebearers in our 300-gallon breeding vats but don't survive in 55-gallon vats that are densely populated with fish. They survive in the 300-gallon vats due to the fry cages, cichlid hotels, and hornwort we provide for fry refuge.
Charles
Don't worry about the haters guys!! You're doing great! It's a fish farm, the fish are doing well and are healthy. The haters will keep hating lol so maybe they should you watch a sterile hospital video instead 😂😂😂 might make their nasty asses happy 😂😂😂
Thank you! We raise a lot of good fish in these "nasty" conditions!
Charles
Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
When I ran cupola for melting iron also when I ran molding line maintenance guys would always borrow my my pry bars 3/4 steel bars 5 foot long and never bring them back costing me downtime cuz I couldn’t find bar.
My solution was 1 1/2 inch bars 6 foot long too darn heavy for average yahoo to use
Sounds like a perfect solution.
Charles
What is the pH and hardness values of your well water?
Do the values change as you recirculate?
My well water is super hard--pH 8+
Our well water comes up neutral but rapidly rises to about 8 as the carbon dioxide gases out.
The well water is hard, 285 ppm calcium carbonate. If you drip a faucet a stalactite and stalagmite form.
Due to the plants in the system and full sunlight, pH in the system vary from about 8.2 in the morning to 8.5 in the evening.
The hardness of the system water is very stable despite evaporate loss of water. The excess calcium carbonate precipitates out forming calcium sheets on the sides of the vats.
Charles
When you build a breeding colony, how big do you need? and can you in-breed these fish and just keep it that way?
For most of our mouth-brooding cichlids we prefer a breeding colony of three males and 40-50 females. With livebearers we usually have six males to about 50 females. The cichlid breeding colonies are in 300-gallon vats. The livebearers are in either 55-gallon or 110-gallon vats.
We find inbreeding to be a great tool for removing deleterious genes (technically alleles) and concentrating good characteristics such as coloration, size, health, etc. When creating a new strain from spectacular male we will often mate him not only to his daughters, but also grand-daughters and great-grand-daughters.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 thank you very much, im not that big a breeder i juat find it fun getting something a little different or more beautiful when breeding fish. If i may add, your recovery series is like a webinr i have been watching since day 1. Thank you for all you do.
@@markferniz1124 Thank you for your kind words. We try to be informative as well as entertaining.
Charles
brilliant 👏
Thank you for watching.
Charles
Once you have an established colony, how often do you separate the fry into the fry vat?
Depending on the time of the year, we process breeding colonies every three to four months. Next month we'll start processing the cichlid breeders we set up in late February. We'll begin processing some livebearers late May and early June. We plan to do videos showing this entire process, but I'll summarize it here.
First, the cichlids. When we aren't dealing with a disaster like the 2021 Texas Winter Storm, each cichlid strain has five 55-gallon vats and 300-gallon breeder vat. At the beginning of the breeding cycle, one 55-gallon vat houses 1-2" fish, another 2-3", one for 3-4", one for adult females, and one for adult males. We process the two adult vats first, netting out the fish and sorting them. Then the other three vats are then netted out and the fish size and sex sorted. Finally the 300-gallon breeding vat is netted out and siphoned down to insure all but the smallest fry have been removed. The breeders are sorted out and the young fish size sorted. The breeders are inventoried and returned to their 300-gallon vat. Replacement breeders, if needed, are selected from among the adult males and adult females and added to the breeding colony. The other fish are placed in the appropriate vats.
For livebearers, the process is a bit different since we usually have just three 55-gallon vats per strain. One vat houses breeders. That vat is netted out and siphoned down to get all the larger fish. We don't worry about newly born fish, they can remain in the vat and it's best not to handle them anyway. The breeders are inventoried and held for a while in buckets. The remainder of the fish from the breeder vat is sorted into juveniles and adults (by the end of a breeding cycle some livebearers have achieved adulthood). The other two vats, one had housed juveniles and the other adults to be sold, are then netted out and cleaned, using 10" brine shrimp nets to net out most of the accumulated mulm. The vat that had housed adults for sale is then set up as a breeding vat. In it is placed a fry cage (a cylinder made of aquaculture netting) and some hornwort to provide cover for fry. The other fish are sorted. Any replacement breeders selected and the remainder split in juvenile and adult fish. The juveniles are added to the old breeder vat with the fry that were left in it. The adults are counted and placed in what was the old juvenile vat.
As I said above, we we video this entire process for both types once we start the next breeding cycle.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 thanks for sharing
I guess this is what luke skywalker has been doing all these years.
Well...not really, but Yoda once said to me, "Go live with the fishees." I'm not certain I understood what he meant.
Charles
Do you get bit by mosquito 🦟 there… does your body gets used to the mosquitoes 🦟 bites … im askin because I get big welches when I get bit
We're in a drought this year. I've only seen one mosquito this year. If we get a tropical storm with lots of rain and standing water, we'll have tons of mosquitoes.
Charles
There is something weird with the sound. It seems like the microphone is to dominant over the background sounds. It sounds like it was narrated after the video was shot.
The audio and video were done concurrently. There is lots of background noise due to water flow and air fans. We try to optimize the audio to overcome that background noise. Carl processes the videos. I don't know what he does to further augment audio.
Charles
So no "Super" High Fins, that produces all High Fines? So you can only produce a visual High Fine with two Hets?
Yes, the Simpson Hifin gene found in platies and swords is a homozygous lethal. Any fish inheriting two copies dies as an embryo. Therefore, all Simpson hifins are heterozygous. Mating two Simpson hifins together will produce on average 2/3 hifins and 1/3 normals. Usually when mating two dominant heterozygotes you'd on average yield 3/4 dominants and 1/4 recessives. But in this case you are missing the homozygous dominants.
What I call the True Breeding Hifin gene appears to not be a homozygous lethal. This allows you to produce a true breeding hifin strain.
Charles
I'm from Australia I don't know who told you that it grows like a weed some people try and sell it for a dollar or two grows everywhere
Someone said that. It is interesting that even in the US some people are willing to pay for duckweed. It is a good ammonia control plant, but it is too much of a nuisance to use it for that purpose. We are exploring the possibility of extracting omega-3 oil from it. The aquaculture industry would like to lessen its dependence on fish oils.
Charles
Which mangrove-looking plants are those?
We have several species of emersed plants. The tall, large leafed plants are Oja Santa (Piper auritum), a Central American herb used in cooking. The yellow variegated, long large leafed plant is a variety of Dieffenbachia, a house plant. We have two mangroves: Red Mangrove (Rhizophora mangle), which we are phasing out since it is a host to a nasty little caterpillar with stinging hairs, and Black Mangrove (Avicennia germinans). There are also some house ivies (Pothos).
Charles
Hello,
I wondered if you ever figured out why many of your livebearers stopped reproducing after Harvey?
I still think my thoughts in the blog below are right. Whatever it was, sailfin mollies were most impacted. Shortfin mollies fared better, and xiphophorines (swords, variatus, and platies) recovered even better. Gambusia punctata laughed at whatever it was.
Here's the link to the blog:
goliadfarms.com/teas-fish-and-chickens/
Charles
Love stormy ♥ ❤
You'll make Stormy blush...
Charles
What is that stuff at the bottom? I hear Charles say 'malm' bit RUclips translates as 'mom'? Can anyone clarify?
I'm trying to pronounce "mulm," but my Texas accent probably messes that up. Mulm is the detritus on the bottom of the vats. It consists of broken-down plant, excess food, lots of beneficial bacteria, scuds, etc. It's the stuff most aquarists siphon out of their tanks to keep them looking clean.
Charles
@@goliadfarms7029 thank you! Love your videos.
U should add the duck weed to ur compost pile
We feed it to our worm beds and they turn it, hornwort, mulm, and plant cuttings into rich soil.
Charles
I love your system and technique
@@YardeningwithAnne Thank you. We developed it over a lot of years of trial and error.
Charles
I love it
Thank you for watching. We'll get back to posting regular videos shortly.
Charles
👌👌👌❤❤❤
Thank you.
Charles
I can watch all his videos..
Thank you. We have been remiss in posting videos, but that should change shortly.
Charles
Why "Goliad"? What it means?
Sorry for the tardy reply.
We are located in Goliad County, Texas, hence the name. Goliad is an anagram of Hildago. He was famous in Mexican history, and Texas used to be part of Mexico. The "h" in Hidalgo wasn't used since it is silent in Spanish.
Charles
What is your website?
goliadfarms.com/
Charles