After 2 years without a Water Change... 480 Gallon Aquarium

okay so we have not done a video on the 480 gallon in forever let's be let's be honest we haven't done a video in a long time so today we are going over this 480 gallon tank and the thing about this 480 gallon tank is we set this up in september of 2018 i think so it's been a little over two years since this tank has been set up since it's been set up and it has not gone water change ever since so super cool i'm to show you how everything is doing there i haven't done any maintenance on this tank besides topping it off in probably six months so i'm gonna show you what it looks like the raw in-depth detailed look at what the 480 gallon looks like in 2021 [Music] [Music] what is going on at shrimp keepers if you are new here i am rob with flip aquatics.com today we are talking about this 480 gallon tank and so we got a lot to unwrap i haven't done a video on it in forever um let's be honest 2020 has been an unreal year for us it's been a crazy year so much has happened one thing that has happened and the joke around the shop is that in 2020 rob lost all his hair so it is true i used to wear hat all the time i had long hair um and it just got to the point with you know barber shops being closed down all that i'm just like i'm just gonna take it off and i'm just gonna roll with it so i'm embracing my 20 20 hair loss and so uh so yeah that's that's beside the fact but anyway we are going to get into this video i'm going to cover everything about this tank i'm going to go over what it's been set up like how it's been running for this long how the inhabitants are doing and i'm super excited to get into this video and share with you guys what the 480 looks like in 2021 so here is what she looks like i just got uh done getting all the lights up and running it's been so long since i've messed with these lights that we had uh we had a new roof put on and when we did um they had an accident where like some water came in from this panel dripped all over the door which obviously i didn't even realize it so i gotta clean that but what it did it came down this wall got all over the floor and it fried one of these things so i had to go get a new one to get the back light to work so now i gotta clean that up now that i've realized it but that just shows you how busy we've been in 2020 but let's start off on this tank and just show you i mean obviously there's a ton new growth there's a ton of stuff come on like just look at this moss i mean it's just wild and uh if you remember i want to say like close to a year ago we went through and trimmed all this moss out of here and so it's just slowly slowly grown back there's some more on this one there's a lot over here it's really really pretty and i like i haven't even cleaned the front glass nothing so i just want you guys to see what it looks like right now i'll probably go through i'll scrape the front glass i'll clean it off or the acrylic and uh and then show you guys again when we do we'll do a little feeding at the end of the video but just look at this guy a huge amano shrimp got a bunch of eggs on it there's a scud there's all kinds of stuff in here i didn't know it was in here we got some snails in the background more scuds yeah i mean it's just wow there's another skit over here so apparently there's scuds in here which i didn't even like i knew that there was a few but apparently there's more than i thought and so obviously they're not hurting anything because i mean everything in here is just doing phenomenal i mean there used to be like a pathway right here and now it's just covered in krenty like just absolutely covered like and look at those leaves too like i mean they just look great like this whole tank i mean for the amount of neglect of this tank sees it looks good and there's i always thought these swords me and mike put the wrong ones in here mike from aqua pros we thought these were going to be like huge monster swords and uh they turned out to just be little babies and they don't really do much back there but there's another one right there there's actually a dwarf lily over there too i think there was one over here see if you guys can see that it's like right there so there's a there's a ton of stuff there's i don't even remember now this type of java fern i want to say it's like needly for narrow leaf java fern we did some mats of it there's some in the center but yeah like i mean two plus years since we set this up zero me i mean literally like the smallest amount of maintenance ever and this is at least six months without any maintenance except for topping it off and this is what it looks like so it just shows you like with the proper you know ecosystem and we'll go over all this like what i've done but with the proper setup the proper ecosystem the right things in the tank the right cleaners everything like that um you know it doesn't take much to have a beautiful tank like if i just put a little bit more effort into this like if i just came in and like cleaned the front glass um you know even though it's a little bit more fertilizer stuff like that i mean this tank would be phenomenal and like i the last time that i put fertilizer in this tank had to be eight months ago like it has been so long and you could see like i mean these are heavy root feeding plants and they're just doing great uh the crypts feralis we only planted it inside the islands and you can see there's even some way back there at the edge of the glass or the edge of the acrylic there's some up here at the front so there's just root systems going all through this tank everywhere and it just is just looking phenomenal so going along with that um i mean even down here like like the sump is almost empty i think i really desperately need to top off there's a bunch of shrimp down there obviously the plants are doing really good with minimal work and i want to say a huge part of that is this soil um so this is actually from one of our sponsors rightwell aquatics they've supported me for i want to say the past three years and so when they first started supporting us i just asked them like i'm like hey i'm doing this 480 gallon tank uh would you be willing to send me some soil like i want to use your soil and they're like yeah like we'll send you whatever you need so they sent me like a huge care package so um huge shout out to them so so i was so grateful i even put their logo right here and so uh so brightwell they sent us all this soil and i set this tank up and then obviously our relationship has grown since then but i mean you like it just speaks for itself like look at the plant growth you guys know just by looking at this tank like i do very little to no maintenance of this tank and everything is just doing phenomenal so i chose the right substrate when i did it and on top of that talking about i haven't done a water change on this tank since i set it up it's only been top offs for forever i mean there might have been one time where i took actually i don't even remember ever taking water out of this tank so i'm just gonna go with we've never done a water change on this tank we've only ever topped it off and look at this blue bolts a taiwan b is still living in here no problem and and when we feed i'll i'll show you like there's there's a ton in here like it doesn't look like a lot because we're only seeing a fraction of it but like you start looking in the leaves like they're all over the place and so that means this ph this soil is still keeping this ph um consistent two years and four months later i mean that's unreal like usually you get like a year and a half two years at this substrate um but we're get we're going on two and a half years right now and it's still going strong we're not having any issues whatsoever and so again like huge shout out to brightwell for for the substrate i mean that that's number one like if you want to have a tank looking like this i mean substrate is such a huge part of it that most people overlook and i don't think i ever even mentioned it but this is a rio esquiro f so it's their black substrate and it is the fine so f stands for fine so rio squirrel f and it's just i mean it's just great so what i'm gonna do is i'm actually gonna scrape the front glass off um we're going to put i just got shrimp lollies back in um this is from glass gardener and this isn't a sponsor i just think these are so cool so we just got a whole shipment of these back in so i'm gonna put one of these in actually i'll put a couple of them in i'll put one in on this side one in over here and we'll see exactly how many shrimp are still in there so i just put the shrimp all these in and you can see like there's a bunch of shrimp up front kind of looking like what's going on looks like there's already some on that one uh but before i got into the actual feeding i want to talk about how useful plants are so obviously i haven't done a water change in two years and uh you know a lot of that comes down to having live aquarium plants in your aquarium and the reason for that is in a normal aquarium fish poop or in this case shrimp poop they create waste waste causes ammonia uh nitrifying bacteria turns ammonia into nitrite and then after nitrite another bacteria turns into nitrate and then nitrate is still toxic to shrimp anything over 20 parts per million in your tank will be toxic to them probably won't do well for them so having live plants live plants actually convert the nitrate into nothing i mean it just uses it as fuel for growing and so this is where you get a healthy ecosystem so the more the shrimp and you know the snails and stuff like that and the scuds the more they poop in here the more fuel the plants have to grow so it's a symbiotic relationship that just kind of all you know works together and obviously the soil has a lot to do with it and uh so again shout out to brightwell for for that but it's just a it's just an ecosystem so as long as you're topping off the water which is like the rain and uh you know you're doing your your stuff and keeping up on it make sure nothing like seriously goes wrong here don't over feed them um you're gonna have a lot of success so these guys get fed probably twice a week um maybe a little bit more maybe a little bit less just depending on how busy we are and uh obviously like you know the proof's in the pudding and you know you're you're looking at the pudding so i absolutely love this thing i'm super excited to you know get into it with you guys but let's take a closer look at the feeding and uh and kind of see how many shrimp are in here so there's a there's a funky looking shrimp in here that i just noticed it's like a i don't know um a blue bolt but without any blue i mean it has a little bit of blue in the head but it has a clear mid section so super super funky but i i thought that was really cool and then obviously there's some you know blue masseurs in here um some blue bolts as well uh it looks like even some blue steels it's a bunch of different stuff and so they're all coming to this front area right now the reason they're coming up there is this current is so strong right here so everything they're smelling is just coming right here and so uh so yeah they're just starting to get the shrimp lollies now in all honesty these shrimp lollies are from you know our last batch which is like two years old and so uh so these are some older ones so i was interested to see if they would still go for them obviously they are still going for them which is which is good uh it looks like they're they're going for the other ones a little bit more so we'll go check on that in a second but even this guy like what is that like i don't even know how these so what happened was when i added these blue bolts in here obviously some of these blue bolts like this one um that snuck in and i really didn't have enough time to take them out um you know that's more of a pinto type shrimp so it's mixed with some tiger in it it's got a couple different genetics and so when that breeds to another regular taiwan bee you're gonna start getting some weird stuff like this we'll get some weird stuff like that and then that's where you get all these like crazy patterns like that one looks like a red bull to me or red steel something and so this is just you get so much funky stuff so oh look at this one just a beautiful beautiful shrimp and so uh so yeah so they're just getting ready to start eating this one there's a big old amano shrimp and believe it or not those amano shrimp actually get bigger than that but let's uh let's go check on the other side so it looks like we found their favorite this one's actually our artemia pops this is a brine shrimp so they must be craving protein and so they're all on this one that's the algae pod back there there's not a ton on it but again you know just in full transparency these are you know upwards of not two years old these are probably like a year and a half old since we've got them in which they're still good i mean the pack's been open so you know it's not it's not ideal um but i didn't want to open a brand new pack when i saw three left from this packs so so that's what i did but uh yeah so they're they're feeding on it um yeah no no not a ton of shrimp are coming out i thought there'd be a lot more but you can still see like these ones over here kind of just acting like nothing's happening and so uh so i'm sure there's a lot more so i'll have to check back in like an hour and kind of see where it's at um but yeah i just i love shrimp i mean people always ask me like you know what do you need like a million of them to be able to see them and it's like no like it just makes you appreciate small things and so uh so i i absolutely love it um you know with 2020 and how crazy it was and even right now with everything going on in the world it's cool just kind of sit back and look at this and you know just these small inhabitants living their life and not a care in the world and you know you get to take care of these things and so uh yeah it's just cool so it's always nice to sit back and appreciate what you have and the small things in life i think sometimes we get caught up in the big picture and you know i don't i don't think it was ever intended for us to worry about the whole world i think it was always intended for us to worry about the people in front of us and the things that we can control and so if we make a difference with the people around us then and those people make a difference to the people around them eventually you can make a monster difference and so uh so that's kind of my outlook on it so just sitting down and looking at these small guys and realizing that these are within my power of control and i can help them have a better life just puts everything in perspective and so uh so super super excited i just i love blue bolts i absolutely love them they're just they're stunning so as we sit back and look at this beautiful amazing 480 gallon shrimp only tank plus guts as we sit back and look at it i just want to let you guys know that unfortunately we do have to break it down um now it's going to get set back up so that's a good thing but we're having and there's nothing wrong with the tank there's nothing wrong with the layout what it comes down to is currently this is in the break room um you know we've had a busy 2020 and we're so thankful for it but one thing we don't have is enough room over here so right now the team uh this room is pretty small and with covet and everything going on i mean they just need more room to spread out so what we're actually gonna do and which will allow me to appreciate this tank even more is where this tank sits i think we're going to put a couch right here and we're going to move this over to the front building which was always meant to be the gallery and set it back up there and we're going to do a new layout you'll actually be able to get to all four sides of the aquarium it will kind of be in the middle of the room and this is going to be our centerpiece and this is a tank that means a whole lot to me it's been a special journey and so i'm really excited to see the next chapter and uh see what i decided to do next in this tank uh drop me a comment down below let me know what you guys want to do now i know it's gonna be sad to see this thing go but it's gonna be really exciting to see what comes next so i'll probably fly mike from aqua pros out have them help me set it back up i might employ my wife to help me set it back up i don't i don't really know what i'm gonna do but we're gonna do something really cool so super excited but uh yeah this is the 480 gallon shrimp only world's largest shrimp only tank and i'm excited for the next chapter even though i know it's dark i wanted to finish the video like this i'm actually going to sit here kind of enjoy this for a minute and just take in you know why i fell in love with this hobby in the first place and uh just check out these shrimp so thank you guys so much for watching i again i apologize for not making more videos my 2021 resolution is to make more videos and be more consistent with you guys so i hope i can follow up with that i'm starting right here you guys make it an amazing amazing weekend and uh again i really appreciate it you guys have a great weekend and as always god bless we'll see you on the next video

Channel: Flip Aquatics

Views: 126,919

Rating: 4.7979798 out of 5

Keywords: aquarium, fish tanks, how to change aquarium water, how to do an aquarium water change, how to do water change in fish tank, easy aquarium water change, monster aquarium, large fish tank, shrimp only aquarium, flip aquatics, flip aquatics large fish tank, 480 gallon shrimp tank, 480 gallon aquarium, 480 gallon acrylic aquarium, freshwater shrimp tank, freshwater shrimp farming, freshwater shrimp species, keeping taiwan bee shrimp, shrimp lollies, brightwell rio escuro

Id: YjqLM75nDPc

Length: 17min 30sec (1050 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 10 2021