-It's been called an obsession.
My name is Malik. I am 41 years old.
Just a regular guy. I work in film
and television in Toronto. And as my side hustle,
I keep, breed, and retail rare
and exotic fish. The fish in this tank
can buy me a nice car. What's going on everybody? Welcome to Malik's Water Garden. I am a fish influencer. Yeah, I am.
I live in a fish farm, and I would have it
no other way. [ Cash register dings ] Welcome in. Come on to my crib.
[ Laughs ] My fish crib. I usually don't like people
in my house, like, in this part of the house. And I'm, like, very careful
on who I let in. There's about 3,000 fish
in this apartment. Probably a little bit more,
actually. There's about $50,000
worth of fish in my facility. And I'm the only one that
can keep most of them alive. ♪♪ This is my living room
fish room. I retail them to local customers as well as I wholesale
to stores. I get fish from other collectors or I know some fisherman
in South America. So, as long as it's legal
for them to export them, I let them know
I want this particular fish. And once I get them, I usually
get a group of 10 or 12, and I keep them
in a tank six months, a year. Usually, they breed for me. From that point, I sell it
to the people that want them. And so they're now all over
other people's fish rooms. So, I grow all
my baby fish out here. I think there's about
55 or 60 tanks in here. I try to make at least
$5,000 from each tank. Angelfish are quite profitable and I'm good
at keeping them alive. So, like, if 1,000 comes,
I can keep 955 alive maybe. If I sell them in three-week
size, I'll make 955 bucks. There's about 200 fish
in this tank. You'll see them, each one
is worth about 40 to 50 bucks. They plecos sell
for about 60 bucks. So, these guys sell for
about $300 as adults. I've been offered $7,500 for my breeding group,
like, and I said no. I'm expecting to make
at least $20,000 from just my breeding
group this year. [ Laughs ]
Just from one tank. My target for the year
is about $60,000 gross. I net about $45,000 a year. I freelance for film
and television. I do mostly stand-in,
but I do background as well. I work on "Star Trek." So, you wouldn't see me
and recognize me because I'm wearing
a huge mask head, whatever. But I'm one of the only people
that's willing to be in it for the amount of time that they
need to be in the prosthetics. I don't take overnight work. That limits me quite a bit
for roles and stuff, but I don't feel comfortable
leaving them for that long. Would I ever live
without aquariums? No. You know what I mean? I've had aquariums
since I was a little kid. My dad had aquariums.
My mom, too. And I got my own aquarium
when I was, like, 3 years old. I was born in Sri Lanka. I grew up there
until I was about 12 to 13. There was a war going on,
so I'm a political refugee. We came to Canada,
and I've been here since then. My parents are big
into conservation, so my dad always had a lot
of giant aquariums in the house. So, I wanted a tank since I was,
like, as long as I can remember. And my third birthday,
my dad got me a tank. By the time I was 7,
I was breeding fish. And my dad was, like, proud
of me to the point where he was, like, showing me off
to his cousins and stuff, "Look at my kid."
You know what I mean? Like "Better than you guys"
type of deal. In the summertime, it gets
really hot in the whole house. Sometimes I sleep right here
on the middle of the room. It's comfortable and it's -- you know, it's nice at night,
all the water sound. I look around, I see all my fish
as I'm falling asleep. As soon as I open my eyes,
I see them. I make sure everybody's good.
Like, it's more like an immerse experience that way
for me. Usually, I sleep better in here
because it relaxes me after, like,
everything I deal with. I mean, I grew up
in a war-torn country. The fish take me away from that.
I don't think about it. So, yeah, it's good.
-Yeah. -I'm in a different world
in here, right? It insulates me
from a lot of things. I can come in here
and not think about it. If something happens outside or
something is happening outside and it's out of my control, but I control
all the systems in here and I can kind of forget
about all that and be in here. And I have PTSD, so, like, what better medicine,
you know what I mean? They would put me
on 20 kinds of antidepressants or I can just have another tank. I feed my fish
very high-quality food. It costs me about $400 to $500
to feed my fish per month. I have to buy things
all the time, like these boxes. I spend, like, sometimes $200,
$300 in a month. A filter would be somewhere
between 20 and 60 bucks for some of these ones.
Obviously, there's 25, 30 tanks. Medication's, like, $100
a month, you know, in general. -What does your
accountant think? -Oh, he thinks I'm nuts. [ Laughs ] Hey. -Hey, buddy.
-How are you? -I'm good. How are you?
-I'm good. I actually was going
to just remind you, I'm streaming tonight at 8:00. -Oh, I'm all about it.
Don't worry. -So, my channel is growing. I put in a lot of work
towards it. This is usually where I like
to livestream from 'cause the Wi-Fi is really good
here and it's better connection. So, you know,
the stream usually doesn't drop. Good morning, everyone.
What's going on? New LocalAustin, welcome.
And BigTankHank, welcome, bro. If you guys have questions,
feel free to ask. ToyBun says, "My cichlids eat
out of my hands." Amazing.
Like, that's really good, bro. Ultimately, I want to have,
like, a million subscribers and -- and --
and teach everybody how to take care
of these animals because we really need
to take into consideration that these animals are going
to go extinct without our help. The video we're making today is we're taking some fish
to the pet store. And so I'm going to make a video
for my subscribers. What is going on, world?
Welcome back to AquaMalik. Today is going to be
a really fun video, everyone. We're going to go
to the pet store. Yes, finally, out of lockdown. I'm going to
Dragon King Aquarium and I am going to take them
some brand-new angelfish that were grown here.
So, without further ado, let's get into the store tour. ♪♪ Essentially,
this is how you compare size. It's a big fish.
Bigger than a toonie. Alright.
I just prayed to God to make sure that
we're all safe in our journey. They are definitely scared. But the good thing is it's,
like, a 30-minute drive. They'll be in their new tanks
at the pet store. And they're really good.
I make sure I don't sell my fish to, like, PetSmart
or anything like that. We're at the pet store. This is Dragon King Aquarium. They are the first person
I usually call when I have extra fish that
I don't want to sell myself, I don't have time to sell. We still have about
100 fish in the car, so we're going to take them in and get some good money
from our friend. Pandemic style. [ Laughs ] ♪♪ She's not open yet.
[ Laughs ] We got a few minutes to kill. I brought you some fish. Yeah. Good morning. How are you?
-Hi everyone. I know him
about two or four years. -Probably. Probably longer. -Yeah. Yeah.
-We're just figuring out how much
she's giving me for the fish. So, I have 22 of the larger
ones, 27 of the medium size, and 29 of the small. She said,
"I'll give you even $300." -Yeah.
-I'm okay with that. And she's okay with that.
And we're good. ♪♪ What is going on, world? It's your boy, Malik. We're back at
the Dragon King Aquarium, first time here
after the last two years of being locked down
in my own house. And I'm finally out
and doing my thing. And I got some money, so now
we're doing some pet store tour. Let's get into this store tour. This is like heaven for me,
okay? Like, literally. Rainbow cichlids. Really pretty. And the red guys. You know you have
a healthy system if your animals are trying
to reproduce in it. Really nice quality fish. Really, really, really,
really, really nice. Thank you so much, guys, for watching the video
until the end. Come check out
Dragon King Aquarium. They do have some of my
angelfish in stock right now. And I'll see you
on the next video. I love you all.
God bless you. It's not normal for a person
to be living with this amount of fish. There was a girl
that I was dating and once she saw it, she -- she broke up with me
within, like, a day. This works for me,
keeps me sane, keeps me from going out there and doing something
that I shouldn't, keeps me away from drugs.
I used to have a problem with that,
you know, in the past. This is me. I'm not really
going to change, either. You know what I mean?
Like, I'm 40 years old now. And if I'm been doing this
since I was a little child, and consistently, chances are
I'm probably going to do it for the rest of my life, so... I'm not going to compromise. Like, I want to have this
in my house when I move to a new house. Even the girl I was dating
right before the pandemic, she wanted to buy a house
with me and she said, "Okay,
we'll work on the fish room and we'll get a basement
for you, whatever." And she also wanted to have
her stuff in the basement. So, we broke up literally
because she wouldn't give me the whole basement of the house. But that's the sacrifice
I'm making. And ultimately, I want to find
somebody or meet somebody that has the same kind of goals,
you know what I mean? Hopefully that happens.
It's great. If not, I'm good. So, when I was 4 or 5 years old, I read this book called
"The Invisible Ark." It essentially
talks about the need for conservation of species,
right? Because of human activity, a lot of the biodiversity
is going to go extinct. There's no way
to save these animals without direct
human intervention. So, his entire theory
is that we have to create these arks in our houses
and we take on the animals. Without getting too emotional,
like, if we don't do it, your kids, my kids, our grandkids
are not going to see them. ♪♪ My apartment is like
a spaceship. If I needed to go to space and they can pack
all this stuff in for me, I can totally be in space
by myself with my fish. I'd be happy.
I mean, that's how I feel like when I'm in here anyway.
So, I'm good, I'm good. ♪♪ ♪♪
