Show Notes
This week I sat down with Sarah Walker from Dageti Design and MY local fish club (Music City Aquarium Society) to talk about Killifish. Why are they awesome? Why should everyone have one? She's been all over the world collecting them and won't stop talking about it, it's infectious. You should listen in!
More from Weekly Water Change
This week we're joined by Evan Johnson, founder of Ivan the Angelfish — a youth-led 501(c)(3) that installs therapeutic aquariums in senior living facilities, teaches ecology in schools, and is quietly proving what every fish keeper already knows: watching fish is genuinely good for you. The twist? Evan is a high school junior, and he's already the youngest presenter to ever take the Aquashella stage. The story starts with a five-gallon tank, one red betta, and an Anubias — a gift from an eight-year-old Evan to his grandfather Ivan, a Soviet fighter pilot who carried PTSD from five years of war in Afghanistan. That little tank by his grandfather's bedside became the seed of something extraordinary: today Ivan the Angelfish has 55 chapters in 25 countries, roughly 300 volunteers, and over 900 therapeutic ecosystems installed — impacting more than 23,000 people.
This week we're headed to Kentucky to hang out with Jonathan of Jonathan's Jungle Tanks — structural welder by day, discus and angelfish breeder by night, and father of six (plus dogs, ducks, horses, goats, and whatever else finds its way home). Jonathan's story starts in a greenhouse with an 800-gallon stock pond, a chicken swap, and an impulse koi purchase — and ends with a nearly 300-gallon planted tank full of angelfish, discus, a stingray, and 50+ angel babies. In between: a Facebook Marketplace tank deal so good he took the next day off work and drove three hours each way.
This week on Weekly Water Change, we're hanging out with Kayla from Burgess Finn and Shell — and it gets real, fast. From a 20-gallon tank her toddler filled with Lunchables (yes, really) to a U-Haul full of 40+ abandoned tanks and fish, Kayla takes us through the gloriously messy journey of going from casual fish keeper to full-on breeder. We get the full AquaShella debrief — how she and Austin packed an SUV with tanks, fish, and coolers, sold nearly everything on-site (tanks and all), and drove home with nothing but fish and a week of beach vacation ahead of them.
In this episode we chat with Lumi! She's neck deep (literally) into ponds, has a heart for all wildlife and has a floating platform on her pond. Be sure to listen in!
This week I sat down with John Tyler from Selectpet — hobbyist, breeder, former fish store owner, club founder, and the guy who once drove 14 hours one way just to bring fish back to share with his local clubs. John's been through it: a 2005 house fire that melted his 55-gallon into a puddle of glass, dumping hundreds of feeder goldfish on the carpet in front of a shop full of customers, coming back to find his entire shipment of plecos had jumped tank overnight, and leaving a fill pipe running long enough that his fish room floor became a shallow pool with albino plecos swimming through it. We get into what he learned running a full-line pet store (including why he keeps one tank on a hang-on-back filter and how sponge filters save him $100 a month), his conservation work getting endangered Limia livebearers onto the CARES list, and why the Lexington club he started in 2019 — after other clubs said it would never make it — is his crowning achievement. Plus: someone once stole a $200 snake from his store in a McDonald's coffee cup. You're gonna want to hear this one.