G’day legends — in this one I finally do what we all secretly love most in the hobby: I head to the fish store and buy a heap of fish to make my tanks look less empty. I roll into Nature Aquariums in Blackburn, have a quick stickybeak at the display tanks, and show you some of the wild stock they’ve got (plants, hardscape, and some proper monster fish). But the main mission is filling up my setups with new life — and grabbing a crazy rare little fish I’ve wanted for ages. The star of the video is the blue neon goby (a Stiphodon goby) — tiny, absolutely stunning, and way more interactive than I expected. I also pick up Burmese rummy-nose tetras, green neon tetras, crystal red shrimp, and ghost shrimp, then take you through acclimation and adding everything into the right tanks. Five days later, I give you an update on how they’re settling in, what’s thriving, and what’s being a pain (startup algae in the new aquascape). Then I go and make it worse by buying even more at my first Aquarium Society Victoria meeting — rice fish, emerald rasboras, plus moss and micro java fern. Big haul, lots of new movement in the tanks, and a nice reminder: take acclimation seriously, be patient with new fish, and don’t panic when a fresh scape gets a bit ugly before it gets brilliant.