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Plenipotentiary-at-large
The Not So Few, the Proud, the Maligned
by Gunga Din (a.k.a. Dr. Cory D. Oras)
"An aquarium is natural selection inside a box, but all the actual evolution occurs outside the glass". Freshwater Paradigms, Chapter 1, Volume 2, Encyclopedia Aquatica
Compelling as insects or microbes may be to some folk, aquatic habitats are the most complex systems wherein species can actually be kept in something approximating a natural habitat. And while most pet owners' duties are restricted to feeding and cleaning up after their charges, aquarium keeping is a complex and sometimes challenging multi-disciplinary activity that invariably enlightens its practitioners in ways not generally associated with sifting litter boxes.
Does that mean owning fish is rigorous or not for the faint of heart? Certainly no more so than following a 5 to 120-pound carnivore through public twice a day while clutching a plastic bag, exalted and ennobling as that may be. But putting aside the virtues and bliss of hair balls, keeping frozen mice in your refrigerator or having to live with yourself after neutering your alleged best friend (and wondering if hes just waiting for the day when he can get even), let's consider what keeping fish typically means for otherwise normal people.
Invariably, anyone who keeps fish for very long soon finds themselves possessed of a practical knowledge of chemistry, engineering, fluid hydraulics, spectral analysis, gardening, medical diagnosis and treatment, animal behaviorism and reproductive health. Although to look at your fellow fishkeepers you might not know it, many of them indulge in genetics in their spare time and ponder the finer aspects for what is essentially bio-engineering.
Not many dogs and cats that will prompt you to learn or attempt all that, whatever endearing habits they might possess, though I have to say that in all my years my fish have yet to wake me up in the middle of the night, trash the furniture or experience a momentary ballistic fit expressed as a primal psychological flashback to their lupine or tigrine ancestry. And Jack Dempsey or jaguar cichlid, youll never turn to discover that one of your aquatic charges has decided to spasmodically assert its dominance upon the leg of one of your dinner guests or a prospective sweetheart.
At the height of my former aquatic glory I had four 55 gallon tanks all running on big fluorescents and undergravel filters that were home to about 30 species of Corydoras and a collection of 'filler' fish to occupy the upper reaches of the tank. At the time, reverse flow power heads with foam pre-filters represented fairly cutting edge technology for low-budget types. Despite considerable over-crowding, frequent water changes and blackworms made spawnings fairly common, and the high point for me was managing to hatch out C. barbatus fry back when everyone still thought they were difficult to breed.
Shortly thereafter I had to move, so I dismantled the tanks, gave away the fish and most of the hardware and didn't keep an aquarium for over ten years (though I did manage a ferocious amount of gardening). Fast forward to 2008 and a new job in DC and an apartment without a garden. No problem, at least not with the prospect of indoor underwater gardens. I went to Craig's List and naturally bought a 55 set-up. A week later I was in a pet store, which was unremarkable except that the changes that had taken place in a decade were sort of amazing.
To start with there were fish that for all intents and purposes hadn't existed before. Blue angelfish for instance, and gold rams, blue rams and a number of other hybrids, some of which probably wouldn't last a day in the wild. And then there were species that while possibly previously discovered weren't generally available before, including more Apistogrammas than I knew even existed, rare Corydoras, and enough availability of 'new' species to make it seem like there must be a freshwater pipeline running from the Amazon up to the East Coast.
Acrylic tanks had become common, a myriad of different high-tech lighting systems were available, as were a remarkable number of filter variations (including a plethora of hang-on types, most which seem principally designed to cultivate addictions to disposable cartridges), many integrating heaters, protein skimmers and UV sterilizers into the mix. There were twenty types of frozen food (rather than just brine shrimp), medications for maladies previously unknown to science (always a worse option than maintenance), and a host of companies (almost all supplied by manufacturers in China) that simply had not existed ten years ago.
But for all the changes, the hobby is still largely the same, and the fact remains that the critical ingredients to success arent available in a box. Good filter maintenance, water changes and a varied diet are still the hallmarks of an aquarist's success, and spawnings still the benchmark and validation that separates the dilettantes from the devoted. For all the pricey high-tech options, it's still about taking an empty vessel and transforming it into a discrete but dynamic equilibrium tailored to your very own artistry and caprice. It's about creating, and for those with the wit and a modest amount of discipline, it's about life. Still beats the pants off television.
In 36 months I've gone from no tanks to over 40 totaling just short of 900 gallons. Virtually all of them, their denizens and the attendant hardware were acquired through Craigslist, Aquabid, Ebay or from fellow club members/hobbyists. (The single greatest innovation within the hobby has to be the evolution and ease of doing online research and shopping.) Over half the tanks are 10s or 20s for growing out juvenile dwarf cichlids and catfish, but there's a 75, a couple 55s, two 40 breeders and two 29s all functioning as community tanks. The lovely, refined and brilliant light of my joy characterizes this assemblage, "Aquariums as decor", which I suspect is at least partially informed by her propensity for becoming extremely enamored of spawning pairs of rams and angelfish. I suppose in some respects this is also a tribute to aquascaping all the tanks with plants and stones (even the lone 5 gallon one for the Black Paradise in the kitchen), but talk about a 'license to fly'. But then that license and the accompanying freedom of expression poses its own dilemma.
For a year I had a 6-ft. 100 that remain unfilled on account of not quite being able to reconcile it's looming presence in the bedroom of my otherwise fairly spacious three-room apartment. Had everything I needed for it, except the ability to overcome the sense I'd entered 'too much of a good thing' territory. But even that was alright, in the sense that good things take time and the longer it remained empty the more my imagination worked to appoint its interior in a way that would do more than justify it's presence by making it a marvel of semi-natural splendor. Daydreams about only filling it part way and doing a terrarium thing, making it my first tank of US species, even wondering if I might get lucky and find that the Smithsonian was having a clearance sale on the overstock in their mineral collection. And then there were snakes and other species options to consider as well, nearly all of which had the benefit of not requiring an additional 1000 pounds of dead weight being added to the load on the floor joists of my third floor 100 year-old apartment.
My deliberations about what to do werent all lyric. At one point I even considered going in a different direction altogether and that perhaps what I really needed was a dog. (A very small one of course - wouldn't want to be cruel. Is there such a thing as miniature Labrador? They're semi-aquatic aren't they?) Ultimately I sort of did both. I overcame my reservations and filled the tank so that I could provide better accommodations for a pair of Geophagus altifrons (and friends) whom I had come to affectionately regard as my big dogs being as each of them masses about five times more than the next largest fish I own.
It's still early here in the second stage of my underwater obsession, though far enough along for me to characterize my abode to the few who visit as "the life aquatic". Many of the young fish I've acquired have reached spawning age, the china cabinet in the kitchen hides a 60 gallon rain barrel filled with water processed from my similarly hidden and recently acquired RO/DI unit, and the prosperous and prolific springtime I hoped for has resulted in a slight sense of trepidation as a result of seeming to invariably find fry in tanks if I look too closely. That sort of triggers a sense of vicarious parental obligation and a corresponding degree of additional activity on my part, but hey isn't science wonderful?
I trust that my fellow budding and veteran aquarists will find satisfaction and relative glory this year in their own endeavors. Anyone can own a pet, but not everyone is cut out to be a limnologist. For make no mistake: as soon as you fill a tank up with water, you enter into the science of freshwater biology with all its beauty, complexity and limitless possibility. And for the clever and/or lucky, fecundity, because like everything else in nature, it really is all about sex. Simply speaking, there's just nowhere else you can get all that in such a small space that doesn't require a microscope to observe. Now how cool is that?
Aquariums arent only or just about taking care of fish theyre also about nurturing and cultivating the creative and compassionate aspects of our selves, and thats never a bad thing, even if it takes some of us fifty tanks to do it justice. So go for it. If your tanks are nice on the inside you probably will be as well. And while the oft-cited and storied exceptions to every rule may well account for my own lack of social tact and equanimity, just imagine where/who Id be without fish in my life.
We could all of us do worse than to embrace the salmon as a symbol and model for our own lives they may just be fish, but exemplifying a spawn til you die attitude seems imminently satisfying and appropriate, more so given the uncertainty and brevity of life. And for that I say, Spawn away ye fellow fishkeepers, spawn away.
by Gunga Din (a.k.a. Dr. Cory D. Oras)
"An aquarium is natural selection inside a box, but all the actual evolution occurs outside the glass". Freshwater Paradigms, Chapter 1, Volume 2, Encyclopedia Aquatica
Compelling as insects or microbes may be to some folk, aquatic habitats are the most complex systems wherein species can actually be kept in something approximating a natural habitat. And while most pet owners' duties are restricted to feeding and cleaning up after their charges, aquarium keeping is a complex and sometimes challenging multi-disciplinary activity that invariably enlightens its practitioners in ways not generally associated with sifting litter boxes.
Does that mean owning fish is rigorous or not for the faint of heart? Certainly no more so than following a 5 to 120-pound carnivore through public twice a day while clutching a plastic bag, exalted and ennobling as that may be. But putting aside the virtues and bliss of hair balls, keeping frozen mice in your refrigerator or having to live with yourself after neutering your alleged best friend (and wondering if hes just waiting for the day when he can get even), let's consider what keeping fish typically means for otherwise normal people.
Invariably, anyone who keeps fish for very long soon finds themselves possessed of a practical knowledge of chemistry, engineering, fluid hydraulics, spectral analysis, gardening, medical diagnosis and treatment, animal behaviorism and reproductive health. Although to look at your fellow fishkeepers you might not know it, many of them indulge in genetics in their spare time and ponder the finer aspects for what is essentially bio-engineering.
Not many dogs and cats that will prompt you to learn or attempt all that, whatever endearing habits they might possess, though I have to say that in all my years my fish have yet to wake me up in the middle of the night, trash the furniture or experience a momentary ballistic fit expressed as a primal psychological flashback to their lupine or tigrine ancestry. And Jack Dempsey or jaguar cichlid, youll never turn to discover that one of your aquatic charges has decided to spasmodically assert its dominance upon the leg of one of your dinner guests or a prospective sweetheart.
At the height of my former aquatic glory I had four 55 gallon tanks all running on big fluorescents and undergravel filters that were home to about 30 species of Corydoras and a collection of 'filler' fish to occupy the upper reaches of the tank. At the time, reverse flow power heads with foam pre-filters represented fairly cutting edge technology for low-budget types. Despite considerable over-crowding, frequent water changes and blackworms made spawnings fairly common, and the high point for me was managing to hatch out C. barbatus fry back when everyone still thought they were difficult to breed.
Shortly thereafter I had to move, so I dismantled the tanks, gave away the fish and most of the hardware and didn't keep an aquarium for over ten years (though I did manage a ferocious amount of gardening). Fast forward to 2008 and a new job in DC and an apartment without a garden. No problem, at least not with the prospect of indoor underwater gardens. I went to Craig's List and naturally bought a 55 set-up. A week later I was in a pet store, which was unremarkable except that the changes that had taken place in a decade were sort of amazing.
To start with there were fish that for all intents and purposes hadn't existed before. Blue angelfish for instance, and gold rams, blue rams and a number of other hybrids, some of which probably wouldn't last a day in the wild. And then there were species that while possibly previously discovered weren't generally available before, including more Apistogrammas than I knew even existed, rare Corydoras, and enough availability of 'new' species to make it seem like there must be a freshwater pipeline running from the Amazon up to the East Coast.
Acrylic tanks had become common, a myriad of different high-tech lighting systems were available, as were a remarkable number of filter variations (including a plethora of hang-on types, most which seem principally designed to cultivate addictions to disposable cartridges), many integrating heaters, protein skimmers and UV sterilizers into the mix. There were twenty types of frozen food (rather than just brine shrimp), medications for maladies previously unknown to science (always a worse option than maintenance), and a host of companies (almost all supplied by manufacturers in China) that simply had not existed ten years ago.
But for all the changes, the hobby is still largely the same, and the fact remains that the critical ingredients to success arent available in a box. Good filter maintenance, water changes and a varied diet are still the hallmarks of an aquarist's success, and spawnings still the benchmark and validation that separates the dilettantes from the devoted. For all the pricey high-tech options, it's still about taking an empty vessel and transforming it into a discrete but dynamic equilibrium tailored to your very own artistry and caprice. It's about creating, and for those with the wit and a modest amount of discipline, it's about life. Still beats the pants off television.
In 36 months I've gone from no tanks to over 40 totaling just short of 900 gallons. Virtually all of them, their denizens and the attendant hardware were acquired through Craigslist, Aquabid, Ebay or from fellow club members/hobbyists. (The single greatest innovation within the hobby has to be the evolution and ease of doing online research and shopping.) Over half the tanks are 10s or 20s for growing out juvenile dwarf cichlids and catfish, but there's a 75, a couple 55s, two 40 breeders and two 29s all functioning as community tanks. The lovely, refined and brilliant light of my joy characterizes this assemblage, "Aquariums as decor", which I suspect is at least partially informed by her propensity for becoming extremely enamored of spawning pairs of rams and angelfish. I suppose in some respects this is also a tribute to aquascaping all the tanks with plants and stones (even the lone 5 gallon one for the Black Paradise in the kitchen), but talk about a 'license to fly'. But then that license and the accompanying freedom of expression poses its own dilemma.
For a year I had a 6-ft. 100 that remain unfilled on account of not quite being able to reconcile it's looming presence in the bedroom of my otherwise fairly spacious three-room apartment. Had everything I needed for it, except the ability to overcome the sense I'd entered 'too much of a good thing' territory. But even that was alright, in the sense that good things take time and the longer it remained empty the more my imagination worked to appoint its interior in a way that would do more than justify it's presence by making it a marvel of semi-natural splendor. Daydreams about only filling it part way and doing a terrarium thing, making it my first tank of US species, even wondering if I might get lucky and find that the Smithsonian was having a clearance sale on the overstock in their mineral collection. And then there were snakes and other species options to consider as well, nearly all of which had the benefit of not requiring an additional 1000 pounds of dead weight being added to the load on the floor joists of my third floor 100 year-old apartment.
My deliberations about what to do werent all lyric. At one point I even considered going in a different direction altogether and that perhaps what I really needed was a dog. (A very small one of course - wouldn't want to be cruel. Is there such a thing as miniature Labrador? They're semi-aquatic aren't they?) Ultimately I sort of did both. I overcame my reservations and filled the tank so that I could provide better accommodations for a pair of Geophagus altifrons (and friends) whom I had come to affectionately regard as my big dogs being as each of them masses about five times more than the next largest fish I own.
It's still early here in the second stage of my underwater obsession, though far enough along for me to characterize my abode to the few who visit as "the life aquatic". Many of the young fish I've acquired have reached spawning age, the china cabinet in the kitchen hides a 60 gallon rain barrel filled with water processed from my similarly hidden and recently acquired RO/DI unit, and the prosperous and prolific springtime I hoped for has resulted in a slight sense of trepidation as a result of seeming to invariably find fry in tanks if I look too closely. That sort of triggers a sense of vicarious parental obligation and a corresponding degree of additional activity on my part, but hey isn't science wonderful?
I trust that my fellow budding and veteran aquarists will find satisfaction and relative glory this year in their own endeavors. Anyone can own a pet, but not everyone is cut out to be a limnologist. For make no mistake: as soon as you fill a tank up with water, you enter into the science of freshwater biology with all its beauty, complexity and limitless possibility. And for the clever and/or lucky, fecundity, because like everything else in nature, it really is all about sex. Simply speaking, there's just nowhere else you can get all that in such a small space that doesn't require a microscope to observe. Now how cool is that?
Aquariums arent only or just about taking care of fish theyre also about nurturing and cultivating the creative and compassionate aspects of our selves, and thats never a bad thing, even if it takes some of us fifty tanks to do it justice. So go for it. If your tanks are nice on the inside you probably will be as well. And while the oft-cited and storied exceptions to every rule may well account for my own lack of social tact and equanimity, just imagine where/who Id be without fish in my life.
We could all of us do worse than to embrace the salmon as a symbol and model for our own lives they may just be fish, but exemplifying a spawn til you die attitude seems imminently satisfying and appropriate, more so given the uncertainty and brevity of life. And for that I say, Spawn away ye fellow fishkeepers, spawn away.
