November 19, 2018

Conundrum? Or opportunity?

You've just stumbled on our site- maybe for the first time; perhaps you've been lurking about for a while...and you're fascinated by this blackwater/botanical thing we keep rambling on and on about...

Time for a new tank!

This obsession we have about replicating some of the factors of our fishes wild habitats that we can- even if it's a bit different and challenging at first-is not just about a cool look. It's about demonstrating to others how different and amazing things can be when we adopt a different mindset, learn more about the world, and the needs of our fishes.

What if we adopted a mindset that said, "We're all about accommodating the organisms we want to keep. NOT the other way around, as is so common?

That could be a valuable lesson that the entire aquarium community could learn from. And it’s just “the way we do stuff” around here. The cost of admission. No other way is considered.

Stubborn, perhaps.

Now, I am the first guy in favor of captive bred fishes and propagated corals. It's super important and vital to the future of the hobby and to the natural environment. However, I also think understanding where they come from and why they come from specific environmental conditions is equally important- and interesting. The last thing I'd want to see is the sort of cliched' mindset that we apply to food: "Where do those carrots come from? The supermarket!"

Yeah.

The idea of "repatriating" fishes which come from soft, acidic blackwater habitats from our "tap water" conditions back into the water in which they have evolved, and learning how to manage the overall captive environment is by no means new or revolutionary.

Lots of fish keepers have done this for decades.

It's just that the hobby has sort of taken a collective mindset of "it's easier/quicker for US" to adapt them to the conditions we can most easily offer them. Just because they can "acclimate" to wildly different conditions than they have evolved to live under doesn't mean that they should.