September 10, 2016

"How the cookie crumbles..."

I swear I write about my love of water changes at least every few months. I woke up and changed water in my home aquarium today...felt great.

I love them because there is something incredible, psychologically, when you know you're doing something that absolutely has a benefit for your fishes. It puts you in touch with you animals, provides a visceral, real experience that really lets you look, feel, smell, and experience exactly what's going on in your aquarium. A key "ingredient" for success, IMHO.

And of course, they give me an opportunity to reflect on stuff...

The other day, home feeling crappy with a little cold, I felt like doing something-anything- besides watching movies, perusing fish sites, or just sitting and thinking about how lousy I felt, and I had this craving to make something...in this case, oatmeal raison cookies.

Seriously. A sick guy baking. Weird. (Yes, I actually wore a mask and gloves because I didn't want to get my wife sick, if you really must know, lol.)

Why am I mentioning this? Well, as I was perusing the recipe and assembling the ingredients, my mind sort of drifted into how much this reminded me of the process of creating and maintaining an aquarium....You have a certain number of "ingredients", and proper procedures for using each; and of course, there are reasons why you need to use each. And the outcome is based upon the proper utilization and application of each ingredient and procedure die; mixing, beating, baking, etc.).

Not at all unlike what we do with an aquarium, really.

And when you think of it, like in a recipe, if we leave out one element of the system, one "ingredient"- we can end up a complete failure. A lot of interdependencies. Especially in our botanical systems, with more "moving parts" than many more "traditional" approaches. Failure to properly prepare, or not taking into account the impact of an influx of botanicals on an established system can cause problems.

Of course, so can failure to follow common sense husbandry or any number of practices on a "traditional" system...Regardless of type, we need continue to remind ourselves that an aquarium is a living, breathing, closed biological microcosm that has many interdependencies and requires management on multiple fronts.