The hobby is easy, right?

Today. I'm sort of taking a contrary stance to what you might typically see in aquarium blogs. Okay, what else is new, right?

My position is this: The aquarium hobby, while not "difficult", is not super easy, either. And quite honest, it shouldn't be super easy. And we shouldn't be 'dumbing it down' so much.

Uh-ohh. Controversy time.

Well, before you go and label me a jackass and pelt me with "Hakkai Stones", think about it: We are creating and managing the entire environment for specialized living creatures. Unlike a dog or cat, which (at the risk of over simplifying things) just needs food and a place to sleep to survive, fishes require a place to live, the proper aquatic environment, including heat, nutrient export, food, oxygenation, and light. We also are responsible for creating a compatible community of animals, understanding the dynamics of the nitrogen cycle, quarantine, acclimation, disease identification and treatment, and a lot more.

Sure, having to master all of these that I things listed out makes it sound like we're freaking genius-level people to be successful. We don't have to be, of course (I mean, look at some of the clowns who are YouTube “influencers” and the drivel they generate...😂)- but we do have to understand and be able to execute successfully on a number of fronts in order not to kill our fishes immediately, don't we?

Now, a little bit of props to the fishes themselves! I mean, they're subjected to a lot of shit before they get to us, right? Wild fishes, especially, undergo a real trial just to get to us: Collection, sorting by the fishers, a few days at a exporter's facility, a flight from their home country, a stint at a wholesaler, then on to the LFS, and finally to you. All the while, adapting to varying conditions, crowding, and little, if any food. When you think about it, it's hard to believe that they survive at all!

 

Back to our gig.

As hobbyists, we're morally obligated to have at least a rudimentary understanding of the requirements which our fishes need to survive and thrive. And, unfortunately, in today's "Insta-fast"  "Everyone can go from zero to hero in three days" social-media-driven hobby, many hobbyists simply don't have that. In fact, if you asked 10 hobbyists some of the most basic aquarium-related questions, such as how the nitrogen cycle works, or what pH means, I'll wager that you'd likely get 3-4 hobbyists who couldn't articulate anything about these topics.

However, if you ask them about the best aquascaping rock, trendy approach, or stupidly-named wood type, I'll bet they'll be able to tell you everything you'd care to know.

That's indicative of a problem. When we accept this level of mediocrity, we're making ignorance of the art and science of aquarium keeping cool.

That's crazy.

We're better than this.

We as hobbyists need to educate ourselves before we leap. Now, at this point, there are likely a few readers/listeners who will be like, "Damn, Captain Buzzkill, you're making it like you have to be a freaking marine biologist to be able to keep tropical fish! WTF?"

My response?

No, I'm not. And pointing out reality doesn't make me a complete asshole. Well, sort of an asshole- but not a complete one! 😆

Seriously, though, there is something really wrong when we have hobbyists trying all sorts of crazy expensive and exotic hobby ideas and equipment, when their fundamental understanding of the aquarium hobby is essentially inadequate.

Like, we've created a generation of hobbyists who want to run before they can walk. They're always looking for "hacks" and shortcuts for "making things easier." And when they fail- they have no way to understand why. And they often quit the hobby as a result. I've seen this dozens of times during my hobby "career." And we- the industry, creators, and communicators of the aquariums hobby- are responsible for this.

Now look, I'm all for making things easier, but NOT for dumbing down stuff. It shouldn't be like having to take board examinations in order to keep a fish tank, and setting up and caring for a tank shouldn't always be onerous- but you should at least try to have a working knowledge of a bunch of fundamental topics before you plunk down your cash and put fishes' lives on the line, right? And you should want to. And we as hobbyists should be interested in learning and acquiring the basic skills necessary to assure a good start in the hobby. We don't need to make this a task; we just need to do a little basic research first. 

This is where the local fish store can excel.

The "mentoring" you can receive from a quality fish store is one of the best first exposures you can have to the art and science of aquairum keeping. As long as they don't take a purely sales-oriented approach to things (and most don't, despite the popular, persistent hobby mythology of the buffoonish, ignorant, and predatory LFS personnel that have been the stuff of online lore for decades now). Most LFS staff are uber hobbyists, obsessed with aquariums and fishes, and have a vested interest in seeing their customers succeed.

For those who need to get their "education" online, there are a lot of good resources. I don't need to rehash that. However, despite its popularity and search ability, YouTube isn't always the best source. There ARE a lot of great channels out there, but there is also a disproportionately high number of outright garbage, too. Channels in which the "creator" seems to have absolutely no clue about the topic he/she is authoritatively spewing. In our own sector alone, I've seen this several times. It's vomit inducing. 

And a lot of the stuff out there- even "sponsored content"- is about drivel...doing a certain scape with this cool rock, or how to arrange wood so that your tank looks like everyone else's', or something equally as vapid. There is proportionately little produced about fundamental hobby stuff.

We can't run from some of the science stuff...I mean, we are ALL at the mercy of the nitrogen cycle, for example, and we need to have at least a basic understanding of how it works and what the implications are for our aquarium work. It's actually really important!

When I co-owned a coral propagation/import business, a scarily high percentage of the questions from customers were frighteningly basic- like stuff you should know before you ever even buy any aquarium, let alone set up a reef tank.

Fundamentals.

Back in those days, I literally received calls from hobbyists who didn't have the most rudimentary understanding of the needs of corals, let alone, the nitrogen cycle- yet they spent tens of thousands of dollars outfitting their reef tank with the latest gear, and buying the latest "designer frags."

it was head-scratching, to say the least. It was downright discouraging on some days.

It's not just limited to the reef world, of course. It’s all over the hobby. 

And, it's our fault as an industry, too.

We seem to sell prepackaged "solutions" for everything. Another piece of gear, another additive..."That'll solve your problems!" We seem to be happier just selling people a product that we hope will solve their problems. Laughably, I've seen soem vendors/manufacturers trot out the pathetic line about their product making things easier so you could "enjoy the hobby more!" Like, WTF? Isn't feeding your fishes, doing water exchanges, and just managing the tank part of what makes it enjoyable, too? Or is the only enjoyable part of the hobby humble-bragging on The 'Gram about our latest aquascape?

How about we educate people on the basics and beyond? The good, the bad, and the shitty? That will make the use of your product a lot more logical. Yet, I know- it takes time. It's more difficult to educate people on the underlying problem...the reason why people would need your product in the first place. It's much easier to just tell them what to buy and that's that. It sells stuff faster. But it doesn't build a long-term hobbyist. That's why we at Tannin have article after article on the most basic, and even arcane aspects of playing with blackwater/botanical-style aquariums on our site.

Because I believe that hobbyists have to be armed with the most fundamental knowledge of our craft in order to succeed. I'm not going to just show pretty pics of cool 'scapes and sell seed pods and leaves that way. That's how I'm going to do my part to address the hobby dropout thing. My friends James of Blackwater UK and Ben of Betta Botanicals, two vendors as geeked out as I am about this stuff, are on the same page as me. We're determined to show hobbyists that the process- the whole thing- is as much fun as just looking at the number of likes your tank pics get on your fave social media channel.

It's a wider hobby "cultural problem", too. We're lazy. A lot of us want instant gratification and simply don't want to take the time to dig through information- even if it's out there in abundance. They want it easier. Faster. More concise.

And yes-I know. Everyone is "busy", etc. Yet, why have a hobby in the first place if you don't want to spend time playing with it and educating yourself about it? People can't be lazy. They have to learn the underlying, fundamental stuff. They need to read, watch, discuss, observe. A personal example again? I get numerous emails asking me how to prepare botanicals- even after we spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on producing a customized infographic card that goes in every order, and years writing dozens of articles on this very topic.

Some people seem so unwilling to do the most basic research! What a shame.  I mean, Google is one of the greatest inventions in the history of humanity, making information about virtually any topic imaginable available anywhere, any time, to anyone. Easily.

Yet, many figure the "hack" is just to ask someone and expect them to give concise answers on how to do everything, instead of taking the extra time to educate themselves a bit before just mailing it in and prodding someone else for the answer. Yeah, we've somehow decided that a DM to someone for a “quick answer” is a better way to acquire knowledge than typing in the keywords, like "what is the nitrogen cycle?" and learning it once and for all. 

Obviously, as an industry guy and writer- I'm always going to help those with questions when I can...But I also need to encourage self-research, too. I still need to do better at disseminating information. We all do.

There's blame enough to go around. And to newbies and others in the hobby-my plea to you:

Don't be freaking lazy. The resources are there.

We just have to keep directing people towards them. And people need to use them. And we have to emphasize the fundamentals of the hobby. Not just the cool creative stuff. Sure, not everyone is great at conveying technical concepts to people in an easy-to-understand manner. However, we can try, Because, when no one is doing that, we end up with 14,000 channels on how to "scape a blackwater aquairum" and not a single one explaining what the hell blackwater is, and how to manage the ecology of a blackwater system.

That's a problem, IMHO.

Everyone wants to do the "fun" stuff, hype their sponsors' products, and get all of that recognition. Yet, without discussing the less sexy fundamentals, the "fun stuff" just becomes a waste of precious animal lives and lots of money. People get frustrated and quit the hobby. When I see the words "paid partnership" under an Instagram post lately, I almost reflexively (and often correctly, I'm afraid) assume that it's usually drivel. Because most of the creators- and the brands who sponsor them- have accepted a level of superficiality as the norm. And that's really sad. These people are too talented to waste their followers' precious attention- and their sponsor's money- by producing such mindless fluff.

The "creative" and "trendy" is valued over the substance, even by brands. And the irony is that doing a little more substance in a creative manner is what will sell more product and build a stronger brand in the long run. Yet, it's easier to just pay some "creator" do a fun little video with a bit of hip-hop music, the appropriate sponsor hashtags, and consider it a job well done.

I call bullshit on that.

Brands need to stop paying these "creators" for this garbage.

You can still be creative and edgy and cool while conveying complex or arcane topics... Hell, we do it all the time here (so modest, right?).

Yes, even in the social media "Insta-hype" world we're in, there is room for improvement. I've hit this hard before...we all show too much "finished product" with killer aquascapes and such, and not enough of the less sexy, although way more important process...

There is an easy fix for that one. Just share the process. 

Discuss the fundamentals of what you do.

When hobbyists realize it's not just "1-2-3 AWESOME!"- and that there is a little work, and occasional setbacks and struggle involved, expectations are set which assure people go in with their eyes wide open...and stay in. Expectation management via education. And there is a certain responsibility that we as hobbyists take on when keeping live fishes; this needs to be emphasized.  And guess what, fellow aquarium brands? They'll still buy your product. In fact, they'll probably be more likely to, because they will have a fundamental understanding for why they need it.

No. The aquarium hobby isn't that easy.

But it's not ridiculously hard, either. 

We have a responsibility as hobbyists to keep these precious creatures alive and happy. And we as hobby and industry people have an obligation to tell it like it is. To touch on fundamentals. To explain things. To convey that, while not overly complex, some the underlying information that you need to know to be successful in the hobby is vital. Even if it requires a bit of reading and discussion in order to grasp it. And that it's every bit as interesting as selecting the right stones for your next fantasy 'scape.

In our world, there is a reason why we talk so much about ecology and arcane things, like the idea of allochthonous input into wild aquatic habitats. There is a reason why we devote hundreds of thousands of words to subjects like fungi, biofilms, and detritus. It's because an understanding of these topics is foundational to the work we do as botanical-style aquarium enthusiasts. When you understand these things, you're better equipped to understand what's happening in your aquairums. 

It would have been much easier for me if I spent the last 6 years writing articles and doing podcasts on how to get the sexy look of a botanical-style aquarium. Yet, it would have left us simply another hollow, vapid purveyor of leaves and seed pods, passing the buck to someone else to cover these ideas, develop the operating fundamentals and philosophies which are applicable to the botanical-style aquarium methodology.

Not on my watch.

I'm going to continue discussing some of these seemingly arcane topics. Why? Well, for several reasons. First, because someone has to do it. Might as well be me; I play with this stuff every day of my life. Second, because it's so important to convey these fundamentals. It builds a movement and reinforces the methodology we all embrace. Third, because I feel that I have a responsibility to the hobby, and to the fishes we love. And finally, because it's hard. It's not easy to distill these complex ideas into digestible information. And that very fact makes it a worthwhile endeavour.

We all need to learn, understand, and share these types of topics.

Success in the aquarium hobby isn't that difficult- after you have a grasp of the fundamentals; an understanding of why we do what we do. However, the hobby isn't "easy" in the sense that you just toss your fishes into the water and call it a day. It takes some work. It should take some work. Because taking care of live animals, some of which are threatened in the wild, is a huge responsibility which should not be taken lightly.

So, maybe the tone of this piece is a little bit dark to some. It shouldn't be interpreted that way. Rather, it's a brutally honest call for us to make a better effort to understand and appreciate just how amazing what we as aquarists do every dingle day, and what responsibility goes along with these achievements. It's a call to wake up- look ourselves in the mirror as hobbyists, content creators,  and industry types- and do better.

We can. There is enormous talent out there- and there has never been a time in history when its easier to disseminate useful information to a larger number of interested persons. 

We just have to DO it. To not shirk this responsibility- and this gift.

It's not as hard as you think, and the benefits of the effort are remarkable.

Stay honest. Stay reflective. Stay creative. Stay observant. Stay inspired...

And Stay Wet.

 

Scott Fellman

Tannin Aquatics 

 

 

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