The Tint

There are amazing life lessons that we can learn just from playing with this hobby.

Have you ever made one of those stupid mistakes in fishkeeping? You know, a really stupid one…A mistake that you should “know better” than to have made at this stage in your “aquarium career?”

You know, something basic- like not quarantining a new fish and getting your whole tank sick. Or using some sort of additive (like algicide or something) that you just knew would have some kind of long-term (potentially detrimental) effect on your tank? You know- a shortcut. A “hack.” An ill-advised move. A lapse in judgement, protocol, or procedure.

One of those things that, perhaps in a moment of indecisiveness, frustration- or even mild panic, that you “pulled the trigger” on and just did?

I’ll digress a bit here…

I have a friend who brags constantly about his flagrant “violation” of the fundamental principles of aquarium practice. He proudly shirks every guideline that’s been offered up over the years. Happily disregards all of the common “best practices” of the aquarium hobby. Shrugs off guidelines, recommendations, and processes in favor of his own ways.

And he gets away with it. Most of the time, anyways.

Or so it seems…

I mean, I suppose we all have gotten away with stuff that we shouldn’t have…maybe once or twice?

I suppose that it’s human nature to get a bit “complacent”, relaxed, or just over-confident. Call it whatever you want.

I know I’ve made that bad judgement call before: “Oh, that fish looks fine, and there were no sick fish in the tank at the store- I’ll chance it and just add him.” Or, “I don’t know why they say that fish is supposed to be so aggressive. He hasn’t even chased anyone…yet.”  

You think you’re getting away with something that no one else has…

Everything is just fine. What’s the big deal?

Yeah, you’ve gotten away with it!

Or, have you?

I mean, as “advanced” aquarists, I wonder if we sometimes think that we’ve “paid our dues” to the “aquarium gods”, and that, even in moments of irrational decision making, we’ll get away with it because we’re, well- “advanced?”

I think so. In some instances, anyways.

I know that I’ve made really lazy, impulsive decisions before, even when I knew that I shouldn’t have. Like taking on some fish I won at the club auction when I really didn’t have the space. Or using straight-up aged Los Angeles tap water to fill a new aquarium in a hurry when I should have just waited the extra few days until the replacement RO/DI cartridges arrived. Maybe I should have rinsed that sand first…

Sometimes, I’d get away with it.

Other times, I wouldn’t be so lucky, and fate would bite me on the ass and teach me a lesson!

The “lesson” isn’t really even not to attempt the specific action that you did to cause the problem. It’s not the feeding of the contaminated food, to add that one more fish that might not be compatible with everyone else, or the failure to remove the eggs from that batch of Discus with a reputation for eating them, or whatever…

The “lesson” is understanding why you made the decision to proceed when that little voice inside your head tells you- well- SCREAMS at you- to “stop, drop, and cover!”

It’s trying to figure out why you were not falling back on the hard-won experience that you’ve accumulated during years of fish keeping. 

Even as a beginner, you can “trust” what “they” say online, in books, at clubs etc., and do things the (often) slower, more tedious way- or you can tempt fate and take the shortcut. 

 And, of course, the problem with taking the shortcut is that you might be one of those people for whom it works. For a while.

And you’ll convince yourself and others that “they” are full of shit. 

Everyone is making too big a deal out of it– because you’ve done it this way for years without any of the nasty results that “they” warned you about. You’re like, “immune” or something from the fate that befalls most everyone else who flaunts the rules…

And, before you know it…this becomes “normal” to you. The bad habits become a routine part of your repertoire.

Yikes.

It’s been said that the “fail safe” of human endeavour is failure, so why play into that? Why go against the grain on everything? I mean, trying something different than everyone else is doing is cool. However, when I am talking about this idea, we’re talking about stuff like breaking the “rules” of aquascaping, attempting to take a different type of botanical method approach, etc. 

We’re NOT talking about immediately adding 100 Cardinal Tetras to a brand spanking new 40 gallon tank- shit like that.

That’s trying to break the laws of Nature…Assuming that stuff as mundane as the nitrogen cycle doesn’t apply to YOU.

That’s just stupid.

Think about the so-called “fundamentals” for a moment, and why they exist in the hobby.

“Fundamental guidelines based on natural processes” are what they are because, well- they’re fundamentals!

Nature runs based on them. 

And, She’s done it pretty damn well for billions of years, too…

We can’t just “edit” and pick and choose what basic laws of nature we want to adhere to. Oh, we can, but the payback—which will come inevitably, eventually—is a bitch! Why gamble with the lives of helpless animals for our own arrogant means?

One that I would hear all the time in the reefkeeping world is, “I haven’t done a water change on my tank in over a year, and my fishes are just fine.”

Okay, good for you. Why are you doing that? What benefit does this provide your fishes?

Are you doing it to prove a point or whatever? What’s the “end game” you expect to achieve by doing that?

It makes no sense to me.

If you’re attempting something like that simply to “buck the system”, that’s messed up, man. However, if you’re taking a contrarian approach because you feel that there is some validity to it, and a benefit to be gained from it…well, that’s a little different, isn’t it?

Just don’t do things out of laziness, arrogance, or contempt for Nature’s rules and lessons.

We can change.

And my friend? The guy who constantly takes pride in how he defies the “laws” of aquarium keeping?

Well, his beautiful and long-established 300-gallon African Cichlid tank, the pride of his fish collection- is now a breeding ground for at least 3 different fatal diseases, all of which would have been prevented if he would have quarantined.

Did he finally learn his (expensive and painful) lesson and mend his ways?

He said no, he’ll keep doing things his way.  He felt that this was just a fluke. An aberration. An unusual occurrence.

Of course, the battery of 11 gallon quarantine tanks in his garage fish room tells a different story!

So, perhaps you can teach an old fish new tricks?

He’s just too fucking proud to admit it, that’s all. 

He learned!

“Getting away with it” has its price. And it’s usually quite high.

Now, as I’ve already mentioned, there IS a difference between flaunting Nature’s rules and simply taking a risk. A significant difference.

Almost everything we do in the hobby involves some sort of risk, doesn’t it? And many of the most important hobby advancements required us as hobbyists to assume some risk; to take a chance. Based on reasonable premises. And, if you’re objective, I’ll bet that you can look back on your hobby “career” and find a bunch of examples where you took a chance and achieved results better than you expected.

I know that I did…Not all of them are earth-shattering, long-term-impactful hobby breakthroughs, yet each represented a personal triumph achieved as a result of assuming some risk and taking a chance.

When I took a chance and incubated a spawn of “top-spawning” Epiplatys killies in peat instead, I netted 130 viable fry.

When I took a chance and attempted to keep a leaf-litter only aquarium and eliminate all external food inputs to see if my hypothesis the fishes could be supported by natural food sources generated within the aquarium- it worked far beyond my expectations.

When I took a chance and acclimated a bunch of “common” captive-bred Tetras to a very low pH, blackwater habitat, they responded by spawning about a week and half  later.

When I took a chance and shut off my protein skimmer in my reef tank for a week, and fed the tank nightly, all of my stony corals that were pallid and colorless began coloring up and extending polyps throughout the day.

When I took a chance and created my vision of a tinted, leaf-litter-filled, muddy, “functionally aesthetic” brackish aquarium, it thrived beyond any brackish system I’d ever had.

Risk.

Chance.

Opportunities to improve. 

Few of the above examples are “earth-shattering” hobby accomplishments. Rather, they’re examples of my personal hobby growth that can only be achieved by assuming some risk.

They are most assuredly not a boastful set of my hobby accomplishments designed to show how awesome I am… Some have been regularly done by hobbyists for years- but I feared attempting them for a while for some reason. Yeah, they’re a simple list (that is likely overshadowed by most of you) of examples of stuff that we can and do achieve when we “get out of our own way.” 

You will almost always take chances in the aquarium hobby. Whether you realize it or not.

You will often study the associated risks, weigh the potential consequences, and ultimately “pull the trigger.” Sometimes, it will be a spontaneous move spurred on by a specific situation that forced you to act. Other times, jumping ahead in your hobby journey will be a result of beautiful, blissful ignorance…

Other times, it will be the end product of a protracted, deliberate evaluation. 

Regardless, it will often be an assumption of risk that yields an unexpected reward.

Sometimes you’ll fail.

Spectacularly.

Other times, you’ll succeed beyond your wildest dreams. Many times, however, you’ll gain something by trying.

There are no certainties in the hobby. The only certainty is that if you don’t take a good, calculated risk once in a while, you will not have the experience of knowing what it’s like to try.

It’s important to follow basic “rules” in our hobby, such as understanding the nitrogen cycle, temperature control, the need to export nutrients from closed systems, etc.

Yet it’s equally as important to play a hunch, try a different route, or take a chance on a new idea now and again.

The worst consequence of trying and failing with a new idea is that you might lose some animals. That’s pretty awful. 

However, the worst consequence of not taking a chance with a new idea is that you will never have the opportunity to know if your idea was valid- and you might lose some animals anyways.

And that’s awful, too.

The downsides to both are similar. Yet the reward for taking a risk and trying something new in the hobby is…progress. 

To not attempt anything- such as taking a risk when trying to keep and breed a relatively rare, “import-only” fish- is that we will continue to rely on wild imports, further degrading the natural environments from which they come, and reduction in wild populations.

To lose even a few animals in an attempt to save incalculably large numbers is tragic and risky, and would have some questioning if we should attempt it at all. It’s a choice which the intrepid tropical fish keeper needs to make for his or herself, and weigh the moral implications of such decisions carefully.

There has been, and always will be, opportunity to push the envelope in the aquarium hobby. And there has been, and always will be risk associated with doing so.

The consequences of not taking risks at all are well known, too.

The choice is ours.

Regardless of your level of experience, don’t give in to the temptations to take shortcuts. Take the long way home, consider the risk, try that well-thought-out idea, and be great.

Stay brave. Stay adventurous. Stay optimistic. Stay focused. Stay relentless. Stay patient.

And Stay Wet.

Scott Fellman