The natural aquarium doesn't exist. Indoors, unless you have enormous space and lots of money, it can't happen. It's an idea that fell away in the 1970s, and is making a comeback because we want to believe in things that are convenient to us. Say what we want to hear, and we'll buy it.
The version from 50 years ago said you could balance wastes from fish with the needs of plants. Many aquarists spent years trying to achieve that balance. We learned there were problems.
Now, if you've made it this far, you can smell a rant on the wind. Have a look, if you will...
Aquarists like to have lots of fish. Pass one 2 inch fish per 10 gallons in a no water change system, and it's game over. A 55 gallon with half a dozen killies, tetras or other small fish will hold in pretty well with just top offs. You'll not see fish often, but you will see plants. However, the plants will deplete the minerals in the water, and bottles of ferts aren't natural.
The bread and butter fish of the hobby are the tough guys. They can take abuse. Most of the fish modern youtubers are looking back to have a secret life. It revolves around rain.
During the dry periods of the year, small rivers, streams and creeks stop flowing and become chains of slowly evaporating ponds. Fish become very concentrated in very poor conditions, and if they hadn't evolved mechanisms to hang on until rains bring better times, they would be extinct. The lazy or wishful aquarist plays on this. My tanks in the balanced aquarium era were like this. The fish did stay alive, waiting for me to bring the monsoon type water changes so they could breed and feed in the good times. Regretfully, I had bought into a wishful myth, and those fish never got their break.
I thought 2 or 3 year old cardinals were a success. Now I know that 7 to 9 years of life is an easily achievable goal for them.
A lot of the more difficult fish are not difficult. They come from habitats that don't dry up, and need year round high quality living conditions. That to me is fair enough. They deserve that. But in the no water change, balanced aquarium era, we looked at those fish as disease magnets, or impossible fish to keep. Some even said it wasn't ethical to try to keep them. It wasn't ethical, if we tried to keep them in our sluggish, polluted tanks (but the water was clear!). They've proven to be easy to keep if we put our minds to it, in the water change era.
I never test my water for the nitrogen cycle. It's important, but because I change 30% plus every week in community tanks, I know what's happening. I have plants in all my tanks, rooted in the substrate, floating, or on the tank. This means if I catch a cold, have a lot of extra work to do or travel, my tanks can go 2, and sometimes 3 weeks with no changes, as long as I get back the routine right away once the busy time has passed. In my soft tapwater, those plants do nothing to help with oodinium velvet parasites, which thrive in unchanged water. Many aquarists don't even know about these tiny killers - a major issue widely talked about 40 or 50 years ago. Every pet store back then had shelves of velvet treatments, as well as cures for fin rot and body fungus. We struggled with those things. Why don't modern aquarists know about them? The recent hobby, with its water changing habits, largely took care of them.
We've recently gone through the test kit goggles era, where every issue, including obvious diseases, seemed explained by a test kit. I think the pendulum has swung away from that. We're getting back to the inconvenient observation of fish, with all the questions it raises, combined with test kits and hopefully, a growing understanding of water. If we go to the other extreme, and resurrect the balanced aquarium myths, we haven't moved forward. Progress doesn't exist, and forward movement is a temporary thing, it seems. The mistaken practices of the past always come back around. Let's not welcome them simply because they're what we want to hear.
Man, I sincerely wish I could enjoy my hobby without water changes. A dog that never had to pee when I was busy, and vegetable that grow in the snow would also be nice.
The version from 50 years ago said you could balance wastes from fish with the needs of plants. Many aquarists spent years trying to achieve that balance. We learned there were problems.
Now, if you've made it this far, you can smell a rant on the wind. Have a look, if you will...
Aquarists like to have lots of fish. Pass one 2 inch fish per 10 gallons in a no water change system, and it's game over. A 55 gallon with half a dozen killies, tetras or other small fish will hold in pretty well with just top offs. You'll not see fish often, but you will see plants. However, the plants will deplete the minerals in the water, and bottles of ferts aren't natural.
The bread and butter fish of the hobby are the tough guys. They can take abuse. Most of the fish modern youtubers are looking back to have a secret life. It revolves around rain.
During the dry periods of the year, small rivers, streams and creeks stop flowing and become chains of slowly evaporating ponds. Fish become very concentrated in very poor conditions, and if they hadn't evolved mechanisms to hang on until rains bring better times, they would be extinct. The lazy or wishful aquarist plays on this. My tanks in the balanced aquarium era were like this. The fish did stay alive, waiting for me to bring the monsoon type water changes so they could breed and feed in the good times. Regretfully, I had bought into a wishful myth, and those fish never got their break.
I thought 2 or 3 year old cardinals were a success. Now I know that 7 to 9 years of life is an easily achievable goal for them.
A lot of the more difficult fish are not difficult. They come from habitats that don't dry up, and need year round high quality living conditions. That to me is fair enough. They deserve that. But in the no water change, balanced aquarium era, we looked at those fish as disease magnets, or impossible fish to keep. Some even said it wasn't ethical to try to keep them. It wasn't ethical, if we tried to keep them in our sluggish, polluted tanks (but the water was clear!). They've proven to be easy to keep if we put our minds to it, in the water change era.
I never test my water for the nitrogen cycle. It's important, but because I change 30% plus every week in community tanks, I know what's happening. I have plants in all my tanks, rooted in the substrate, floating, or on the tank. This means if I catch a cold, have a lot of extra work to do or travel, my tanks can go 2, and sometimes 3 weeks with no changes, as long as I get back the routine right away once the busy time has passed. In my soft tapwater, those plants do nothing to help with oodinium velvet parasites, which thrive in unchanged water. Many aquarists don't even know about these tiny killers - a major issue widely talked about 40 or 50 years ago. Every pet store back then had shelves of velvet treatments, as well as cures for fin rot and body fungus. We struggled with those things. Why don't modern aquarists know about them? The recent hobby, with its water changing habits, largely took care of them.
We've recently gone through the test kit goggles era, where every issue, including obvious diseases, seemed explained by a test kit. I think the pendulum has swung away from that. We're getting back to the inconvenient observation of fish, with all the questions it raises, combined with test kits and hopefully, a growing understanding of water. If we go to the other extreme, and resurrect the balanced aquarium myths, we haven't moved forward. Progress doesn't exist, and forward movement is a temporary thing, it seems. The mistaken practices of the past always come back around. Let's not welcome them simply because they're what we want to hear.
Man, I sincerely wish I could enjoy my hobby without water changes. A dog that never had to pee when I was busy, and vegetable that grow in the snow would also be nice.
