What does fish keeping mean to you?

[Ellie Potts]

For those who don't know, I'm a 16-year-old who grew up keeping fish in my dad's old tanks (he is a snake-keeping hobbyist) and have grown to love fish-keeping. I've recently gotten a lot deeper in the hobby due to a dreadful amount of time that COVID has gifted me, and I find myself pondering what the meaning of the hobby is.

I don't think it's just about the absurdity of cool animals existing contentedly in a glass box made to resemble their native habitat, or at least not to most. I think there's a deeper psychological aspect as to why we love fish keeping and as to what it means to each of us. For me, fish keeping gives me something that is completely in my control. It's something I can spend hours researching as a distraction from the craziness that is life, and, most importantly, it's a form of self-care.

My mother's been in chemotherapy for as long as I can remember and my father lives in London 75% of the time, an impressive 8-hour long flight from North Carolina. As one can imagine, this gives my twin sister and me a lot of freedom, but also a lot of responsibility. I often find myself battling depression and what feels like diagnosable loneliness, which has only gotten 1,000 times worse since the beginning of COVID. There is little incentive to get out of bed when going to school consists of lifting my laptop, and I'm somehow supposed to play sports via Zoom.

It's easy to curl up in a little ball of self-pity and hide from the world along with my responsibilities, but how could I do that when I have hornwort to trim and a water change scheduled this afternoon and fish to feed and a stupid cloud of brown algae and random snail eggs to exterminate and did I mention trimming hornwort? Fishkeeping gives me something that I not only have to do but something that I enjoy doing. It continues to be an incentive for me to get up, get moving, and do something useful with myself or at least something that makes me happy; it doesn't matter what state the world is in, I will never look at my Dwarf Gourami methodically building a nest and resist cracking a smile. I am incredibly grateful for the ability to partake in such a time-consuming and expensive hobby during times like these, as I'm not sure how I would get along without it.

This is just my story with the hobby, but one of my favorite things about fish-keeping is that everyone's story is different. What does fish keeping mean to you?

 

[ClownLurch]

I couldn’t have put it better. Wish I could’ve expressed myself so well at your age. I was a ten grunt a day kid back then. Up to twelve now.
Though I believe fishkeeping means different things to different people at different times of life with most peoples reasons and emotions overlapping somewhere along the line.
Its to misquote a REM album title in turn misquoted from a Peter Sellers film/movie: Fishkeepings Rich Pageant.

Ive gone all philosophical now which maybe the influence of the Chinese and Japanese fish who make up the majority of my tanks population. Aquabuddhism maybe? Hope that’s not considered racial stereotyping.

ElliePotts I will probably ask you for a few Carolinas area plant suggestions for my Heterandria Formosa species tank In the new year...yknow just to make them feel at home. Take care.

 

[PheonixKingZ]

Great story!

I have always liked fish keeping, because I found it so cool and I could recreate a section of a body of water.

Tanks always, to me, look like a cutaway in a science book of a lake. That’s also why I like aquascaping so much.

Anyway, I just love the hobby.

 

[Ellie Potts]

I couldn’t have put it better. Wish I could’ve expressed myself so well at your age. I was a ten grunt a day kid back then. Up to twelve now.
Though I believe fishkeeping means different things to different people at different times of life with most peoples reasons and emotions overlapping somewhere along the line.
Its to misquote a REM album title in turn misquoted from a Peter Sellers film/movie: Fishkeepings Rich Pageant.

Ive gone all philosophical now which maybe the influence of the Chinese and Japanese fish who make up the majority of my tanks population. Aquabuddhism maybe? Hope that’s not considered racial stereotyping.

ElliePotts I will probably ask you for a few Carolinas area plant suggestions for my Heterandria Formosa species tank In the new year...yknow just to make them feel at home. Take care.

Thank you! I'm interested to see what I think of this in 10-20 years. I'm sure my take on the hobby, a hobby I'm hopefully still involved in, will be drastically different.

I'll think on the plant species. Take care!

 

[xxamyxx85]

For those who don't know, I'm a 16-year-old who grew up keeping fish in my dad's old tanks (he is a snake-keeping hobbyist) and have grown to love fish-keeping. I've recently gotten a lot deeper in the hobby due to a dreadful amount of time that COVID has gifted me, and I find myself pondering what the meaning of the hobby is.

I don't think it's just about the absurdity of cool animals existing contentedly in a glass box made to resemble their native habitat, or at least not to most. I think there's a deeper psychological aspect as to why we love fish keeping and as to what it means to each of us. For me, fish keeping gives me something that is completely in my control. It's something I can spend hours researching as a distraction from the craziness that is life, and, most importantly, it's a form of self-care.

My mother's been in chemotherapy for as long as I can remember and my father lives in London 75% of the time, an impressive 8-hour long flight from North Carolina. As one can imagine, this gives my twin sister and me a lot of freedom, but also a lot of responsibility. I often find myself battling depression and what feels like diagnosable loneliness, which has only gotten 1,000 times worse since the beginning of COVID. There is little incentive to get out of bed when going to school consists of lifting my laptop, and I'm somehow supposed to play sports via Zoom.

It's easy to curl up in a little ball of self-pity and hide from the world along with my responsibilities, but how could I do that when I have hornwort to trim and a water change scheduled this afternoon and fish to feed and a stupid cloud of brown algae and random snail eggs to exterminate and did I mention trimming hornwort? Fishkeeping gives me something that I not only have to do but something that I enjoy doing. It continues to be an incentive for me to get up, get moving, and do something useful with myself or at least something that makes me happy; it doesn't matter what state the world is in, I will never look at my Dwarf Gourami methodically building a nest and resist cracking a smile. I am incredibly grateful for the ability to partake in such a time-consuming and expensive hobby during times like these, as I'm not sure how I would get along without it.

This is just my story with the hobby, but one of my favorite things about fish-keeping is that everyone's story is different. What does fish keeping mean to you?

I absolutely love your post, you really did hit the nail on the head! I need something to distract me from life also, I have a physical disability that stopped me doing lots of the hobbies I had. I spent years trying to find something that I could take my time with and enjoy but that wouldn’t impact on my health, eventually I found it .... fish keeping, I love it!
the way you presented your words in your post to express yourself is just amazing and honestly I felt every word. Thank you.

 

[Ellie Potts]

I absolutely love your post, you really did hit the nail on the head! I need something to distract me from life also, I have a physical disability that stopped me doing lots of the hobbies I had. I spent years trying to find something that I could take my time with and enjoy but that wouldn’t impact on my health, eventually I found it .... fish keeping, I love it!
the way you presented your words in your post to express yourself is just amazing and honestly I felt every word. Thank you.

Thanks so much! So glad you found this hobby, wishing you good health days.

 

[mcordelia]

I think you have a very nice way with words, if nothing else it should net you points in the college essay circuit I joke, but thinking back to 16 year old me, that was certainly one of the stressors that was at the back of my mind. Maybe more like 17 year old me, but thereabouts....

You have a very interesting story, and certainly I can agree, when your life doesn't look like the life of people around you it can be easy to get depressed and feel a sense of otherness. I certainly struggled (and sometimes still do) with such feelings when I was an adolescent. I, too, came from a "unconventional" background - I think at this point in my life I have moved nearly 30 times, the majority of which occurred before my 20th birthday. Let's just say my husband and I have slightly different views of what it means to be "permanently situated" haha

I think fishkeeping for me is a mental outlet because the amount of research one can do into it is neverending, there is always a new intricacy to the hobby that you can pour yourself into. It's a great distraction, but sometimes I have to remind myself that life also needs living haha.

I think there is something to be said for observing nature without it (predominantly) observing you back. When I used to have a dog (who has since died from old age), I couldn't just watch him do his thing - the second he noticed me he would want to come and interact with me, which was nice, but wasn't a way to transport me outside of myself. Fishkeeping on the other hand is akin to taking a walk in the forest and sitting down on a boulder and watching the birds and chipmunks and other animals do their thing, without having to deal with the weather or the logistics of getting there.

For those who are blessed to live in an area where you can get away from people and observe wildlife outside your front door it may not fill that same need, but for most of us city dwellers I think it is an (albeit artificial) way to connect with nature, which I think is a fundamental need of human beings.

 

[Ellie Potts]

I think you have a very nice way with words, if nothing else it should net you points in the college essay circuit I joke, but thinking back to 16 year old me, that was certainly one of the stressors that was at the back of my mind. Maybe more like 17 year old me, but thereabouts....

You have a very interesting story, and certainly I can agree, when your life doesn't look like the life of people around you it can be easy to get depressed and feel a sense of otherness. I certainly struggled (and sometimes still do) with such feelings when I was an adolescent. I, too, came from a "unconventional" background - I think at this point in my life I have moved nearly 30 times, the majority of which occurred before my 20th birthday. Let's just say my husband and I have slightly different views of what it means to be "permanently situated" haha

I think fishkeeping for me is a mental outlet because the amount of research one can do into it is neverending, there is always a new intricacy to the hobby that you can pour yourself into. It's a great distraction, but sometimes I have to remind myself that life also needs living haha.

I think there is something to be said for observing nature without it (predominantly) observing you back. When I used to have a dog (who has since died from old age), I couldn't just watch him do his thing - the second he noticed me he would want to come and interact with me, which was nice, but wasn't a way to transport me outside of myself. Fishkeeping on the other hand is akin to taking a walk in the forest and sitting down on a boulder and watching the birds and chipmunks and other animals do their thing, without having to deal with the weather or the logistics of getting there.

For those who are blessed to live in an area where you can get away from people and observe wildlife outside your front door it may not fill that same need, but for most of us city dwellers I think it is an (albeit artificial) way to connect with nature, which I think is a fundamental need of human beings.

There is definitely a sense of peace that comes from watching the fish do just what fish do completely undisturbed.

 

[DAnCSF]

For those who don't know, I'm a 16-year-old who grew up keeping fish in my dad's old tanks (he is a snake-keeping hobbyist) and have grown to love fish-keeping. I've recently gotten a lot deeper in the hobby due to a dreadful amount of time that COVID has gifted me, and I find myself pondering what the meaning of the hobby is.

I don't think it's just about the absurdity of cool animals existing contentedly in a glass box made to resemble their native habitat, or at least not to most. I think there's a deeper psychological aspect as to why we love fish keeping and as to what it means to each of us. For me, fish keeping gives me something that is completely in my control. It's something I can spend hours researching as a distraction from the craziness that is life, and, most importantly, it's a form of self-care.

My mother's been in chemotherapy for as long as I can remember and my father lives in London 75% of the time, an impressive 8-hour long flight from North Carolina. As one can imagine, this gives my twin sister and me a lot of freedom, but also a lot of responsibility. I often find myself battling depression and what feels like diagnosable loneliness, which has only gotten 1,000 times worse since the beginning of COVID. There is little incentive to get out of bed when going to school consists of lifting my laptop, and I'm somehow supposed to play sports via Zoom.

It's easy to curl up in a little ball of self-pity and hide from the world along with my responsibilities, but how could I do that when I have hornwort to trim and a water change scheduled this afternoon and fish to feed and a stupid cloud of brown algae and random snail eggs to exterminate and did I mention trimming hornwort? Fishkeeping gives me something that I not only have to do but something that I enjoy doing. It continues to be an incentive for me to get up, get moving, and do something useful with myself or at least something that makes me happy; it doesn't matter what state the world is in, I will never look at my Dwarf Gourami methodically building a nest and resist cracking a smile. I am incredibly grateful for the ability to partake in such a time-consuming and expensive hobby during times like these, as I'm not sure how I would get along without it.

This is just my story with the hobby, but one of my favorite things about fish-keeping is that everyone's story is different. What does fish keeping mean to you?

Great question and thoughts, the meaning of the hobby...now that's deep. But sometimes we dive too deep in "the meaning", for many of us it's as simple as it brings smile to our face. And maybe that's all it needs to be. Ellie, appears you are in a tough situation and far be it too me to offer advice. But reaching out reaching out is very helpful. Alas due to CVC we can't just go out, find our closest friend and get a hug. But we can reach out with our digital tools. I dare say you and your generation are much better at that, than us old farts. I run a photography Meet Up group in SF and we haven't had an actual physical shoot since late Feb. But I try to "spam" my members with musings, usually of a photographic nature, but not always. And I encourage them to contact each other in whatever way they feel comfortable. These contacts don't need to be deep or emotional but maybe a simple "hello how ya doing" etc...such small thing goes a long way. I found one such relief in TFF, I just joined recently, which I find it fun and comforting. Musing, pontificating with the members here a great break from this CV isolation. and I hope you do to. Well I'll end here and get back to my teleworking with this...a wise man once said "....Stop thinking....and Feeeeel....", plus another old fart once said to younging "Wax on.....Wax off" Take care Ellie and best wishes to you and your family....DanC

 

[eatyourpeas]

I have discovered that and aquarium to me is the underwater version of My Dinner with Andre...

 

[Stan510]

I didn't sound that mature until I was 36. Even then..
But right now after decades? I just want something great that does not exist here. Colorful fish,clear warm waters,exotic plants. Also..I don't judge others hard. Even a public aquarium aquarist has a long list of dead fish. I guess you could say only living fish in their care right now didn't die on them.
So,I sort of settled doing best to make a fish home...smallish fishes in a largish aquarium. I always keep in mind though that wild fish have 20-2,000 mile long aquariums-lol.
I could have gone with large fish,Cichlids that would live years almost guaranteed for that...but,I wanted a bit more room per fish. So Rainbows. Still learning..this is my first x-large planted aquarium and the smaller Rainbows? Well,they are a larger fish than I thought. I could have scaled down even more and might as years go by.