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The Tao of Marine Aquaria--Tips for Our Hobby and Life
Adam H. Whitlock
Continued from page 3Lesson Eleven: Mother Nature Knows Best
It has taken the Earth billions of years to evolve to its current state of perfection. The seas have risen and fallen, warmed and cooled, and even swallowed a meteorite large enough to wipe out entire prehistoric species. No that's resiliency! We should respect the system that has developed.
When you try to recreate something that awes you, you should try to emulate it in every way possible. Yet, as humans, we tend to let our egos get the best of us and convince us that we can improve upon the real thing. We believe that we can take the elements of nature that most excite us, then design our own world for them to live in. In so doing, we second guess the Creator or forces that made the original. As soon as we do, we begin to run into trouble.
Take wet/dry trickle filters, for example. We see gorgeous fish on a reef that we find tantalizing. So, we take the fish and ignore the reef. We put them in a small box full of an approximation of sea water, some coral skeletons, perhaps, and, god forbid, a bubbling deep-sea diver standing over a treasure chest. Then the fish start dying and someone figures out it's from their own toxic waste: ammonia.. Experts from the sewage-treatment industry are consulted and the solution offered is a wet/dry trickle filter in a sump. Everyone rushes out and buys expensive acrylic boxes full of bits of non-porous, hydrophobic (water repellent) plastic in various shapes. The plastic forms are colonized by bacteria, and soon the ammonia and nitrite problem is a thing of the past. But now the nitrate level grows to the point that the animals begin suffering again and undesirable algae chokes out your tank.
Next, the stores start selling expensive gizmos to reduce your nitrates electronically while the magazines fill their pages with anecdotal evidence that building a hollow space (a plenum) under your substrate will solve all your problems. Money changes hands faster than that lion chases down an antelope. Meanwhile, what's been going on back on the reef? Has Mother Nature gone out and bought thousands of cubic miles of plastic bobbles? Nope. The reef is still just plodding along in its pitifully low-tech way, still supporting many more forms of life than we can imagine in a perfect and ever-balanced harmony using nothing but microbes and algae. The reef should be ashamed of itself. It's dazzling, pristine self.
If we put our egos in the closet for a second, we might see that we are making things more difficult for ourselves than necessary. Coral reefs don't have bare glass bottoms or colored pebbles; they have finely-crushed coral skeleton sediment. Reefs don't have a few scattered pieces of dead coral skeleton; they have intricate labyrinths of live rock and living coral. Most importantly, coral reefs aren't packed with fish-it only seems that way because you can see so far through the crystal-clear water (a result of the balanced biological load). Why can't we bow to the master designer and understand that we must try to replicate the entire stage, not just a few of the flashier actors?
If we want our aquariums to thrive, we must acknowledge that Mother Nature knows best. We need a fine crushed-coral substrate at least three inches deep and/or enough live rock to both support an enormous colony of bacteria (to complete the nitrogen cycle) and to give our fish hiding places where they can feel safe. We need a janitorial crew of hermit crabs, snails, and brittle stars (among others) to pick up after our messy fish, and we need to do our best to reproduce the first things that come to mind when we think of a tropical beach-bright sunshine and waves. If we appease our lust for high-tech toys by investing in high-quality lighting, a good wave maker, and an efficient protein skimmer, Mother Nature will step in to take care of the rest-and much better than we could have done ourselves. After all, her way is "the way".
Lesson Twelve: Experts Aren't
Pundits and sociologists claim that we have left the Industrial Age and have entered the Information Age. Until we work out a few of the kinks, I'd say a better description of the new era would be the Misinformation Age. The speed, wide distribution, affordability, and anonymity of the Internet, for instance, enables anyone to reach hundreds, thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of people and sound like an expert. That doesn't make them an expert, however. Neither does the ability to qualify for a line of credit, but that's all that's required to open an aquarium store. Even the publishing world can fail us when they flood the newsstands and bookshelves with a never ending stream of mediocre how-to books and unverified articles detailing "stunning discoveries" promising to revolutionize the hobby.
So, where are the experts? I think our willingness to ask that question is at the root of the misinformation age. In only a few subject areas do experts actually exist. Everywhere else, there are only students with more years in the school of life. Some of those students have paid attention in class and can pass as tutors; others have been nodding off or shooting spit balls, and will only get us in trouble if we pay them any attention.
We need to learn to trust ourselves and not be constantly searching for an easy answer from someone else. We need to grasp the significance of our status as students and work hard to learn enough (or more) to pass the final exam: maintaining a thriving aquarium. Studying what others have to say is important, of course, but we must take our investigations further and think. We need to ponder the underlying principles at work in our aquariums and strive to perceive the myriad interdependencies that make up the web of life in our microcosmic worlds. Keeping a log book can help maintain a history of problems, help us to determine the causes, and record the effectiveness of our treatments, but it will just be a dead tree covered in graffiti if we never read it again and think. We can certainly seek advice along the way from "upperclassmen" in the hobby, but we need to weigh what they say against what we already know. Remember that they haven't worked on your aquatic world like you have and can only offer advice based on similar experiences they have had themselves. Learn to observe, think, and take reasonable action, and you'll be more successful than someone who relies solely on other people's advice. And always be wary of anyone who seems overconfident and claims to know all the answers, because more often than not, such "experts" aren't.
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