Fish Keeping5

            Many moons ago when I was a lad, 1950 to be exact, my father kept coldwater and tropical fish in a large outhouse at our home in london. He made what to me were enormous tanks, probably 3 to 5 ft long, from angle iron which he had welded up for him. These were glazed with whatever glass he could get hold of and putty was used to waterproof them. The bases were made from sheets of slate, lord knows where the slate came from !, and the tropical tanks were heated using spirit burners under the bases, hence the slate bottoms.
I remember the whole place was lovely to go into, always warmer than the house, which only had one coal fire in the lounge. He spent hours making outside filters from clear plastic and piping, gluing all the parts together with some real smelly stuff. I loved to look at all this and watch him working, but it wasnt till 20 odd years later that the conditions around me were right and the disease of fish keeping reared its head and took hold of me. I dont remember much more about his fishkeeping except that I took in a couple of hampsters for a friend at school while he was on holiday. To keep them warm I put them over one of dads tanks, on a shelf. I probably didnt close their door properly the second night after feeding them, as in the morning dads fish were picking at them in a tank below the shelf, where they had drowned!. No need to say I was ticked off as he had to replace them for the lad.
            Fish keeping and the fish and equiptment available have changed fantastically since those days. and maybe it has become too easy to have fish in the house now. So many owners seem only to have them because its "nice" to have a pond in the garden or the obligatory fancy fish tank in the lounge. To many people they have become possesions and not the challenging urge to recreate aquatic nature in miniature. Dont get me wrong, there are many, many really dedicated aquarists out there, who strive to get the conditions and ecological surroundings for their charges exactly right, but not THAT many. I often wonder just how many fish are bred or imported in this country, and how many of those survive their first year ?. A lot is said about fishing being cruel to fish, but I am sure there are many millions more tropical and freshwater "pet" fish cruelly killed each year. Next time you go into a "petshop", have a look round a see if they sell "goldfish bowls", or tiny 10 inch tank kits "ready for fish". They must know that it is almost impossible to get and keep the correct conditions for fish in these tiny containers, they are there to pander to "little willie" who wants a fish, which usually ends up doing a long, long swim down the loo!. Please try not to be one of these people, childrens wants are usually phases that only last a few days or weeks, how many of the toys got at christmas are disregarded or even destroyed my new year?. Dont buy them fish unless you are willing to take the responsibilty of looking after them properly, after willies interest has flagged.
            I suppose a lot of the failures to continue keeping them are due to the water "going off" after a while and the fish becoming sick and dying. Like the couple I met in the petshop, a lot of budding fishkeepers buy everything at the same time, including the fish!.
            It must be realised that an environment for fish does not just "happen" when you fill a tank, heat the water and put a few plants in.
Fish are a living organism and as such have to eat, breath and excrete solid and liquid waste. In natural surroundings, these waste products are in turn diluted by the vast amounts of water in their natural surroundings, consumed and converted into other less toxic materials that are beneficial the plants and other organisms, which in turn use them up. I again wont go into detail but if you are interested in this process, and just about any other aspect of this interesting hobby go to www.fishdoc.co.uk. It would be possible to keep the fish healthy by changing the water every couple of days with clean water of the right temperature, having first removed any toxic chemicals the local water board has put in, but this would mean lots of work, and anyway its hardly the natural way to keep fish or even near it, which is what we aim to do. Also with fresh water all the time there would not be the nutrients in it that plants need to grow and flourish.    >>