Steven_Chong

Laith--

As you said, it'd be hard to think of an example where the health of the fish and a good aquascape DON'T coincide. That said, I like to know where my priorities/loyalties lie, because you never know. That's all.

I personally don't think that I'd find a fish attractive, nor think of it as "the perfect fish" if I knew that it wouldn't be able to live in an aquascape for long. That said, even Amano has done something similar to your theoretical example with his Heckel Discus tank in Nature Aquarium World 1. He defined "success" for his aquascape as being able to keep the system going for 6 months-- not indefinitely. I personally (based on aesthetic reasons) would choose a fish comfortable in its environment, but if another aquascaper (say Amano with his discus) defined "success" of the aquascape otherwise, I don't think I'd see anything horribly wrong with it.

Rain-- Ah, we do disagree, though I do have high respect for you and your opinions. We just have different loyalties to seeing things. My loyalties are more to art, and yours more to your personal sense of ethics. My personal definitions of moral imperatives do not prevent me from seeing things the way I do.

However, please don't assume that I do not appreciate the beauty/virtue in fish as living things without understanding my personal philosophy. I love nature-- love all things in it, and find beauty in all living things-- definitely in fish!!

I was the kind of little boy who'd spend all his recesses in the library reading-- Over the course of 1st and 2nd grade I read all the books in my elementary school library on crustaceans, and moved my way through fish, spiders, dinosaurs, birds of prey, lizards, snakes . . . they called me a walking encyclopedia (though all those books were old and the information was often wrong compared to things I learned in middle and highschool). I love nature and living things!

That said,

"If nature has rules, than the most important is survival of the fittest."

Everything in nature is beautiful, but everything appreciates its own beauty the most. Of course I'm selfish. Being alive is having selfishness. Losing one's selfishness completely is being a martyr-- that is, dying. At some level, you would also have to admit that the very nature of this hobby is selfish!

Removing organisms from their native habitats and denying them the chance to reproduce (which IMO is their highest desire/priority), and keeping them for your own pleasure is selfish to a degree and unfair to the organisms. Seeing as you breed your shrimp and grow your plants Rain, your own behavior is probably exempt from this and its possible you're entire not-selfish in this, but condoning other hobbyists non-breeding of their fish is basically condoning a certain degree of selfishness.

IMO, selfishness isn't such a horrible thing. Living is beautiful, nature is beautiful-- and is selfishness a part of nature and life? You bet it is!! Every organism on this planet would be long extinct if it weren't selfish! And I love them all!

But me the most, because I'm selfish and part of nature too.

I hope that wasn't too shallow for you, I tried my best to think deeply.

Kelley-- You are absolutely right that art has limits!!

And I'd have to agree that the health of the fish is absolutely a limit and something that must be met just as time to develop the photo if he's using film!

That said, that doesn't say anything about me having to perceive my fish as pals and not paints-- except for the fact that it disgusts you, which I'm sorry for.

I absolutely agree that it's disgusting that the galaxy rasbora are going extinct-- but again, my reasons are different from yours.

You feel a ethical response to the extinction of a species.

I on the other hand, am enraged because I have a strong belief that human beings will suffer with the destruction of the species we have evolved alongside of. That is, aversion to the extinction of the species is not from ethical imperative, but because I am worse off as the species of my world go extinct. We are all worsened off for it.


So I keep white cloud minnows.

I will be always be sad when I return the fish I use to the store at the end of the aquascape's life, but what more can I do? I will help them insofar as it does not deny my personal aims. I

will not change the tank to a WCM breeding tank because that is the desire of the fish.

I will not choose not to aquascape at all just because I know that at the end of the semester I must go back home to hawaii from california, and tear down the tank before that.

As my personal ethical imperatives, I'd rather not touch on that. A semester on Morality and Religion, from Natural Law to Kantianism, I never found a convincing proof of the existance of morality at all-- so I'm definitely not willing to make the (IMO rather arrogant assumtion) that I can know what's right and what's wrong.

If you were to say that ethics simply comes from one's sense of right and wrong, than I would say I wouldn't want to cause a species to go extinct, but am I willing to deny reproductive success to a few individuals for the sake of my art? From just my gut feeling-- yes.


I can't prove ethics exists, but evolution is something easy to believe in. From a Darwinistic perspective, the end of an organism's chance for reproduction is the end of its life. There is no future for that organism's genes. Therefore, I am a consumer of WCM, otocinclus, and Amanos.

I am as much a consumer of them as of chicken. I am a predator to them. Am I ok with that? Well yes.

I may not be a good judge of the true and ultimate wrong and right, but my gut feeling says that my art is important enough to me that I can be a consumer of such things just as I consume chicken.


Sorry for writing so much and instigating such a difficult discussion-- i just love thinking about philosophy!

Steven_Chong

Missed you Hoppy-- I see! Very insightful and discriptive!

SUBORPHAN

For me it's neither. instead it is an aquarium for plants and fish.



That may be seen by some as offensive. none of us can possibly know what others think or what they put first. Surely a lot of people may keep fish like discus and dont want to breed them but still the good of their fauna may come first. It's like saying that people who keep dogs or cats, but castrate them, dont care as much for them as someone who breeds their dogs or cats.



Those people who say that aquascapers dont care for their fish are partly true. to make that statement more correct i would add aquascapers (not all of them) who change their scapes more often than a king changes his clothes.

"close minded pet-keepers who can't see the birth of a new art form"??!! without meaning to be offensive i would say that that sentence sounds a bit pompous. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. what can be art to us may not be such to others.

as for the two questions i think there are two types of scapers. one type who creates a scape adds fish to it and cares for and enjoys them (scape and fish) for a long time by making minor changes here and there when needed. this type i personally think is a fishkeeper first.

the other type of scapers gets their buzz by creating scapes enjoying them for a short time, taking some pictures, destroying the scape and build a new one in its place. this type i personally think care more for the end result scape. some will argue they are artists. i think they are a strange type of artist (a mixture of scaper+photographer). most artists i know care for their creations and want them to last and be enjoyed. if scapers 'do and undo' their scapes every few months
the only thing is left to enjoy is the photographs.

houseofcards

I think many have started off in this hobby as fishkeepers. What fish can I get next type of mentality, but eventually some find more enrichment from keeping a scape, where the scape comes first. It's almost as if I builds upon the fish to appreciate the total environment eventually, and yes until the fish just become a piece of the whole. I don't think Steven would purposely put a fish in a "toxic" situation just to make his scape work. It would go against the very artistic value of the scape. There can only be an exchange of views since everyone's opinion of art is different. Who's to say where fish keeping ends and art begins. I think the biggest offenders to fish are not artists that see them as mere props, but manufacturers who show sensitive reef fish and others that show 40 fish in a 12g. Who hasn't seen those ads for the Eclipse setups that show a ridiculous number of fish in those small tanks. These tanks are aimed at beginners who don't know any better and purchase to many fish or sensitive fish only to have them suffer and die.

I DO think there is value in reminding people that it is for example an "aquascaping thread" as oppossed to a fish one. Many times one might give advice that would make sense in a "fish tank" but not necesarilly work in a pristine scape. Something that comes to mind is of course stocking, feeding and medication. If these were applied to many scapes in the same proportions as a "fish tank" it could prove to have very bad consquences for all inhabiatants.

There is such a broad spectrum of planted tank people here. On one hand you have someone who breaks down a tank every 3 months once his/her vision is realized and the photos are taken. It sounds reasonable that one with those habits would be more de-senstitived to the fish since they are so focused on their vision as opposed to one who has the same planted tank up for 5 years and has grown old was his fish.

Steven_Chong

Waa-- some really great and interesting views coming out . . .

Orchid-- you're right, that comment is pompous-- it just comes from my love for aquascaping, and my frustration with those who look down on it. Especially if they do so unthinkingly.

For your comment about "buzz," I'll say this--> Beauty need not be forever. There is meaning in a single moment.

-- The mear months or weeks a brilliant killifish rise from the mud to spawn before dying in the face of definite drying of its pond.

-- The Moment when a Cicada after its long sleep opens its eyes for the first time above ground and spreads its wings.

-- The moment I spent with the special girl, to watch a sunrise on the beach-- and never again will anyone have that single sunrise.

Aquascapes aren't sculptures or pots to be sure-- no matter how we care for them, likely the will not see the next century. Paintings, photos-- they also cannot last forever. And yet art has meaning. There is meaning in a single moment, a single aquascape-- even if it should live for only a month it carves a place in my heart and memories-- and in those of the people with whom I share it.

3 months, 5 years-- in the course of things, the differences in time can be unimportant. So yes, for me just a moment is enough-- and I am seeking to create the most amazing moments I can with my aquascapes.

You might not believe this-- but just because I take my aquariums down, and say goodbye for the fish and plants I've cared for more easily, doesn't mean I love or appreciate them any less than others do. As you said, no one has the right to gauge the emotional strenght of others.

I'm just not afraid to move on, and have many aspirations and desires that are stronger still.


Aside from that-- great stuff House and Orchid! To which I have nothing to add.

SUBORPHAN

Selfishness and nature. now that is a vast topic.

in my humble and ignorant opinion i see animals and plants as part of nature. they live in and contribute to nature. true, animals have to consume but still they do not disrupt nature's harmony. even though animals consume each other and plants they do not cause their extinction.

on the other hand i see 'humans' as part of nature who live in it but dont contribute to it. on the contrary we are just a type of parasites (the most dangerous ones) who use nature and destroy it (and it's animals and plants and scapes). we are the only species who are responsible for such destruction and so many crimes of nature and the only species who have caused the extinction of so many plant and animal species (hell, we are responsible for the extinction of so many of our own species). now that is what i call selfishness.

Steven_Chong

No offense, but that is ignorant. Or rather, it's naive.

Humans are part of nature too. And don't be so arrogant as to think we could destroy it. We could shoot off all the nuclear bombs right now-- blast the entire face of the earth with nuclear radiation and kill off all humans along with many other species.

And yet, that would have only the tiniest fraction of the destructive power that was carried by a meteroite that would have been needed to cause the extinction of the dinosaurs. A hundred million years later, this planet would once again be covered with life-- completely different life to be sure, but don't think for a second that humans are capable of destroying nature.

Life, is much stronger than we are.

What's really at stake is not life, not nature-- only ourselves and the species with whom we have evolved. If humans save the species on the planet today, it's really for our own good and the good of those species with whom we have evolved.

Nature? Haha. Nature can, and has over its history, lost over 99% of all its species, and yet rebuilt from there to where it is. And don't think we are the first species to ever exterminate others. Everything balances in the long run yes-- but in the short run, species that don't have a place-- die. At the hands of other species.

Humans are a part of nature. The things in nature are selfish-- and there's nothing wrong with that.

For my own part, I find nature beautiful-- and human nature is a part of nature too. Our selfishness is beautiful. I love people for caring about themselves.

The real tragedy, is when people are too stupid to realize what's really imporant-- like the survival of their brother and sister species.

Amano wrote, "It's not healthy to eat rice grown on land that frogs cannot live on."

Humans need to take care of the other creatures we live with yes-- but we ought to know to that we need to do it for our own sake as well as for theirs.

SUBORPHAN

It's only a hypothesis that a meteorite caused the exctintion of dinosaurs.

there is a distinction between destruction caused by a meteorite and destruction caused by humans. the first is natural cause, the second is artificially induced by us.

i talk about nature as we know it and not in 100 million years. in 100 million years time we probable would not exist as a species anyway as a result of evolution.

and when i talk about extermination of other species i mean extermination caused artificially by a living creature. i dont mean extermination caused by natural causes.

i personally dont know if we are the only species to have exterminated others or not (is there a known species that has caused the extermination of another? i have never heard of one). however i would say (with a reasonable amount of certainty) that we are the only species to have exterminated MANY others.

i dont think Amano (as much as i respect the man) is a philosopher. you can take a piece of land, sterilise itno worms, insects and such and you can still grow rice on it and it and be able to eat it. yet the frogs probably wont survive due to lack of food.

you say people care about themselves? how does that happen? we smoke, we drink, we fight and kill, we exterminate other tribes and nations, we eat junk food, do drugs. there are many cities where you fall or have a heart attack in the street and people just go past you as if you are non existent. we abuse children, elderly etc. we use other nations, colonise them, use their resources and then leave thembehind undeveloped and in poverty. Africa is in crisis, war, death, poverty and disease everywhere and nothing is being done about it. these are just a few examples i can think of now. and you tell me that you love human selfishness and how we care about ourselves??!! i am sorry but i would say That is naive.

i never said that we arent part of nature. we are, but i view human species rather as a disease.

B.A.T.

I think that most people are fish keepers before they get into the genius behind aquascaping, at least thats how it was for me. I can see both sides of the story, but I have to agree with Steven on this one. Whether he claims to be an artist or a fish keeper he is actually both. Thats, perhaps, why they call it "living art". Being an aquascaper, to me, is in no way showing depreciation for the fish in the tank. If he doesn't appreciate the fish then why are they in his tank, just as healthy as anyone elses? Returning a fish to the store dosn't mean he depretiates it, it has the same chance with anyone else, just like it got with him. I have returned fish to the store too, and I don't see any problem with it. If I kept the hundreds of species that I desired to keep, I would have way too many to maintain and take care of. At least we give them the same opportunity they had before we purchased them, some people flush living fish down the toilet when they get tired of them (not joking). all of this leads me to beleive that aquascaping is not a form of disrespect to the creatures that inhabit the environment, but glorification, as the chosen fish are put there because the scape makes them look really good. Aquascapes are usually as healthy or healthier than most other tanks as it has come down to a precise science that requires much attention to small details in water quality etc.. C02 does exist in nature you know, maybe not in such concentrated quantities, but captive raised fish have come a long way and can adapt to almost any water so long as it is within certain perimeters. If the goal of aquascaping is for the tank to look good and be healthy, which it has to be to thrive, why would someone put in fish that looked bad because they were sick. If someone can have a healthy living masterpeice with all the aspects of the hobby converging to create joy and entertainment then I see absolutely no problem with it.

Steven_Chong

Suporphan-- Edit: On second thought this is enough:

Oh, that's really really depressing. I'm sorry to hear you feel that way about people.


B.A.T-- nice

After all, it's best not to send my own thread off topic.