ulster exile
Member
I love the idea of a planted tank, but I also love the idea of a community tank, however I find balancing the two together difficult sometimes and I wonder if it is truly possible to excel at either aquascaping or fishkeeping without having to sacrifice the other (I'm not talking fish on a stone altar here ).
For example - I have changed the look of my large tank once in favour of a more 'aquascaped' look as opposed to just having plants in there along with the fish, but I couldn't do exactly what I wanted because I'd nowhere really to put the fish and even if I had, I wasn't keen on stressing them. Now, I'm not for one minute suggesting that I'm crap at this because I don't want to stress the fish (I'm crap because I'm crap!), but there's an element of truth there. And I can't help but think of the people who change scapes regularly.
Similarly, my corys showed some spawing behaviour recently after a period of good feeding and a weekend of a lowered water level and as they aren't quite as easy to breed as the usual aeneus, I want to encourage this. But to do so, I've turned my CO2 off because I've dropped the water level below my spraybar to simulate rainy season conditions and I'll be doing frequent cool water changes for a while, so I see no need to waster the CO2 if it's going to be driven off anyway. However, this means I'll be risking the wrath of algae (again), so I'm sort of sacrificing the needs of my plants for my fish.
So what do you true Aquascapers feel about your fish and this hobby? Are you in it for the plants and the 'scapes with fish being an accessory, or do you try and balance things more evenly?
For example - I have changed the look of my large tank once in favour of a more 'aquascaped' look as opposed to just having plants in there along with the fish, but I couldn't do exactly what I wanted because I'd nowhere really to put the fish and even if I had, I wasn't keen on stressing them. Now, I'm not for one minute suggesting that I'm crap at this because I don't want to stress the fish (I'm crap because I'm crap!), but there's an element of truth there. And I can't help but think of the people who change scapes regularly.
Similarly, my corys showed some spawing behaviour recently after a period of good feeding and a weekend of a lowered water level and as they aren't quite as easy to breed as the usual aeneus, I want to encourage this. But to do so, I've turned my CO2 off because I've dropped the water level below my spraybar to simulate rainy season conditions and I'll be doing frequent cool water changes for a while, so I see no need to waster the CO2 if it's going to be driven off anyway. However, this means I'll be risking the wrath of algae (again), so I'm sort of sacrificing the needs of my plants for my fish.
So what do you true Aquascapers feel about your fish and this hobby? Are you in it for the plants and the 'scapes with fish being an accessory, or do you try and balance things more evenly?