Eliminate Tank Clutter. Please!

<rant>

Why is it that aquarium hobbyists have such an eye for beauty, will often sit for hours enthralled by the lovely spectacle of their fish or plants or inverts, but somehow develop an apparently blind eye to all the crap in their tanks?

I don’t get it.

Even many pets shops are guilty of this - some “Mom and Pop”s can be the worst! You walk in and see beautiful, healthy fish, but the distraction of tubes, and hoses, and pumps, heater (and gosh-knows what other equipment!) sitting in, hanging on, and cluttered near the tank is enough to make anyone think twice about owning an aquarium.

On a recent reality TV show the lead moderator was trying to tell a contestant that he had come up with a grotesque (very, very weird) design, but also to explain to the contestant how it happened. He cleverly said,

“You know how you go in the monkey house at the zoo, and say - WOW, this stinks! But you really want to see the monkeys, so you stick it out. Pretty soon you are so amused by the monkeys, and have been walking around in the monkey house for so long, that you barely notice the smell. Well friend, you are LIVING in the monkey house!“

The contestant couldn’t even see the obvious any more - he’d been doing weird designs too long to be aware of how “different” they were anymore. And as soon as I heard that I thought,

“Wow! Many aquarium hobbyists are the same way about the equipment in and around their tanks.“

They just don’t see it anymore.

And it matters. Even if you don’t think you notice it, you do. Don’t believe me? Go pick up any book by Takashi Amano. After you get finished “oooh’ing” and “aaahhh’ing” over his gorgeous tanks, please consider this - there is no equipment to be seen. Or go pick up the Senskes’ book - The Inspired Aquarium. Simply gorgeous tanks. And in books by either of those authors (with rare exception), in and around their tanks you will see nary a wire, not a cord, not a pump, NOTHING to be found. Just fish, plants and water. Now that’s not all there is to making a beautiful tank. Far from it. But it is an ESSENTIAL element to achieving visually appealing aquatic design.

Now if you are completely self satisfied in your hobby, and take no value in what other people think about the aesthetics of your aquatic creations, then by all means - please ignore everything I’ve said. Your own willingness to put up with equipment, or your ability to ignore it, should be your only limitation. I’m sorry to have wasted your time - this does not apply to you.

But if you do care about what other people think, then this is something you might want to pay attention to. All most people want to see is water, plants, and animals. Anything else just blows the illusion of witnessing a little container of aquatic nature.

I’ll start a post soon to tell you how you can do this, if you are so inclined. It’s work. And compromises are almost inevitable. But there’s often room for significant improvement, if you try.

</rant>