I agree with much of what you say, but one of the great things about this hobby is that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to do it. I’ve been a hobbyist since I was a boy, and have seen hundreds of fish rooms over the years, and no two of them were alike.
I too have lived on both coasts, and for sure fish keeping was different in different places, but another factor is that the hobby changes over time. I was a student in New Jersey in the early 70’s, when the first Malawian cichlids started to be imported in numbers, and they took the hobby by storm, because we had never seen anything even vaguely like them. How can you ever forget the first time you saw one of these, which at the time was called
Pseudotropheus auratus-
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Tanganyikans followed shortly thereafter, totally different; no less mind-boggling. I knew several semi-professional breeders in the NY/NJ area at the time, and through them, came to know some of the importers, people like Jack Freiberg and others. New shipments from the lakes would arrive several times a month, each containing fishes that were not only new to the hobby, but new to science. It was an enormously exciting time, and suddenly my fish collection changed completely- the small tanks containing jewel-like dwarf cichlids were replaced by larger tanks containing Mbuna, Peacocks, and open-water haplochromines. Mouthbrooders all, another revelation.
Fast forward to the late 80’s. After 10 years in LA, where my involvement in the hobby was minimal, I moved to Seattle, and discovered a very active aquarist community. Great fish stores, like T
he Fish Store in Seattle, and even better, its namesake in Bellevue. Even chains like
Sierra Pets had all kinds of interesting fishes, including cichlids. Eventually a friend opened
A Place for Pets in Burien, and it became the go-to place for serious cichlidiots. I was breeding several different
Tropheus populations at the time, and supplying LFS’s with F1 and F2 fry. Obviously, there were no aquatic plants in my fish room.
All those great fish stores faded away over time, replaced by the large chains, and I lost my local outlets for tank-raised fry. I contracted my
Tropheus collection, and started breeding angels. Suddenly my tanks were full of plants, but only because the angels liked them. It was a genetic experiment, really, crossing wild-caught Peruvian females with black males in an attempt to reinvigorate the black germline. I obtained some stunning black angels, but like their wild parents, they were hyper-aggressive, and demanded large tanks. It would have taken a very long time to breed that out of the pedigree, so the experiment came to an end.
When I moved to North Kitsap in 2012, I was keeping only a few different kinds of
Tropheus. There was a great potential fish room in my new house, but I was horrified at the lack of fish stores in this area. A Petco in Poulsbo, a PetSmart in Silverdale, and that’s it? Wow. I met some local
Tropheus keepers online, then discovered this message board, and through it learned about all the different ways that Fishbox and GSAS members approach the hobby. It’s cool.
Back in the day, most ‘advanced’ aquarists were also specialists. Not so much today, obviously. The plant thing is also new- all the exotic plants, all the high-tech aquaculture. I greatly admire it, but for me it’s all about the fishes. I don’t do monster fishes, single-specimens, or all male tanks, because being a biologist, I want to observe and enjoy all the interesting behaviors of these fishes- territories, nest building, pair bonds, breeding, fry-rearing
At present, my fish room is about half
Tropheus, the Tanganyikan rock-dwellers, and half
Ophthalmotilapia/Xenotilapia/Enantiopus, the sand dwellers. The latter have allowed me to cultivate plants once again. Here is one of my tanks by way of example-
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Welcome to the Fishbox! There aren't many of us here, but we have fun.
I’ve ac
). Love your tanganyikan taste. I also like petros. By the way, also in north Kitsap.