"Marco Schwarz" wrote in message
...
Hi..

a good water change and tank maintenance regime is really
the answer to a lot of ills....you don't need to be a
chemist to know this....just a good fishkeeper....

[X] I agree but knowledge is important, too.

Is fish keeping rather an art or a science..?
Respectively is an excellent fish keeper an artist or a
scientist..? :-)

--
cu
Marco

When one has been the voo-doo laden n00bie
And has endured the 'read until eyes bleed' mission that it is to become an
amateur fish scientist
You often find that it all becomes more an art.
so see, smell, predict problems..... need to test much less (although may
continue to test way anyway)
So with the few ******* little urban fish myths still haunting me soul with
weird promises of great things in plant extracts and ancient voo-doo
spawning trigger rites and fetishes.
The scientist in me continues to try to put back together the ever changing
nightmare of knowledge you accumulate in this hobby. To make sense of the
fish web and assimilate others experience with my own.
But the fish smithing that pays for my bread..... it is more an art.
I have too many tanks to be testing them all and their loads change so much.
I focus like we all do on the problem tanks.
then I work backwards to find where the problems came from.
So I'd say a good fishkeeper is a ritual worshipping, common sense solution
seeking person who enjoys watching fish and is willing to learn how to look
after his charges.... even if it basically means relearning everything over
and over again as our knowledge changes.