Q
Aquarium
Decoration
I am a new hobbyist, 15 years
old, and I have a modern
aquarium made from cut glass, with colored
gravel. The fish are doing great, but some
of the members of my fish club have
encouraged me to get a “real” tank. To me,
my tank looks better than theirs, as you
can’t see their fish because of their plants.
Are you spotted as a beginner for having
my kind of tank?
Cameron Johnson
Alpine, California
A
People who have been in the
fish hobby for a while usually
like to have their tanks look
as natural as possible, so they
decorate them with driftwood, rocks, and
plants. This doesn’t always duplicate the
natural habitat, but it looks natural to us.
But I’m not sure that I would have become
interested in the hobby if I hadn’t known a
neighbor who had a 17-gallon tank of high
design. The tank was situated a little low,
just above knee level, and it was brightly
lit, with dyed green gravel. It also had a
burping clam shell. When I got my first tank,
I tried to duplicate it, even to the high design,
aquarium inhabitants, and the burping clam
shell. (The bubbles from the shell emphasized
the height of the tank as they moved up
through the water column.) It was nothing
short of dazzling, and I have on occasion
tried to duplicate it since then in my living
room or den. I sometimes received good-natured kidding about it, but even professional
aquarists from public aquariums would often
compliment it.
Of course, no one would call me a beginner,
as I still have near-Stone-Age air pumps and
other equipment. Part of the fun of keeping
fish tanks is decorating them to our tastes and
letting other people see them. I must confess
that the reaction of non-aquarists is often
quite different from the veteran aquarists, but
that’s okay—to each his own!
Q
Walking Catfish
Destruction
My walking catfish is
tearing up its tank. It is
difficult to even see the fish because he
constantly has the tank stirred up. Do
you have any suggestions for solving
this problem?
Helga Pond
Westwood, California
A
Walking catfish nearly became
extinct in the hobby several
years ago when they were
frequently headlined in the
news as an invasive species in Florida. Tales
were told of how these “walking catfish” were
loose in Florida, and they were eating people’s
small dogs and cats. The media hyped the
story shamelessly, and the public accepted
it uncritically—as we so often do with news
sources. In any case, the only truth to the
story was that the walking catfish Clarias
angolensis was loose in Florida. Of course,
they are able to traverse the terrain from one
water area to another because they have an
auxiliary structure for breathing air, and they
can maneuver across land, utilizing their stiff
pectoral fins to push themselves along. But
