I do agree with you that most reefkeepers of the day are caught up in the I have the latest new gizmo or the most expensive hard to find coral on the market syndrome.
I agree. So much is written about controllers, skimmers, reactors, test kits, LEDs etc. that people lose track of the most important aspect of this hobby, which is keeping these animals healthy. If we are not feeding correctly no amount of gizmo's will help.
I am fed up to here (my hand is under my chin) with people asking about ways to train a fish such as a mandarin how to eat pellets, corn flakes, Cheerios, TV dinners etc. The fish was designed to eat pods or something that is about the same as a pod and little else. If we understood their digestive system we would realize it is not built like us. It can't eat a T Bone steak in the morning or a bunch of pellets and be fine for the rest of the day. It barely has a stomach as it doesn't need one which is the reason it eats a pod every 8 seconds. Mandarins are one of the easiest, least maintenance, disease resistant fish there is if we just let it eat what it was designed to eat. Copperband butterflies are another one. They were designed to eat live things such as worms, not pellets or some freeze dried concoction and even if we teach it (or force it ) to eat pellets, it probably will not live on them for 10 or 15 years like a fish such as that is supposed to live.
Speaking of fish longevity virtually all of the fish we normally keep with the exception of seahorses, pipefish and some small gobies or cardinals live at least 10 or 12 years with fish such as tangs, angels and even clowns living into their twenties. Keeping a fish like a copperband for 3 or 4 years is like a human living to be a teenager. If we can't or won't feed a fish what it was designed to eat, I feel we should not buy it and leave it for someone who could take care of it. How many people buy a Moorish Idol because it was eating flakes in the store? I have been keeping them for 40 years and they all ate flakes, they would eat cardboard if you put clam juice on it but Moorish Idols have other problems besides food.
Of course gadgets can make our life easier and we all have them, but we should not lose track of the fact that the fish don't really care how much we spend on technology. They just want to eat and spawn. Which brings me to the last part of this rant. If you have two fish, male and female and they are not spawning, those fish are not very healthy. All healthy fish spawn and they do it all the time. My clown gobies spawn every two weeks or less as do most of my fish. No, copperbands, tangs, angels and other egg scatters normally will not spawn in a common home aquarium as it is just to small for them. But most other fish including mandarins, pipefish, clowns, gobies, seahorses and cardinals will.
When someone (including myself) posts that a certain fish spawned, most people will be amazed and congratulate them. But that is what fish normally do and what they should do, and they will if we feed them what they are supposed to eat, not what we have at the moment. OK, I'm done. :israel:
