What's natural?

[TaffyFish]

"Natural" as an adjective is used a lot on this site, particularly on the RMT board. What do people mean when they use it?

When you bear in mind that the aquarium is an artificial environment and that anything created within it is wholly contrived by the owner it cannot satisfy either of these possible definitions:-

1. existing in or caused by nature
2. uncultivated, wild

But maybe a third definition:-

3. lifelike, as if in nature

So if the third definition meets your meaning where do you draw a line in what appears to you to be "as if in nature"?

a. use of artificial plants, rocks, plant pots or other decor
b. visibility of technical equipment (heaters, filters, filter pipework, electrical wiring, uplift tubes, thermometers)
c. a biotope correct planting scheme and livestock list
d. any use of real plants and driftwood
e. an aesthetically pleasing composition
f. another set of criteria

This is left way open to interpretation and for personal opinions to be aired, as such there are no wrong answers just people's views.

 

[Lotus]

Interesting subject, Taffy!

I'm thinking that when people say "natural" they mean that it doesn't look like it was purposely aquascaped, or perhaps that it's not symmetrical.

I am guessing few of us have been diving in the Amazon etc. (I know some members have, but many of us haven't). I'm pretty sure not many of our tanks look similar to the reality.

I think real plants go a long way in making a tank look less manufactured. Since I planted the tanks, I believe my fish are happier (of course, that's just my perception), and my eye no longer finds fake plants attractive.

I sometimes wish I had the patience and ability to really go for a biotope, which I assume would be more like nature.

Of course, all our fish are living in little glass boxes, which really is in no way their "natural" habitat.

 

[phantomfe3]

when i hear people talk about natural, i think of tanks with unpainted gravel, driftwood, and real looking if not live plants, just like on the bottom of a lake. however, most lakes have more of a rocky or a mucky bottom, which sometimes cannot be recreated in smaller tanks.


right now im working on getting my scuba license and i plan to buy my own equipment and go scuba diving in all the lakes around here. where i live i have about 7 lakes in a 10 mile radius, so ill have lots to explore im also working on a 'natural' 10 gallon tank, with all naturally lake collected gravel, lake collected driftwood, lake collected plants, and a couple lake collected other things, like maybe a crayfish or some small minnows

 

[ecotank]

I have been diving in lakes, rivers and oceans all over the world, and I haven't seen a tank that would capture the term "natural" 100%.

However, many tanks are set up to simulate the natural environment closer than others, and I am pretty sure that is how the term is to be used for the aquaria.

I don't know of many fish that spend their entire life in a 2 ft area in the wild, so all we can hope to do is use that area to create a section of their natural surroundings. The landscape in a river, lake or ocean can drastically change in a few feet, so there is little chance to cover each type of envoronment exactly.

I also haven't come accross blue gravel or flourescent rocks and fake plants in the wild, so I tend to keep these out of my tanks, I can't create a truly natural environment, but I don't want my fish to think they live at Disneyland either

 

[mariners]

to me natural in an aquarium is where the colour of the substrate is more like that of your local lake/beach area, if you know a lake were the substrate is green then yeah i suppose that could be natural but not very likely. Also natural to me is having decorations that don't include, a castle that bubbles, or bright yellow cabomba style plants.

 

[Cichlid-Man]

I say Natural a lot. And good subject taffy.

When i use "Natural" i am usually using it because i see nothing that is man made. No little bubbling divers or castles .

 

[steve535]

to me natural would be "what i see if i stuck my head in Lake Malawi". trying to create a microcosm of your fishes original habitat to the best of your ability/resources.real plants over plastic, earth tone instead of pink gravel, and no artificial sweeteners.
echotank we have a lake about 45 miles from us that has a copper ore bottem.it looks like cheesy blue aquarium gravel.no plant life or fish in it at all.

 

[anthoeny]

When I think of something being "natural" I think of how something looks untouched my man, or anything manmade. In aquaria, I guess it is safe to say then that the term natural does not precisely exist. The whole idea of an aquarium in itself is manmade...ever heard of a lion with a pet fish?
It's just a comparison to what we would like to encapture in the artificial environments we create. If we describe something as looking "natural", that is stating we feel whatever we are describing exemplifies the ideals of nature and the unadorned world.

 

[ecotank]

Originally posted by steve535
we have a lake about 45 miles from us that has a copper ore bottem.it looks like cheesy blue aquarium gravel.no plant life or fish in it at all.

Well then I have seen a few "natural" tanks posted online if held to that standard. But a tank with no plants and no fish just isn't appealing to me, so I'll stick to live plants, driftwood, rocks and natural looking substrate.

I guess there is probably someplace with purple and pink rocks laying on the bottom, just not sure I wanna dive there or make my tank look like it, but check out the area around Three Mile Island if you really want to find something different to mold your tank after

 

[Cichlid-Man]

the only "Non natural" tank setup i like is a BB Discus tank. But there you tend to focus more on the fish than the tank itself.

 

[Flex26]

To me, "natural" means a man-made environment that is similar to the fish's "natural" habitat in the wild. What that means, I have no idea....

So, what if the fish's "natural" habitat has old rusting bicycles, shopping carts, cars, concrete slabs, sewage pipes (like in Finding Nemo)....basically completely man-made stuff. If you put the fish (from the man-made environment) into an environment without the man-made stuff, is the new environment really "natural"??

 

[steve535]

echotank its a small world that you mention TMI.my wife worked for Burns & Row at the time of the meltdown.they were the contractors that built the cooling stacks.they offered everyone big $ to go and try to sort things out.they had big layoffs after that.the fish get real big in that part of Pennsylvania.

 

[Cichlid-Man]

TMI.....isn't that where Bam and his friends spent 24hrs at? Them and Don Vito on Viva La Bam? hehehe

 

[catfishmike]

i see natural as a combination of,eye pleasing aesthetics,a less than symmetrical layout of decoration and plants,and a genuine attempt to replicate a paticular enviroment within reason.that means that plants,that look similar to what would be native can be used,rock doesn't have to be the exact color, or the wood doesn't have to be the exact kind of tree in the native enviroment.
the one thing i find is that in real world aquatic enviroments,there seems to be much less "aquascaping" and more open space instead.also lot's of mud and boring brown rock.

 

[TaffyFish]

The responses have been diverse which is much as I expected, it means different things to different people. I think there’s a consensus that a “natural” tank would exclude most man-made items, certainly:-

kitsch décor like divers and castles
brightly coloured rockwork and gravel
plastic plants, at least the very unrealistic ones

However I don’t think we would rule out the most convincing resin rockwork pieces or the artificial backgrounds as made by Back-to-Nature and Pangea. So quality must come into play here, man-made is not ruled out so long as it’s visually convincing.

Real plants and driftwood featured strongly in the replies, sometimes it had to be right for the fishes’ original environment but mostly if it was real it was OK. Most of us therefore draw a line way before biotope correctness.

The creation of a biotope, where all elements in the aquarium contribute towards a representation of a wild environment, is viewed as an ideal. But there were some interesting comments about the man-made elements found in many “natural” environments. To illustrate this, there’s an aquarium nearby with a River Ganges display, complete with the stone steps, broken earthenware and other objects consequential of many hundreds of years of man’s sharing of that habitat. I thought the Boesmani rainbowfish were out of place but I might be wrong. There’s also a marine harbour scene complete with sunken boats, buoys, old rope and rusting anchors. It is an accurate biotope yet it is stuffed with man-made objects!

A couple of responses considered that the aquascaping should not appear symmetrical or obviously tended. This must reflect the guidelines for underwater gardening that are produced by Amano and his ilk. Nature paints with a broad brush, so fewer species of plants but more of them is the most satisfying. Nothing looks more unnatural to me than the dolly mixture approach to planting and livestocking.

The thing that jars most with me, more even than bubbling divers (!) are heaters, cables, filter pipework, thermometers etc. I see an awful lot of them in so-called show tanks, where the owner has made no effort to obscure them from view. This hardly got a mention in the above responses either. Why go to such great lengths with tank layout yet completely disregard the most eyecatchingly unnatural objects? Perhaps that Ebo-jager was so expensive it has to be on full display. Perhaps most people just don’t see the technical equipment.

 

[Purple]

Living in the countryside and working in a city of 12 million people gives me an acute awareness of the contrast - but I find it hard to express that feeling in words that can be 'absolute'. The diversity of man-made environments will always contradict any generalities.

Then there are two concepts to consider - and they are quite different. The tank creators perception of what is natural, and the fishes view point. We'll leave Mother Nature herself out of it for now, or it really will get confusing.

As creators, I think that we can only answer for our own ideals and visions (and taste) when it comes to defining 'natural'.

 

[ecotank]

I often wonder if my fish are happy with the "natural" habitat we have created for them? They seem to be happy, but how can we really know?

And if my loaches were reintroduced to the wild...would they be pissed off because they can't see the TV anymore?

 

[TaffyFish]

As you mention Mother Nature, Purple, it reminds of the joke about the gardener and the priest. The priest is commenting on how wonderful the garden is looking and congratulates the gardener on what he, and the good Lord, have managed to achieve together.

"I don't know so much" says the gardener, "you should have seen the state of the place when he had it to himself!"

Nice one, ecotank! My tret never misses the Simpsons.

Seriously though, I don't think a fish can separate natural from unnatural, much less convert that perception to joy or sadness. IMHO they care less whether the cave is made of rock, resin or terracotta, it simply assesses its suitability to provide a home or spawning site. Not sure whether they care if the gravel if blue or earth toned either - the aesthetics reside with the observer not the occupants and we project our emotions onto the fish. I think there's a lot of fanciful rubbish spoken by some owners about their pets.

 

[Flex26]

Originally posted by TaffyFish

As you mention Mother Nature, Purple, it reminds of the joke about the gardener and the priest. The priest is commenting on how wonderful the garden is looking and congratulates the gardener on what he, and the good Lord, have managed to achieve together.

"I don't know so much" says the gardener, "you should have seen the state of the place when he had it to himself!"

Hehe - That's a good one. I never really looked at it like that. I would imagine the same probably applies to aquariums!