much like among the human community I would like to bring attention to fat fish (to put it frankly). I have thought about this topic for a while. this is what I have gathered from my thinking and observing my tanks.
first of all fish get tired. many people are hesitant to give their fish strong currents because they see their fish acting tired. I noticed this with the fish in my 75 G when I added the FX5 but now the fish swim in that tank as if there was no current rushing 600 gph of water and I when as far as to add a 280 gph power head. I noticed that fish in my tank particularly the lamp eye seem more robust than that ones in stores .
this is a cichlid forum so I would like to bring your attention to the following videos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65mwzp6f ... ideo_title
I would recommend that you watch it all its great to see how fish we keep at home live in the wild. it helps us better cater to their needs
if you cant I have added a time
1:05 flag cichlids
at that time ^^ you will see flag cichlids living amongst pike. many of us would be hesitant to house these fish with pike who seem much more stream line than their flag cichlid cousins.
never the less they seem unphased by the strong current which would makes a mockery of filtration in our tanks
also
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cTMtnLCw ... ure=relmfu (same body of water)
at 1:10 you will see an apisto
many people keep apistos with hobs and very little current but here in this video they are living among all the other fish in the lake (taking advantage of some cover of course)
should we reconsider how much flow we use in our tanks? that is what I want to bring up to discussion with fellow hobbyists with many times more experience than myself.
lastly I would like to recount a story of a gold fish I kept a while ago somewhat experimentally
I gave him to my friend who fed them a diet of turtle food and who knows what else after wards I returned him to my house (practically twice his size) and placed him in a tank with a current. at first I would dim the current at night to give him a break but once I forgot it on and I found that the fish had almost died of exhaustion. fish decedents of the carp revered for their strength in china, being tired by a simple filter!
after a while in the tank I would run the current all day and he was not bothered by it at all in fact you could begin to see muscles
because our currents in the fish tank are weaker than their native environments and because the fish will cover less distances a day (for obvious reasons their are confined in glass) I think fish keepers should re-think their ways of tank managing and take into account another category "flow" which could either be provided by the filter or by power heads.
thankyou for reading please tell me what you think
nicofish
if you have time check me out on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/user/nicofish1000
sorry if this is a little out there (not including catfish), but I feel it could have an application in keeping cats seeing how so many live in strong currents or cover distances many many many times larger (migratory cats) than what they would swim in a pond or fish tank.
please tell me what you think I value your opinions very much you have had much more experience in the hobby than I have and have probably already figured out what I am just starting to think about.
