Very common and extremely lethal (to your wallet) not enough has been discussed in regards to MTS, so I the self proclaimed arbiter of truth will shed light on this very serious condition affecting aquarists all over the world.
Im joking…mostly
What is it?
A condition that causes hobbyist to go from their first aquarium to their 9th very quickly, affects fish keepers and aquascapers alike. Only known cure is B.R.O.K.E or spouse aggression; symptoms include but not limited to: spending their entire weekend doing water changes and trimming, staring at their tanks for hours and incessantly talking about the plants, fish and aquascape to uninterested loved ones.
Livingscape Architech
With so many varieties of plants, aquascape and fish species available to us in the hobby it’s difficult to keep everything that interests us in just 1 aquarium, some species are aggressive, or require different parameters, maybe you like the look of that plant but it has special requirements etc whatever the reason may be, it’s not difficult to see how our little interest can quickly bloom out of hand.
For me it’s variety and challenge of the hobby that captivates me, my interest is to grow the most difficult and rare plants in the hobby while also trying different aquascape styles.
Different styles, different parameters and most importantly different plants! my aquascapes are snapshots of my interpretation of nature, living paintings that evolve and develop not only through biological process by also my skill as a hobbyist.
Try saying that in person without sounding pretentious…
The Problem (my perspective)
At the height of my experimental phase I had 17 aquariums in operation, some were fish only and others were planted, this became a problem when I was spending more of my time doing maintenance than enjoying the hobby and it was especially worse when I stopped spending time with friends and family…..actually that part was pleasant, I still dream about not interacting with friends and family sometimes.
Here is the crazy thing…I wasn’t enjoying it..it became a routine and every time I saw a new scape on Youtube, or blogs etc I would buy another tank and ‘try’ to recreate what I saw….quickly failed and the cycle would begin a new.
I remember the moment when I decided to go in-depth towards planted tanks and aquascaping, I was deciding to either buy a Silver Arowana or a Co2 system.
– Hugh Jackman, probably
For me at least, I had so many tanks because none of them kept me captivated long enough. It was when I started to really learn about plant growth that I began to sell off my spare tanks and focused on quality/depth over quantity, and naturally the time I have to spend on maintenance dropped dramatically.
Even now I’m thinking about selling my 2x 6ft tanks and setup a 4ft tank to make this..
I want fewer tanks with greater levels of mastery. 6Ft is really hard to aquascape, the depths, the Co2 injection etc, it’s just a lot more difficult. I cut down my time on maintenance and expenditure into the hobby when I began to specialise is what I’m saying here….and I found the hobby to be considerably more rewarding once I did.
What am I talking about?
While it may be tempting to buy lots of different tank’s, its more responsible if you set up each tank with the intention to master it, either breeding fish, aquascaping or biotope setups, you can save yourself a great deal of money, space, time and headache if you approach the hobby with a purpose.
What I’ve been doing and What I plan to do
I’ve spent the majority of my hobby trying to accomplish a low maintenance approach to planted aquariums and later on I focused on Dutch style aquascape and the cultivation of rare and beautiful plants.
Recently I’ve been thinking of expanding my hobby into ‘Aquascaping’, while one of my focus up to this point has been cultivating extremely demanding plants, world championship aquascapes don’t necessarily use difficult plants, it’s about composition and beauty- often times they use simple plants but arranged really well.
Like Marian Sterian inspired me to level up my game with ‘Wrath of beauty’ , recently I’ve been seeing a lot of aquascapes that’s sparked my interest, and with my understanding of plant cultivation I think thats the next direction I want to go!
South Scape Aquatica 