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It's not saying to not watch your fish @all. Tanks shouldn't be a throw away toy. Most people watch tv because they've got nothing better to do, or simply for background noise. It's just there. No one cares if there's nothing good on they watch it anyway. They flip thru thousands and thousands of channnels to find something thats good. They buy dvd's record movies ect ect ect all in a effort to get that instant fix.
The point of saying a tank is not a tv is that you can't just put in a DVD of fish swimming into your tank and get your instant fix. Fish take time and care, and if all you're after is that quick fix....well there are plenty of sites out there with "free" aquarium screensavers.

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It only hurts when I breathe"

We watch our fish all the time. The other night Shannen and I started to watch a movie and we ended up having to turn it off because we got so caught up in watching the fish behave. I have four tanks in my bedroom alone and when I am in there, I love to just sit and watch all of my lil fishies, it is so soothing to me. Just as much as some people love to garden or build model cars. There is nothing wrong with watching your fish, that's part of the reason we get so sucked into this hobby.

Listen guys, Cali only meant (like was already said above) that it is not a hobby that you can just turn on and off. It takes maintenance. Sometimes daily depending on what kind of set up you have. It's not a hobby that you should just take lightly and when you don't like the show that's on you change the chanell (or flush a fish you don't want anymore). It takes knowledge and respect. It is not plug and play. It is science.

Then maybe you should do a little more with your life than watch fish dude

Personally, even though this wasnt aimed at me, I take offence to this. Why keep fish if you dont watch them?
In fact, those people who look at their fish once in awhile amaze me. Isnt that the reason we get fish to begin with???
Even though I have a very busy life (full time university student), and have other pets, I have found that my fish tanks (espescially my 90g), have replaced the television in my life. I no longer watch tv, except maybe 3-4 hours a week, and instead devote that time to my fish. I call it my "unwinding" time.
In fact I believe that more people who "do more with their time than watch fish" should maybe watch their fish more. Life is not so important that we shouldnt take time to enjoy the little things that count more than 9-5 jobs and more than all the stress and capitalism of our urban global reality causes us.
For some of us, such as myself, who lives in a basement suite with no yard, and is in school 90% of the daylight hours and many of the evening ones as well, or inside studying/writing 3000 word essays/reading/sleeping, the fish give us a chance to reconnect with nature, and espescially for people who live in large urban centers where there is no nature. Nature is an important part in all humans (believe it or not), and keeping aquariums is like taking a tiny microcosm of the natural world into our rat races of lives and enjoying something simpler, more beautiful, and more real than 100% of the "reality" we see on TV.


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Then maybe you should do a little more with your life than watch fish dude.

Just read your article Cali... that was deep. Real deep. Very well said. I think Mr. Victim here just took the title of your thread out of context. You keep on, keeping on man.

Since I started this, it's only fair that I come in here.

The full exposition of my views (which are shared by quite a few here) is found in this article. Read and digest thoroughly. It's a cultural point I'm making apart from anything else.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

I don't think folks mean to say that fish aren't entertaining -

Only that you don't need to take care of your TV for it to be healthy, if you don't like it and want to throw it in the dumpster or neglect it or give it bad conditions that will shorten it's useful life --- then you will need to buy a new TV when it breaks, but most folks here wouldn't care.

If you neglect a fish or put your viewing needs as a priority over the needs of the fish, then your fish will get sick or be unhappy or die and most folks on this site would make a definite moral judgement about that.

I think everyone on this site loves to watch fish and finds them entertaining - but they are much more than a TV - they are living creatures in your care.

I think that's what they mean. Hope that helps.

As far as entertainment goes, yes that is true about my tanks:%) What I figured people meant by saying fish are tv's is that you can't just turn it off, and forget about it for a couple of weeksthen come back and expect it to work like it did previously. As fish require work, and the tv is just there when you want it...that's my 2 cents on the matter--Heidi

"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." Thomas Carlyle