PART 21: CREATING THE ULTIMATE BOWL FISH!

<< Previous I am not a creator, anyway, in this context. I am just a keeper, a facilitator and a researcher to a certain extent. When I decided to get started with my Fish-Keeping hobby again, I evaluated my infrastructure. I learnt that I did not have enough space and a good stand | table to support a full-sized | regular-sized aquarium (Minimum gross capacity: 40 Liters). So, I wanted to go ahead with a more compact and inexpensive alternative. The alternative was a Fishbowl. I went for a Fishbowl and then, another. Later, I realized that it was not a great decision.

Eventually, I wanted to, kind of, reverse-engineer my decision. I went for a Fishbowl, and not a regular-sized aquarium, because it (a Fishbowl) was a suitable option as far as my infrastructural parameters were concerned! However, a Fishbowl was never a great piece of infrastructure for many kinds of fishes and many sizes of fish population, I realized later. The natural next on my part was thinking through the story from the other end of it. Given that I had a couple of Fishbowls, what kind of fish and what size of their population would be the most suitable for a Fishbowl was the question in my mind. I did some reading and research. And, I could eventually identify the fishes (types | varieties) suitable or ideal for a Fishbowl. It was not that difficult a task.

However, there were a few constraints | concerns.

1. Most of those ideal fish-varieties were not available in the local fish-stores.

2. Many of those ideal fish-varieties I did not really like based on the following factors:

            A. Size (The smaller, the better!)

            B. Appearance (It must be beautiful, as per my definition of beauty!)

            C. Activity | Energy Level (How active is that kind of fish?)

            D. Usual dwelling-level in the aquarium (Top | Middle – I liked | Bottom)

            E. Livebearer or Not (I really wanted Livebearers)

            F. Cold Tolerance Level (I wanted those that could tolerate cold water well)

            G. Aggression Level (How good is the fish-type for a community tank?)

            H. Required care-level (How easy it is to care for the fish-type?)

            I. My knowledge-level (How much do I know about that fish-type?)

            J. Ease of Availability and Replacement (How easily the fish type is found?)

            K. Hardiness (A wanted a hardy fish-variety.)

            L. Diet of the fish-type (The more varieties of food it is compatible with, the better!)

            M. Ease of breeding (To make my Fishbowl truly sustainable!)
            N. Its ability to live on Green-algae (It must be one that loves eating Green-algae)

Based on all the factors | constraints mentioned above, I chose Platy to create my Ultimate Bowl Fish with.

Here is my theory of “How to create the ultimate Bowl Fish?”.  This theory aims at addressing the process of creating a fish-population that is really suitable for a Fishbowl. The very first question here is: Is it really possible to create a fish-population that is indeed suitable for a Fishbowl? And, my answer to that question is a BIG YES! And, how do we go about doing it? As I admitted earlier, I am not really a CREATOR, anyway, in this context. So, I cannot really create a new species. I can only facilitate the creation of a new generation of an existing species that is truly suitable for a Fishbowl environment.

I am not an expert in the area of Fish Genetics. However, I believe, the varieties of fishes usually available in the aquarium trade carry a large portion of the genes that they (their ancestors) carried many generations back when they were in nature and were not exposed to selective breeding in captivity. Fishes, over many generations, like many other animals, continuously evolve and make themselves more adaptable to their environment. However, that evolution and adaptation does not happen overnight. It takes a few generations for those adaptions and instances of evolution to surface. With this set of assumptions and beliefs, I theorized a simple process to create the ultimate Bowl Fish. I named the process DPM’s Natural Adaptation Technique (DNA Tech). The steps involved in DPM’s Natural Adaptation Technique are discussed next. NEXT >>  << Previous

PART 21: CREATING THE ULTIMATE BOWL FISH! by Debi Prasad Mahapatra is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.