“坦克” - 一剂不容纳水的现实

Like many hobbyists, I decided to check out the Animal Planet reality series, “Tanked” last night. Rather than getting caught up in the negative “pre-smack talk” about the show, I decided to actually看它在提出意见之前。所以， …Okay,well, where do I begin?首先，作为一名铁杆礁石业余爱好者，我知道该节目必须对非养生者群众有些“愚蠢”。我忽略了这一点。我知道，每天做什么的许多细节都会被掩盖，因为它可能不会让引人注目的电视观看男人进行pH测试。我忽略了这一点。我知道，将包括古怪的滑稽动作以及许多大喊大叫的荒谬，以提供娱乐价值。节目的“星星”已经有自己的Geico广告。我忽略了这一点。

面对现实吧。Wayde King和ATM的Brett Raymer是非常有才华的人，他们建立了一家出色的业务，为客户提供了梦想的水族馆。这些家伙勇敢！他们从我的男人贾斯汀（Justin）那里得到牲畜，这是一个很大的优势！他们生产独特，建造良好且非常适合其客户的水族馆展示（我的意思是，不是everyonewants an aquarium in a telephone booth…). Sure, most of these aquariums would leave a serious hobbyist scratching their heads, but I don’t think that we’re their target market.

What disturbed me was not anything that I saw the guys do (okay, provoking a puffer fish or lifting a tang out of the water is lame- I don’t care who you are). It was what they did NOT appear to do. It’s the way their work was portrayed by the producers and editors. When the show portrays a complicated tank build being done in what appears to be a matter of hours, and then being filled with tap water, salt mix and…in one instance, ice cubes, then stocked to the max with crazy assortment of fishes right away, Ihave想知道。是生产者试为了增加世界上每个严重的水族馆业余爱好者的血压吗？

The impression that this portrayal of the aquarium world leaves on the general public or the inexperienced hobbyist is that you can have an “instant aquarium”, filled with a large population of fishes right from day one. Fish are fun and easy!氮循环？什么氮循环？这些人担心“鱼类只能再在袋子里再几个小时”，而安装一个非常昂贵的水族馆只提出了一个问题。为什么在地狱anyonewould bring out the fishes before the aquarium build was completed in the first place?

哪种负责的水族师用自来水充满水族馆，将盐混合，然后将鱼扔进去？是的！我很想看到有关这些鱼实际上在第一周真正捕捉到的统计数据。当您考虑这些系统几乎没有可见生物学支持的方式（没有活岩或活沙）时，这种“练习”就更加惊人。

Although I commend the guys for indulging a client and building a (permanent) quarantine system, I can’t help but think that this installation was just to give the wealthy client another big group of fishes to look at. So little time was spent explaining the design or merits of a quarantine system or process that it just felt “unclean” to me.

Okay, let’s face it- a lot of the things we hardcore hobbyists do are probably not all that interesting to the rest of the world… Tweaking calcium reactors and playing with our electronic controllers…Maybe we’d make for dull television. However, portraying aquariums as eye-popping wonders requiring no understanding or patience on the part of the consumer is just not responsible. As an aquarium professional, the hardest thing for me to reconcile is my own values versus the clients’ perception of the aquarium as a piece of “kinetic art”. This show did little to dispel that thinking, unfortunately.

So, to summarize. Really talented aquarium fabricators. Annoying clients. Staged hilarity and hijinx. Little emphesis on technique. Producers and editors portrayed the guys as a bit too much into “the big idea” and not enough into the art of aquaristics. Missed opportunities. “Tanked”, ahem- 坦克。

从好的方面来说 - 我了解到金鱼没有胃！

最好的部分 - 贾斯汀！希望他们让他说更多。除了拥有coolest头发，他是演出中最有才华的人。地狱 - 给贾斯汀自己的表演！

我要出去了。下一集“动物ho积者”现在开始，其次是“乡下人手钓鱼”和“美国斩波器”。芯片和蘸酱在哪里？

直到下一次…

Stay Wet

斯科特·费尔曼（Scott Fellman）

facebook.com/scott.fellman