Learn how to build a natural aquarium that thrives with minimal maintenance. Discover the origins of this approach.
Lou Foxwell, known as Father Fish, is a pioneer of fishkeeping and the creator of the Father Fish Method. This approach to planted aquariums focuses on building balanced, self-sustaining ecosystems using soil substrates and natural processes. By observing the balance in nature, hobbyists can create environments that require less effort and fewer water changes than traditional methods.
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All clips and images are used for illustration purposes only. Learn how the natural aquarium approach changed the hobby forever. This video explores the foundational book behind the method.
There are a lot of ways to think about this hobby,
but there's one aspect to it that I have had,
and I believe many of you have had, for as long as you've had fish.
I call it the burn. You see a fish
in a shop, and the burn sets in.
You have to have that fish. The burn.
It's an excitement. It's a celebration. It's a joy.
It's an all-encompassing emotion that takes over
and drives you almost like an ambition
to acquire, to maintain,
and if possible, to breed that fish.
Why do you keep them?
Some people say it's playing God.
I don't think so.
I think it's exactly what God gave us fish
for, not to play him,
but to play with companions.
It's not quite like having a dog or a cat, but it
is accepting the responsibility for maintaining
the happiness and the health of a living animal.
To be able to watch it, to observe it,
to interact with it, to be able to treat it well.
Not as a friend exactly,
but certainly as a kind of a little brother or little sister.
As somebody you care for and take care
of and want to be happy and want to be healthy.
I believe that keeping tropical fish
is a life skill.
It's something we learn
to do because it's important to do.
It's important to be able to provide the kind
of nurturing environment that makes it possible
for little creatures to grow and thrive.
I cannot tell you how many children come
into my shop and become thrilled
and ecstatic about fish.
They acquire them, they learn to take care of them,
and over the years they become really, really good at it.
Now many of them, once they marry,
start acquiring other kinds of animals.
They learn to care for hamsters and rabbits and snakes
and fish and turtles and all sorts of critters
until there's a pregnancy
and then until there's a baby.
And when that happens, most of those charges come back to live
in my shop, and I find new young people to care for them.
The person who, as a child, learned to care for other animals
is now caring for other people, caring for babies, for children.
they've become a nurturing person and as soon as
as soon as their children are old enough, it's back to
the fish tank, it's a way of sharing that quality
of life with their children, that special skill
that life skill that's
so vital to learn to care, learn
to provide healthy happy growing thriving
environment for other living things. Why do you do it?
Because it's in your nature. It's in your
nature to care. And not just to care
as an abstract sensation of feeling, an attitude,
but as a behavior, as something you actually do.
Not as an idea or a concept, but as an experience.
and something that fills your life with a meaning
and a value and a joy and a celebration
that makes your life something more than it would have been.
So keep your fish.
Keep them happy.
Keep them healthy.
And keep them in a spirit of love.
And you will be rewarded a thousandfold.
This is Father Fish preaching at you one more time.
