How does nature work?

Hello all,

I just recently came back from an awsum trip to Thailand where I went on a long tail boat ride on one of the rivers in Bangkok. During our trip we stopped for a second or two to check out a seriously large school of what appeared to be large healthy Pangasius catfish feeding on the surface. Now what amazes me is the fact that this river was surrounded by houses who's waste went directly into the river(high amonia I would imagine), the water was a solid brown colour and there was a constant barage of boats causing noise pollution and petrol and all sorts. Not to mention the litter floating around etc.

Now my question is how does nature work that it lets fish still seem to thrive in those conditions yet when we try our best to give them the healthiest enviroment possiable we still manage to kill them on occasion?

 

Easy... the fish are there 1stly because the Thai people.being Budhist have a great reverance for all life... you will often see them tossing scraps to the fish... It's good Dharma..

as for water quality ? It's a river...polutants get washed downstream - also remember that it flows - bringing oxygen rich water to a massive bacteria population that clings to every available surface - rocks,sand,the pier in tha back ground etc... of the river.. Murky water does not mean bad water quality btw...

 

@azurekoi, Jeez it just goes to show how incrediable nature is then hey and how hard a task it is to try mimic it correctly! You were spot on with tossing scraps in too. thats what they were feeding on. Thanks for the explantion! Thought it would be to do with what you explained but still would have thought that there would have been some sort of impact.

ps- I know murky water doesnt mean its bad water but my point is just that we try to give our fish the almost perfect condtions, that being said do you not think that by not having murky water( as in a natural enviroment for certain fish) that we are sometimes doing our fish harm? Never really thought of it that way before.

 

lol....personally I feel the calm nature of the Thai people and their good dharma has something to do with it too...:blink1:

 

Yeah I must say everyone was super friendly and welcoming. Was very impressed.Plus they all graft!

 

@CharlieB, You lucky thing. I would love to take a trip to Thailand it has to be one of the most amazing places in the world.

You were fortunate enough to see a fairly large school of decent sized Pangasius, but I must admit that at some of their fishing lodges I've seen these fish up to 8ft in length. It must have been quite exciting to see some of our 'aquarium fish' in the wild....

 

@Skye01 yeah the trip was amazing! I saw about 4 or 5 schools like the pics but non as big as you say! It was very cool. the driver pointed them out to us and when we popped up next to the fish I was like hey! I know those fish haha!

 

The best part was actually seeing them not scared and swimming into the glass every 5 mins.

 

@Skye01 imagine seeing a school of neons or white clouds in their natural habitat? That i think is something to experience...

 

Lol now thats funny, thanks for sharing your experience with us, we can always try to mimic nature but we will never perfect it.

 

How does nature work: I promise you if you did a 100 or so 100% water changes a day you could take a leak in your tank, ANYTIME!