[Jacob]

It seems that the abiotic approach is partially correct, because I’ve read books that say to heavily plant chocolate gourami tanks, and that “natural” approach is not actually possible if it is a true blackwater tank. (Many sources don’t really recommend a true blackwater tank, just a somewhat soft and acid tank but not truly in the range of blackwater conditions.) The fact that the fish eat so little and the tanks are pretty undercrowded is something I thought was a more sterile approach, but actually doesn’t preclude some planting and a low tech approach. There are apparently a few key points to remember, which seemed very impossible to untangle when I was not aware of them. This connects with an over all frustration with not really knowing the biology and chemistry of an aquarium, of course they will function without that knowledge but it is unnerving to mess with animals when you aren’t really sure what is actually happening and why. Freshwater fish seem fine in very simple tanks, but with blackwater fish I ran into an apparently much more complicated set of problems with their aquarium requirements.