Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!apple!motcsd!hpda!hpcuhb!rdouglas
From: rdouglas@hpcuhb.HP.COM (Robert Douglas)
Newsgroups: news.groups
Subject: Re: Re: RE : sci.aquaria
Message-ID: <9660001@hpcuhb.HP.COM>
Date: 9 Oct 89 15:06:28 GMT
References: <749@philmtl.philips.ca>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 45

Well, it seems that the move has finally been made to make alt.aquaria
'legitimate'.  All I can say is, it's about time.:-)

As to what the new name is to be seems to be causing quite a fuss.  I don't
know why people are getting so defensive and edgy over this, but then I
never claimed to understand humanity well at all.  So, instead of flaming
everyone else on their choices, I just go ahead and enumerate what I
think.

sci.aquaria  --  I like this.  Having gotten into fish-keeping with a ten
		 gallon tank and a couple of guppys, I have really fallen
		 in a big way.  I keep a couple of community tanks now, along
		 with a tank of Africans, and some small tanks of killies
		 (hi Richard).  As I have progressed further and further I 
		 found out I wasn't interested in the fish just because they
		 were pretty or had some weird body shape.  I was interested
		 because of the rich diversity of behavior and physiology
		 present in the different species.  I also became interested
		 in the 'scientific' side of the hobby, dealing with 
		 filtration, O2 levels, CO2 levels, pH, water hardness, etc
		 and how they interacted with the species that I kept.  I
		 also became interested in plants which entailed knowing more
		 about chelated elements such as iron and magnesium, and 
		 CO2 injectors.  Then there are the mechanics of protein 
		 skimmers, wet-dry filters, ultra-violet filters, etc that
		 always catch my attention.  If this isn't sci, I don't know
		 what is.

rec.aquaria  --  Okay.  But I really feel that fish-keeping is much more then
		 a recreation to me.  I guess you could call people who go 
		 home and work math and physics equations all night as having
		 a 'recreation', but this seems more like a science to me. 
		 Just because people enjoy doing it doesn't mean it can't be
		 scientific.

rec.pets.aquaria, rec.pets.fish., etc 
	     --  I think people have enumerated enough good reasons *not* to
		 make this choice that I won't rehash the arguments.

A last point.  I like aquaria instead of aquarium.  Although it doesn't really
matter in the long run, as the same things will be discussed no matter where
it is located, I feel aquaria is broader then aquarium, and better reflects
the contents of conversations within this group.

Robert Douglas ------------------------------ rdouglas@hpda.HP.COM