YOUR FISH TANK - DECORATIONS TO PUT IN - DECORATIONS TO KEEP OUT!

You may indulge your love of fish and your fantasies by creating an interesting décor in your home or office FISH TANK.  But did you know that you may be harming your fish and the environment when you use shells, coral, plastic, and other items that are sold in stores?


Growing up so many of my friends had  fish bowl, turtle bowls, and more sophisticated tanks with air and filtration systems to keep them fresh.  Besides colored gravel, it was common to see plastic trees, ferns, sea grasses, and other under water flora all made of plastic.  We thought we were giving our fish an interesting, though small and limited environment that they could swim around in.  Of course no one knows what goes on in the mid of a fish about being kept in captivity like that when it comes to living in close with humans.


These days we know that plastic leeches into water and food and that really we should be extremely careful not to drink out of it if the bottles have been in a hot car or in the sun.  We know that there are plastics inside the human body and we think they get there from the bottles that contain shampoo and conditioner, frozen meals, and bottled water.  However, we do have some choice.  Plastic doesn't break the way glass can and most of us don't want glass in our bathrooms - especially not in earthquake zones.   The harder the plastic the better.  We should not reuse plastic food containers.  If your store's bottled water gets to the shelf cool and within a week or so of being bottled, it's probably OK.


But if your fish are in a tank full of plastic decorations, no doubt that the plastic may be leaking into the water and that's the fish's total environment.  (And by the way many famous big aquariums have plastic decorations in their tanks too! So don't feel too bad!  Just change the stuff out!)


Then there are bags of shells and pieces of coral sold to put into the tanks.  If you already bought these things or picked them off a sea shore, OK use them.  By buying these, however, you encourage stores to keep selling them, and the only way to stop the destruction of shells and corals is to NOT BUY THEM!