Over the years, I have had opportunities to share my interest in fish keeping  with both adults and children.   One of the more gratifying things I‘ve done is to put on workshops building tiny aquatic ecosystems for kids.  It’s a treat to watch as the children (with eager help from their parents) construct a simple aquarium out of a jar, aquatic plants, a few snails and a shrimp.   By workshops end, the families go home with a tiny habitat in their hands.

It’s amazing to witness the children’s bonding to their tiny habitat blossom over the short hour and a half workshop.  I wondered if it would last.  Indeed, I’ve recently been informed that some of these aquatic ecosystems have lasted well over five years.  Some have even boxed up and taken their tiny aquariums on family vacations. 

It was always my aspiration that through the workshops, I could help kids (and their parents) understand the importance of ecosystem.  While on a very small scale, it becomes obvious fast when things in their jar aquarium go out of balance.     Fortunately, a few corrective procedures are all that are needed to remedy the problem.   My hope was that in caring for their tiny habitat and by demonstrating the importance of being balanced, the workshop attendees might come to appreciate other habitats like the streams and ponds near their homes.

It’s too early to know if the take-home message from my workshops will come to fruition, but I recently saw a video that showed I wasn’t the only one with the same idea.  A recent short documentary from the Big Island Association of Tropical Fisherman demonstrates how fisherman in Hawaii are capturing fish for the aquarium trade in a sustainable way, and highlights the importance of the aquarium hobby in helping to connect people to far away reef ecosystems that are in serious peril.

There’s truth to the old saying “out of sight out of mind.”  When it’s visible, people care.  The aquarium hobby can serve as an important tool in helping bring awareness to the fragility of local and distant aquatic habitats.    You can watch the documentary here: