What's most important?

[Brooklynella]

How a tank looks or the fish themselves?
When keeping large fish, some sacrifices must be made regarding the overall landscape of the aquarium itself due to the monsters ripping up plants, moving rocks, etc.
Some hobbyists think the environment is more pleasing to the eye than the fish themselves while others focus primarily on the fish; displaying a beautiful fish in a barren tank floats their boat.
What's your opinion?

 

[RadleyMiller]

If we are going to keep fish, we have to keep their needs first. Clean water and lots of swimming space. If this means nots have 100 bubble toys than we do it. Bubble toys are ugly anyway, so all natural (driftwood and rocks) is the way I go!

 

[shekes]

Bricks or plants are better than ship wrecks o castles, but to me it is about the fish, their looks, characters, friendships, conflicts eggs etc.

Generally I hate decorations. They always look fake.

 

[cichlaguapote]

There are fish that won't let you have a nice tank. And so I will always say the fish should be the most important thing to look healthy in the tank.

 

[blacktip]

I personally prefer to have a beautiful tank first and beautiful fish second. However, with monsters, that is not always possible from both a cleanliness standpoint and a safety standpoint.

I think that the size of the tank in relation to the size of the tankmates plays a huge part in this decision. If you have 18" fish in a 2' wide tank, then it would be difficult and unsafe to try to make the tank beautiful so in that case you do what's best to showcase the fish. Put those same fish in a 5,000 gallon tank and you have much greater liberty in regards to decorating the tank and making it look nice.

 

[guppy]

How a tank looks or the fish themselves?
When keeping large fish, some sacrifices must be made regarding the overall landscape of the aquarium itself due to the monsters ripping up plants, moving rocks, etc.
Some hobbyists think the environment is more pleasing to the eye than the fish themselves while others focus primarily on the fish; displaying a beautiful fish in a barren tank floats their boat.
What's your opinion?

My answer has to be YES, I can not make that descision so only keep fish appropriate to the tank.

 

[StiffMeister]

i agree with whats written above. i keep big plecos and these fish are strong. very strong... so i arranged my tank purely on functionality. the wood and all other things in the tank (filters etc) are put in a place which is best for the fish and leave max swimming space and also some hinding places they cannot destroy. so fish come first in my situation.