While many of us dream of working in aquatics, the realities and the expectations might not mesh the way you’d expect.
Tailpiece
NOT SO LONG ago, we ran a feature on careers within the aquatics industry. I’ve been brooding on that feature ever since. As wonderful as it was at exploring the role of qualifications required for entry, and expectations of pay and workload, it didn’t touch heavily upon the other side of fish work: the demands on the individual. It might seem odd to ask this of folks hoping to ‘live the dream’ of working with fish, but are they really cut out for it?
Practically nobody moved into the fish world because they saw it as a fast track to a comfortable life. While there are exceptions, it’s safe to say the majority of workers in the diverse field of aquatics are there because of an overwhelming (and usually inexplicable—at least to outsiders) love of all things fish. To the layman working an office, or someone toiling away in a factory, aquarium jobs look a lot like what they are, which is geeks immersing themselves in their passion. But they likely aren’t aware of the lifestyle costs of the industry.
Perhaps the most obvious costs is the hours. Where you have livestock, you have the obligation of care, come rain or shine. We home aquarists know this already—we’ve no doubt had at least one panic in our hobby, where we’ve been up late into the night manually oxygenating water during a powercut, or racing out in driving snow to buy a heater replacement. In public aquaria, retail, wholesale and even laboratories, the pressure is constant. Fish need their food and husbandry.
Then there’s pay. As a magazine editor, I’m blissfully freed up from the squeeze of soaring fuel costs eating into my wage, but store owners and wholesalers with electricity-guzzling systems are not—and it was never a prosperous industry to start with. Even after decades working the aquarium trade, it’s rare you’ll see someone driving about in a Bugatti. It’s largely hand to mouth, and that’s a stressful life.
The elephant in the room—retailers in particular will feel the brunt of this one—is the emotional cost of aquarium work. Fish die, and that’s sad. I’v
