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When you think of heaven, you may envision a mountain of gold laden clouds, covered with white pillared buildings. Happily, cherubs dance, intermingling in perfect harmony. Conversely, hell is depicted as a red, burning hole of damnation and despair. Demons dance in the flames, gifting torment and agony to the poor, damned souls. Whatever your beliefs, you’d have to agree with me that the average Petco/PetSmart is the equivalent of hell for any fish unfortunate enough to be trapped in the tanks.

Tanks like this are the problem; look at the reviews for countless cases of fish abuse

Weak and diseased, kept in the same water as all other fish, their survival is far from guaranteed. These fish are grown to die, sold to inexperienced keepers after being raised by inconsiderate employees. Almost every time I’ve visited a Petco/PetSmart, I find fish dead in piles at the bottom of tanks, bacterial blooms spreading to every tank, low water levels or a combination of all three. The only reason stores like Petco are able to keep selling fish is their cheap prices, which are required when the fish they sell keep dying. So where do all these poor fish come from?

A longer video, but a good depiction of fish husbandry

Largely grown in temperate regions near the equator, these tropical fish don’t have great living conditions from birth. Kept in fetid tanks filled with algae and medication, they grow up in some of the most extreme environments of any fish. It’s no wonder the most commonly sold fish are also the hardiest (goldfish, betta fish), able to live in the worst conditions for the longest time. These fish catch tropical diseases and parasites, which go on to cause health problems and premature death. 

This tank isn’t large enough for a single goldfish to live happily

For other species of fish, early tank life isn’t an option. Species like Clown Loaches don’t grow to large enough sizes for some keepers early in their lives, so must be caught in the wild, packaged and shipped overseas. Other notorious tank busters like the Red Tail Catfish don’t breed in captivity, so must be caught when small in the wild and sold to local fish stores. While these fish can thrive under the hand of an experienced aquarist, the majority of these large fish are sold to people with little experience nor an idea on what they’re getting into. While some of these large chain stores have begun to ask people what tank they’re buying the fish for, their level of experience and if they know what they’re getting into, the majority don’t. This is due to a number of factors, but the big one is that the employees don’t care. 

If you buy a fish here, there may be problems down the line

So how does this cycle of suffering end? Unfortunately, the only real way to stop this suffering is to educate the new wave of fish a-fish-ionados on the proper ways of fish care, so that they don’t prolong the suffering of fish. Other methods like greater regulations on imported fish or animal rights mandates will take a while to reach the fish of these stores, if they even come into being.

When I was in high school, I had to make a video for a CSPAN competition. While all my classmates chose more obvious concepts like homelessness, violence and racism, my group focused on invasive fish. Was this a meaningful choice? In comparison to the other issues, not really. But there is a lot of suffering that has been and will be caused by invasive fish in the next few years, and I’m gonna inform you about it.

Lets talk ugly; MOST fish are cute, but there are a couple that will only ever be loved by their mothers. One of these is Asian Carp, a blanket name for a group of carp species brought from (guess where) Asia.

Not a single thought behind those eyes

  These weird looking fish have become a serious problem in the Mississippi river since their introduction in the 1970s. They’ve worked their way all the way to the mouth of the great lakes, and the only thing keeping them from destroying thousands of livelihoods and hundreds of millions of dollars of fishing revenue is an underwater electric gate strong enough to fry a human. 

   So why can’t they be let into the great lakes? Put simply, they’re overpowered. They reproduce incredibly fast, reach sizes of ~60 lbs frequently, eat everything smaller than them and have voracious appetites. They would destroy every native fish species, including the fish that are the livelihood for the fisheries of the lakes.

 

The average Asian carp (lucky angler for scale)

 

   Unfortunately, there isn’t much being done other than the electric gate to combat the rapid spread of these fish. Most anglers think that carp are too easy to catch, or that they taste cheap. Some companies have found success serving carp meat, but not the success needed to drive them into oblivion.

   One of the problems with the campaign against carp is that carp don’t look that scary; a poster with “Beware the Carp” and their image wouldn’t scare even the jumpiest of people. But the Snakehead may. Brought from (you guessed it) Asia, the snakehead is another overpowered fish that our local fauna can’t seem to deal with. They can live in low oxygen, shallow, dirty water, and can even live for hours on land, time that they use to crawl to new water sources once the ponds they live in run out of fish to eat. 

Classic Snakehead

However, unlike the carp, the snakehead isn’t free from the lust of anglers. Prized for their fight, large size, and great taste, the snakehead is slowly becoming a sought after fish. Even in some B.A.S.S. magazines, snakehead fishing is being put forward as a surprisingly fun experience. Couple this with no size or weight limits, rewards for catch and kill, and great taste, and the snakehead has some work cut out for it if it wants to keep living in the USA.

 

I’d be smiling like this if I caught a fish this size

“…if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you” Friedrich Nietzsche. 

 

Looking into the eyes of a goldfish, a minnow or a carp reminds me of the void. These simple creatures know nothing more than eating, fighting and mating, and in many ways, exist only to die. Their small, unmoving, beady black eyes don’t help their case. Some larger fish, like sharks and arowana, also have this same quality about them. They exist to kill, with no need for intelligence. 

Goldfish, looking as dumb as ever

I’ve spent too much time with fish; to say it was unhealthy would be an understatement. When you spend enough time around any animal, you can get a good idea on whether or not it’s truly smart; the majority of times, I’ve come to the conclusion that the fish I raised were dumb as rocks. Sure, they could respond to stimulus, and had a pretty good idea on what food was (sometimes). But it was very clear to me when a fish was smarter than the others. It would react with curiosity, rather than fear. It would use structures in the tank for hiding purposes almost instantly, while the other fish would only catch on after many weeks. So do fish have intelligence? Are some smarter than others? Before we address that, we have one myth to dispel; fish feel pain. It is an inarguable fact, and one that no-one should deny. Fish respond to ammonia in the water, which “burns” their skin. They respond negatively to improper handling, and will even make sounds when hooked wrong.

I don’t think this fish knows about taxes

Some interesting research has been done into fish intelligence; I’ll give you the best parts. Fish can fall for optical illusions, indicating they take in information and process it, and be tricked by it. This indicates a higher level of intelligence and the ability to draw connections, and a tendency to look at a whole rather than a sum of parts. But, the really convincing evidence comes from tool use. It’s common to associate tool use with higher intelligence, as we do with certain birds, dolphins and primates. Species of Wrasse have been observed using rocks to crush shelled animals, sometimes using rock “anvils” as a base. Cichlids and catfish also use tools; they glue their eggs on movable pieces of wood, and can pick up this wood base to move their entire nest if they feel the need to. This indicates forward thinking, intelligent assessment, and higher thought. Schooling fish can distinguish between very small ratios, something even young humans and primates cannot do (Brown). 

This little guy is pretty smart, more than most organisms

So, next time you sit down to watch your government mandated fish videos, remember that most of them are not as dumb as they look. While most of the small fish and predatory fish aren’t that smart, medium sized fish take the cake for true intelligence and cognition; who knows? Fish may be the next species we are able to talk with, and may one day be our overlords.

 

All information from

Brown, C. Fish intelligence, sentience and ethics. Anim Cogn 18, 1–17 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0761-0

What does an angry Walmart shopper and a blue catfish have in common? Not a lot. But, one likes to eat the other, and you can find both of them in a wide range of habitats: from coast to coast, north to south. The blue catfish was what started my journey into the aquarium trade, and the subsequent relinquishment of the hobby as well. 

My journey in all things fish started in my marine biology class, senior year of high school. I had the option to write a long paper about a topic in class, or to keep a fish tank for the semester. The one part of the tank option that scared me was the requirement that it be salt water; it was a marine biology class after all. But my group negotiated a deal with the teacher; if we used species that naturally inhabit brackish regions of water (some mix of salt and fresh) we could keep a freshwater tank. So, off we headed to the local pond first. After some netting, we got a couple of small minnows and a baby bass. Later, we went to an actual fish store and made some 10-20 year bond fish investments. My partner got a marbled gar, while I got a baby blue catfish. We took them back to school the next day, and introduced them to the same tank.

Baby Blue catfish

Now, from the start, I knew I liked Titi (pronounced tie tie, the blue catfish’s name). His constant sulking at the bottom of the tank, his insistence on hiding in impossibly small aquarium features, and his mysterious behavior were all alluring (get it?). Now, keep in mind, I had only done a small amount of fishing before this, and had no idea how to take care of an aquarium. But I knew I’d have to move him soon; the gar was getting aggressive, and kept taking shots at him. So I set up a pathetic 10 gallon tank in my room. I had no idea the intricacies of aquarium creation and maintenance; I was used to the old fallacy that you could put a fish in a bowl and it would be fine. Fish, after all, have no personality and can’t feel pain. But as I became more involved in the online fishkeeping community, I realized just how much this notion is incorrect. Bettas and goldfish need, as a bare minimum, 5 gallons; goldfish should be in a final tank of 50 or more gallons for proper behavior. And the blue catfish… needs many thousands of gallons. Seriously, these things get huge; 143 lbs huge. So I kept learning; I learned what cycling a tank is, created beneficial bacteria colonies in my tank, and optimized Titi’s nutrition. And, he kept growing. Soon, I had a 39 gallon tank; It was a monster tank by my estimation, and required massive tweezers to reach the bottom.

 

 

Large Blue Catfish

It was about this time that I realized Titi wasn’t a blue catfish after all. Got ya. He was a channel catfish, a much smaller and more prolific species of catfish that is often misidentified as a blue catfish when it is young. It was around this time, when he was almost a foot in length, that my family moved to a tiny row home in Baltimore. He had to go, and I didn’t want him to go back to a commercial store. Few people have the ability to take care of such a beast, and if they do, they probably don’t want a temperamental bottom dweller. So, after talking with my neighbor, I released him into a small private pond stocked with bluegill and bass. To this day, I still don’t know what he’s up to. But every time I see that pond, I feel happy thinking about the time I had with him. (He’s below)

 

Well, our journey comes to an end. No more shall you have a teacher as wise as myself to walk you through all things fungal; you must go out and explore! But one last word before I leave you to your own devices. We must discuss the future of mushrooms and mycological endeavors, some that have the potential to change the world. 

We’ve learned about how psilocybin can help those living with OCD, PTSD and addictions such as alcoholism, how Reishi mushrooms can help with cancer, and how mycelium is becoming more popular in growing natural packaging. But this hardly scratches the surface of what the future has in store for mushrooms. From meat substitutions, to recycling, to futuristic food, mushrooms seem to be the answer for anything.

One of my favorite book series I’ve ever read is called The Expanse. Set in the far future, it follows a crew in their journey through politics and alien worlds. When people die in the futuristic worlds of this book, their bodies are recycled in large mushroom pits, then the same mushrooms are used to create the foods that colonies live off of. While this does seem a bit soylent green in nature, the creators weren’t far off from one of the best traits of mushrooms; their ability to biodegrade food and make it edible, even if it wasn’t beforehand. In fact, human bodies would be on the easy side for mushrooms to decompose and utilize; their most important use may come in their ability to biodegrade plastics. A study by Yale university students found that the Oyster mushroom, a choice edible mushroom, is able to break down single use plastics and turn them into an edible mushroom free from pollutants. Two members of Pestalotiopsis can biodegrade plastics in anaerobic, or oxygen poor, environments. These anaerobic environments are most commonly found in landfills, where trash is compressed without much room for air flow. By introducing massive amounts of fungi into our garbage heaps, they could be eradicated and turned into edible fungi, or other plants with symbiotic relationships to said mushrooms could be planted and the entire landfill would become a verdant greenland once more. 

A mushroom colony growing in an anaerobic environment

What more and more companies are realizing about mushrooms is that every part of them is usable for commercial endeavors. Mycelium could be used for creating carbon neutral packaging, or it could be used as a meat substitute, as acclaimed chef Srijith Gopinathan can attest. He uses mycelium products at two of his Michelin starred restaurants, without any complaints. The best part about using mushrooms as a meat substitute is that little alteration is needed to change their flavor, compared to products like the Impossible burger. While the Impossible meat company must use heavily genetically modified yeast to obtain their meat like flavors, mushroom products only need to imitate the mouth feel associated with meat. And the best part? Mushrooms don’t emit CO2, don’t require deforestation, nor do they emit any greenhouse gasses. They create healthy soil, connect plants and trees, and maintain the basis for a healthy ecosystem.

 

Meat substitute made of mycelium

Now, you’ve followed me through the forest, learned a bit about various species and their applications, and how they can be used to help, heal or create hallucinations. So, let’s go through how you can find and cook up a mushroom dish of your own.

The first thing to consider is getting a mushroom identification book. I use the National Audubon Society’s field guide to North American Mushrooms by Gary H Lincoff for preliminary investigations into mushrooms I find in the wild. I would only recommend it if you are willing to take the time to learn mushroom anatomy and dedicate yourself to identifying mushrooms. It isn’t the best resource for beginners due to its nebulous and complicated nature. Unfortunately, you need more than just pictures and descriptions to make sure the mushroom you want to eat is safe to do so. With more than 10,000 species in North America alone, there’s no book or website that can cover them all with full descriptions of their unique attributes and properties. Indeed, even some cataloged mushrooms still have no descriptions regarding what happens if you eat them. So, you have to be very smart about the mushrooms you eat. Especially dangerous are little brown mushrooms; often called LBMs, these small mushrooms are impossible to tell apart, and can have massive ranges of side effects.

 

For example, the one on the left, the scaly psilocybe, is a potent hallucinogen, while the galerina marginata will cause liver damage, hypothermia, and death. Therefore, it’s much more smart to start with easy to identify mushrooms until you have a real idea of what you’re foraging for. One example of this is the morel mushroom, with its unmistakable brain like cap:

If you don’t really value your own health and safety, there are other ways to test if a mushroom is safe to eat. After being pretty certain that the mushroom you’ve foraged is an edible species, cut off a little section of the cap and eat it without anything else. If you have no side effects 48-72 hours after ingestion, try a little bit more. If you can eat the whole mushroom without side effects, it should be safe. Unfortunately, mushrooms like the death cap can be fatal in very small doses, so this method isn’t safe. But if you are very confident in the identity of your mushroom, and have done extensive testing not limited to collecting spore print samples, verifying it with an experienced forager and testing small parts of the mushroom, you can start cooking. 

Generally, mushrooms have a faint, mushroomy taste with some earthy tones. Mush like lobster, they need to be cooked with aromatics and oils to give them a more complicated flavor profile. A recommended method of cooking that I have used is to chop up your mushrooms into small pieces, then to fry them in butter with salt, rosemary, and pepper. Served over orzo, with scallops or beef, or in a pasta dish, they bring mountains of complexity with their spongy texture and ability to hold in flavors. 

How to grow mushrooms

Growing your own mushrooms from home can be surprisingly easy and cheap; and what better way is there to get fresh, trustworthy mushrooms than from your own home? If your name starts with Frank and ends with Herbert, you may want to pay attention to see if I’m getting it right. There exists three tiers of mushroom growing; Basic, intermediate, and advanced. Each presents their own unique challenges, but gets more rewarding as those challenges are mounted. First, let’s start with the basics. You can buy a mushroom kit off of a site like amazon, and you’ll get a vacuum sealed bag with a brown log in it in a couple of days. These blocks are filled with nutrients and mycelium, basically everything you need to grow a fruiting mushroom. All the consumer (you) has to do is cut the bag open, soak it in water, put it in a damp, cool place with plenty of air circulation, and you’ll have mushrooms fruiting in a couple of days. Some blocks can fruit multiple times before they run out of nutrients, allowing many cycles of growth to take place. These entry level kits are perfect for getting your toes wet in growing mushrooms, but you may soon tire of being limited to a couple of generic species and limited growth capabilities. 

From this level, you can move on to the medium tier of mushroom growing. This level comes with a couple more perks, but doesn’t allow you to grow the perfect, unique, gourmet mushroom of your dreams. Say you really like puffball mushrooms; no online retailer sells such a block, so you may have to ask your advanced friend or online retailer for a germinated grain sample. These are jars of nutrient rich grain that have been colonized with mushroom spores, allowing the mycelium to grow throughout the enclosure. From here, you can set up a larger outdoor or indoor enclosure, and carefully release the spored seed throughout a period of time, keeping track of its growth and health as it eats through the organic material of your choice. Most keepers use moist, nutrient rich biomass like soils or wood chips to start with, and may introduce larger pieces of wood as the growth cycle goes on. 

Finally, the hardest level. You want to grow morels, death caps, and (god forbid) dunce caps. Now, you need a whole host of equipment. A laminar flow hood to push out sterile air, a pressure cooker to sterilize jars and grains, and a fridge to keep spore plates. Now, you have to find your choice mushroom, let some spores fall into a gel sheet, let it grow out its network of mycelium, transfer it to a sterilized jar with sterilized grain under a laminar flow hood, give it time to fill out the jar, set up a suitable environment for it, spend tim…. You still with me? As you can see, its very daunting to grow your own mushrooms at the highest level. It’s better to leave it to the professionals, but it doesn’t mean you can’t use commercially available blocks! Happy growing 🙂

 

Video

How To Get Started Growing Mushrooms At Home (From EASY to HARD)

After a heavy rainstorm, those of us with older houses or basements may notice a musty smell emanating from parts of our houses. While it’s impossible to place the location of the smell, it seems to be concentrated around pipes and carpets, walls and floors. This, unfortunately, is a symptom of a serious problem; mold. 

Molds are some of the most well known fungus on the planet, as they have simple names and are easy to spot. For example, the most well known mold is Stachybotrys chartarum, or black mold. The name leaves little to the imagination; its simply a black splotch on any surface. So how do molds form? Like it or not, you’re covered in mold right now. Its spores are all over your clothes, skin, in your eyes and body. But, we have no problem with mold spores. If fungus could grow in any moist environment, our lungs would have filled with mushrooms long ago. The problem comes when something that isn’t living gets wet and stays that way. Take, for example, a piece of drywall. Its covered with spores, but since it isn’t wet, the mold can’t propagate, and so no growth occurs. However, when water leaks onto it and it becomes saturated, those dormant spores spring to life and start growing rapidly. These new mold colonies are where mold problems come into play. Not only do they degrade the material they grow on and compromise structural integrity, but they also emit toxic fumes as a byproduct of their growth. The more mold, the more problems. That’s why if you can smell a strong musky smell, its a good idea to get your house checked for mold. For those that live with significant mold infestation, a litany of negative effects can occur. From what I’ve read about mold issues, everyone reacts differently to mold. Some simply suffer from headaches and respiratory issues, while others are led to an early grave, become paralyzed, are hospitalized, and even die after living in mold infestation. From my time living in an old moldy house, I remember always being congested and coughing and sneezing often. I had eye issues towards the end of my stay in that house, another symptom of mold exposure.

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But mold isn’t relegated to the walls; food is the area we see the most. Most moldy foods are unsafe to eat once the fruiting body, mold, is visible. This is indicative of the entire food being filled with mold, as the fruiting body is the final stage of its life. While you may get lucky and eat penicillin, most molds are extremely toxic and will cause pain or death. Cheese, on the other hand, is much safer. Mold on cheese can be simply cut off and the block can be treated as normal, though I haven’t attempted this yet. 

Link

Mold isn’t always bad, though. As I said before, Penicillium notatum, commonly known as Penicillin, is a mold that has saved the lives of millions throughout history. While its not the best in the face of new super resistant bacteria, its continual positive impact on our world cannot be taken lightly. So, next time you see mold on your food, take a moment to think of the power such a small organism can have on our species. The power to destroy, create, bring and cure sickness, all lie with a fuzzy circle.

 

Sidenote; all this information comes from Matthew Stein’s incredible book “When Technology Fails.” If you have any interest in survival, bushcraft, self reliance, or a post apocalyptic future, I cannot recommend it enough.

 

We’ve already discussed the Psilocibe in depth; of the psychoactive mushrooms in the world, the family psilocybe is the safest to eat and most illegal to possess. So what do you do if you want a mind bending trip without the chance of getting caught? A dispensary in Florida has the solution for you.

Link

Amanita muscaria, or the fly agaric, is the quintessential mushroom. Seriously. When you think of a cottage in the woods, a red domed, white speckled, ringed mushroom (probably next to an old fence) is the one that pops into your mind. Not only is it incredibly popular in art, but it is also extremely hallucinogenic, albeit with a small twist. The twist being that you might get seriously sick or die upon ingesting it. Some side effects include vomiting, dizziness, severe confusion, distorted vision, seizures, and even comas. That’s where the Florida based Chillum Mushroom and Hemp Dispensary comes in. They sell Muscaria in edible or smokable forms, and ship their product around the US. And wouldn’t you know it! There have already been problems. Seizures, comas, and other serious known side effects of Muscaria were documented in people who bought products containing the mushroom. However, far from a dangerous, despicable organism, the Muscaria mushroom has a long and important past, and is even safe when used correctly.

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While the  was the mushroom worshiped in south and central America, the Muscaria was the favored mushroom of native tribes in Siberia and other northern latitudes. Its symbiotic relationship with pine trees is conducive to the dark forests of the north, and it’s much more easy to see and identify than the Psilocibe. Native shaman would ingest the mushroom, then their followers would drink their urine; sounds strange, but there is some science behind it. Remember the twist from earlier? Depending on how the mushroom interacts with you and how much you ate, you could be seeing stars or having a seizure on the ground. When a shaman who knows the correct dosage for their body ingests a mushroom, they suffer few ill side effects, and their urine contains enough hallucinogenic compounds for their followers to drink and have a psychoactive experience from. In this way, risk is mitigated through multiple screens; Ancestral knowledge and the shaman protect the users from possible negative side effects, and everyone has a good time.

The modern products made from Muscaria have none of the safety associated with traditional methods. As with all gummies, it’s impossible to know how much product you get when you eat one. You could get enough to give you a mild high, or enough to kill you. And with the gray area of regulation that Muscaria falls under, it’s unlikely that the government will do anything more than ban it in the US. For now, it’s better to leave Muscaria alone. As Paul Staments, the father of mushrooms, attests that it’s “…one of the most dangerous mushrooms,” causing “temporary insanity.” But, if you want to roll the dice on your health, Muscaria is completely legal in the US. I wouldn’t recommend it though.

If you’ve ever walked through a forest and overturned a few logs or rocks, you may see a white, string-like thing stretching like a vine throughout the decaying material. This organism is known as Mycelium, and it’s one of the most important organisms in the forest. Mycelium spends most of its time underground, breaking apart decaying material, harvesting nutrients, and expanding into as much dirt as it can. Sometimes, it channels its energy and creates a mushroom; think of the mushroom like the flower, while the mycelium is the stalk, leaves and roots. Only when the conditions are right and the Mycelial network has enough energy will it produce a mushroom; the mushrooms’ only real job is to spread genetic material, while the mycelium does all the important stuff. This strategy has worked out pretty well for the fungus kingdom, as every continent in the world has fungus (and hence Mycelium) on it, with one section of Mycelium in Oregon being both the largest living organism on earth at over 3.5 km and 10,000 years old. The ability to stay underground without much dependence on external factors is one of the most powerful aspects of mycelium.

Link

If you’ve ever read about mycelium, you may have heard it referred to as a “highway of the forest.” I think a better term is “the internet of the forest.” Mycelium gets this name due to the sheer number of symbiotic connections it has throughout the forest. It sends excess nutrients to sick trees, takes pathogens out of other trees, connects plant roots, tree roots, and every fungus on the same network. The more mycelium a forest has, the healthier it generally is. Native species flourish, while invasive species who don’t have the same symbiotic relationship are given no help. Fallen logs and dead matter are recycled faster, their nutrients making the soil rich and ready to support more plants. But what does Mycelium get out of all this? For one, a healthy, stable ecosystem is beneficial for all. By taking extra steps to ensure the ecosystem isn’t destabilized, it can ensure a healthy area to send up mushrooms. On a slightly darker note, Mycelium will also profit off of healthier trees that produce more seeds and sticks, as when they fall and decompose, they create the perfect environment for mushrooms to grow; dark and slightly moist.

Source 

As strange as it is, Mycelium has a place in the future of technology. Currently, scientists can control the levels of CO2 and the temperature of an enclosure of growing Mycelium to make it grow into a desired shape or pattern. With how rapidly Mycelium grows, it can finish the task it’s been assigned in as little as a day. What’s even more amazing is that Mycelium based products are already contributing to the green future. In the US and parts of Europe, packaging made of Mycelium is being used to replace Styrofoam packaging in some industries. And with how common and powerful Mycelium is, its hard not to imagine a future based around mushrooms and the powerful network that creates them.