My aquarium is my little world.  In it, I am GOD.  I try to keep it clean, but even when I am trying to clean the thing, I am certain that I am horrifying my fish.  Whether I put new water in the tank, or use the scrubber on a stick, which helps keep the algae away, I terrify them.  So I try to keep the stress down for them.  I try to gently pour the water in when I have to. I ease the water in.
  I don't know. I try and keep the temperature correct, and I use the stuff that takes the chemicals out.  I try and be a benevolent God. I mean, I set up all the conditions within which they live.  This began as a project with my sons, and we set up an aquarium, they picked out the fish.  They each got to choose what they wanted.  They, of course, chose the most visually interesting critters that they could see: one looked like tomato soup.  Semi-translucent Cori Cats sat on the bottom of the tank--they would live for years and years.  And it was always a balancing act; I liked the look of a few bigger, brighter fish, while a small school of neon tetras danced behind.  There was a suckerfish, who clung to the side of the tank at all times, and lived off of the algae.  You kind of wanted a peaceful cube of aquatic beauty.  That perfect world, which we know never exists, in which joy and beauty are regulated, and everything is safe and perfect for your fish.  Kind of like being under water in a pool when you were a kid. You know that difference when you put on goggles or a scuba mask--it is as if everything is too perfect; suspended in this bluish, idyllic world, where there is no weight, and time almost stops and all of the relative points of gravity have disappeared, with the voices above muted until you erupt into the real world again.