Photo #2 - Another Tank View - About 20 F1 Various Peacocks,...

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210 gallons freshwater fish tank (mostly fish and non-living decorations) - another tank view
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210 gallons freshwater fish tank (mostly fish and non-living decorations) - my show tank
210 gallons freshwater fish tank (mostly fish and non-living decorations) - another tank view
fish tank picture - blue lobster
freshwater fish - aulonocara stuartgranti - ngara flametail stocking in 210 gallons tank - look

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State: Florida
Country: United States
Description: 210 gallon reef ready, 320lbs of lace rock, white sand, two dart pumps, power compaques and blue moon lights for lighting, 400 gallon filter wet dry, And I painted the back black. Lastly and most importantly a 40 watt Gamma UV sterilizer.
Advice: research and have lots of spare change! Make sure your tank has adequate flow. Adding a UV sterilzer is a must it will save you lots of money and make your water look pristine. Simple small 10% waterchanges weekly and clean filters when they get dirty.
Fish Kept: About 20 F1 various peacocks, 5 lemon lelupi, 4 Burundi Frontosas , 2 blue dolphins 5 red tailed sharks, 3 rainbow sharks, 5 F1 clown loaches, 3 Iranian red rainbows, 5 synodontis cats, I rhino plecko, I albino pleco, 1 fire eel, 1 large blue lobster
Corals/Plants: none
Tank Size: 210 gallons
Quote: Insist on yourself. Never Imitate.

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duh what? fish avatar
Week 3 Lecture 5 and 6 THE AMERICAS ON THE EVE OF THE EUROPEAN INVASION Background: Humans first settled on the American continent 12,000-40,000 years ago, after crossing over land bridges from Siberia to Alaska. They were generally cut off from that time onward, until the arrival of the first Europeans in 1492. The similarities which appear in American and Eurasian agriculture, architecture design, etc., are most likely evidence of parallel development, rather than influence. The period from 1000-1500 is designated as America's postclassical period. It was the period right before the European arrival, and it saw the increasing formation of large political units and rising populations. South and Central America were densely populated by 1500. Their peoples had generally shifted from a nomadic culture to a more sedentary way of life, with increasingly stratified societies. The two cultural centers were Mesoamerica (modern-day Mexico and Central America), and the Andean Region of South America. Both regions had had civilizations for thousands of years, and by the time of the European contact, both were under the authority of expansionist empires. Spanish conquerors obliterated both empires and almost obliterated the native cultures entirely. In both areas, Native American tradition became overlaid with Hispanic influences in the wake of conquest. Records for pre-conquest America are sketchy at best: The Andes region never developed writing, and much of the Aztec writing was destroyed by time, and has only recently been deciphered. The primary source of information for both cultures is archaeology. Reports from the Spanish are also useful, although they can't always be taken at face value. Both "Indian" and "American" are names of European origin. "Indian" derives from Columbus' famously lost expedition, who thought they were in the East Indies. "America" comes from the first name of a Florentine mapmaker, Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512). The "Indians" never sought themselves as one people; this was a viewpoint imposed by Europeans. Native American Societies Before European Arrival Mayans (300 BC — 900s CE) Mayan civilization was built on the accomplishments of the peoples who had come before them, the Olmecs. Olmec Civilization (1500BC-300CE): It originated about 1500 BC along the Gulf of Mexico in present-day Mexico. The Olmec developed a written language using hieroglyphics, which unfortunately is unreadable today. They also invented intensive agriculture, a number system and calendars derived from observing the heavens. For religious purposes, the Olmecs built huge temples and they carved gigantic heads from volcanic rock. Since these heads, which weighed as much as 18 tons, were transported some 80 miles from the quarry, the Olmecs must have had a sophisticated political and social organization and some technology. Other religious rituals included a type of ceremonial ball game called pok-a-tok, at the end of which losing players were sacrificed to the gods. Olmec civilization vanished mysteriously about AD 200; nevertheless scholars believe it greatly influenced later Central and South American civilizations. Mayans (300 BC — 900 CE) As I already mentioned, Mayan civilization was built on the accomplishments of the peoples who had come before them, the Olmecs. In the area of present-day Mexico and Centeral America, the lowland Mayan kingdoms appeared around 300 BCE and arose to their peak between 700 and 900 C.E. The Mayans built densely populated cities in the rain forest. They developed a sophisticated system of mathematics and the most advanced hieroglyphic system in Mesoamerica. The Mayans until recently were a mystery, but their written language was recently "cracked," giving archeologists more to work with. Archaeological evidence confirms that Mayan kings ruled a people divided by language and regional differences, yet who were united by a common culture. As it did elsewhere in the world, kingship developed in Mayan society in response to warfare and to economic changes that intensified inequalities among members of the communities. But as modern scholars slowly deciphered the royal Mayan histories, it became clear that the Maya developed multiple and competing centers of authority, each ruling from its own urban center. The boundaries of these kingdoms were not strictly measured in physical territory, rather, it was the ruler’s influence over people as perceived by his subjects and other kings that determined the extent of his realm. In the case of the Maya, what we have is not a single empire, but rather a series of a group of regional hegemonic city-states. The lineages of the Mayan kings were also linked to Mayan gods. Under terms of the Mayan cosmogony, you have a situation in which the kings may communicate with the divine, their ancestors may become divine and help them from the other world to interpret what they should do in this world. But this is not a story about the creation of the universe, although it is a story about the creation of a particular city-state, a particular dynasty and legitimation of the latest in the line of that dynasty, the latest ruler of that city state in terms of sacred authority for their secular acts. The Mayan kings were seen as visionary leaders because their gods endowed them with the wisdom to make crucial decisions as well as the power to carry them out. The “Popol Vuh” or “Book of Community,” illustrates this in a passage that describes the power of the kings: “ Great lords and wonderful men were the marvelous kings. They knew if there would be war, and everything was clear before their eyes; they saw if there would be death and hunger, if there would be strife.” At the peak of Mayan development, there were between 50 and 100 independent kingdoms and they encompassed more than 100 thousand square miles. The wealth produced from trade and agriculture helped to support densely populated urban centers for over a millennium. The kings in power take all the decisions in state that any absolute ruler would take and he is in fact an absolute ruler. But what I am stressing in addition to that is a sacred authority, which comes not only from an abstract claim of some divine right of kings but from the very specific claim that the king is in communication with the gods, with the ancestors, that therefore the decisions that the king takes are decisions which are informed by this information that’s coming from beyond the visible human sphere. Alliances between kingdoms were sources of wealth and power. One way to create alliances was through marriage between prominent families. Marriages that linked ruling centers provide scholars with evidence of the role that women could play in Mayan society. For example, wives of rulers often brought status to their husbands through their own lineage, and wives were sometimes depicted on a ruler’s memorials, and though it was uncommon, four women are known to have ruled Mayan cities. Despite sharing a common culture, no centralizing force arose to unify the Mayan kingdom into an empire. Neither did warfare among regional kingdoms foster the expansion of one kingdom at the expense of all the others. The coexistence of multiple centers of power during the classical era of the Mayan kingdoms shows one alternative to centralized empire as a way of ordering the world. I would like to talk a little bit about one of the main city-states: Teotihuacan. (located about 25 miles northeast from Mexico City) By the 1st century AD, Teotihuacan had grown into Mesoamerica's first true city-state, and dominated its surroundings. By its height in 500 AD, it had a population of over 150,000 and was one of the largest cities in the world. It was organized in a broad grid pattern along a three-mile-long corridor known as the Avenue of the Dead. The center of city was filled with massive religious architecture and the homes of the wealthy. The bulk of the populace lived in walled apartment compounds further from the center. The distinctive building style of the capital was reflected in lesser towns throughout the region. After about 500 AD, Teotihuacan's influence began to wane. Classical Mayan cities were abandoned following the collapse of Teotihuacan in the 8th century, for reasons which are still unclear. Mayan civilization was followed by the Toltecs and the Aztecs. The ruins and legends of the Mayan exerted a powerful force on succeeding civilizations. Toltec Empire (968-1150): The Toltecs moved into the political vacuum created by the collapse of Mayan society. They founded their capital at Tula. Initially a nomadic people, they adopted many of the cultural features of their predecessors, a sedentary people, and added a strong militaristic ethic, and a glorification of sacrifice and warfare. The Toltecs were idealized and admired by the Aztecs who came after them as ideal warriors. The Aztecs kept alive many of the Toltec legends, among them the story of Topiltzin, a religious reformer and semi-divine figure sent into exile who vowed to return one day to reclaim the throne — a legend which may have influenced the initial Aztec reception of the first Europeans. The Toltec Empire was spread across much of central Mexico, and their influence extended beyond that. They had vassal kings in Yucatan and Guatemala, northern Mexico, and the American Southwest. Native American Societies Flourishing at the Time of European Arrival By the end of the 15th century, two great imperial powers had risen to dominate American civilization in Mesoamerica and the Andes — the Aztecs and the Incas. Both were built on the achievements of earlier civilizations, and both were highly militaristic. Both proved to be extensive yet fragile, weakened by internal strains and the hostility of their subject peoples. Aztecs (1325- CA. 1500) The Toltec Empire fell around 1150, attacked by nomadic tribes from the north, who sacked Tula. The political anarchy of the post-Toltec world eventually gave way to the rise of the Aztecs (they called themselves the Mexica), an initially obscure nomadic tribe. The Aztecs were able to establish military supremacy over the various peoples inhabiting the lakes area of Central Mexico. The Aztecs apparently started out as mercenary warriors; their skills made them appreciated by other tribes, but their fierceness and fanatical devotion to their gods, who demanded constant human sacrifice, made them feared, and they had been repeatedly driven out of other areas. The Aztecs founded their capital, Tenochtitlan, on the banks of Lake Texcoco around 1325. According to legend, the place was designated by a sign from the gods, an eagle with a snake in its beak. From this secure base, the Aztecs began to take a greater role in regional politics, lending support as mercenaries to the more powerful cities until they were strong enough to control their allies. Their extensive empire was organized for war, motivated by religious zeal, and based on a firm agrarian base. The Aztecs collected tribute, and demanded land and military service. Initially a loose structure of clans, the Aztecs developed a highly stratified society under the rule of a supreme power. In Aztec lore, the Mexica were described as a people chosen to serve the gods. The Aztecs practiced a form of extreme polytheism, in which hundreds of deities required a vast array of yearly festivals and ceremonies. Their highest deity was the sun god, whom they believed battled the forces of darkness nightly and needed to be rejuvenated with the blood of sacrifices on a daily basis. Small children also sacrificed to the rain god, who was believed to like their tears. Human sacrifice, long a part of the Mesoamerican scene, was greatly expanded under the Aztecs — the Aztecs fought "flowery" wars in which the main point was to capture victims for their festivals. The Aztec dedication to human sacrifice functioned to maintain order through terror, but it also served to foster increasing resentment and hatred of the Aztecs. Under the control of their authoritarian government, the Aztecs were able to launch large-scale irrigation and agricultural projects. They constructed chinampas, beds of floating weeds, mud and earth tied together and rooted on the lake floor, which yielded a high production of food. The Aztecs also constructed dike systems to protect fresh water from contamination from nearby brackish waters. Tributes received from conquered people, in the form of food, commodities, slaves and sacrifices, formed the basis for the Aztec economy. The nobility lived nicely off the tributes; but commoners were far less well off. Society became more stratified as it developed, with the social gulf widening. The priesthood and military were controlled by the nobility, and highly ritualized; rank was indicated by patterns of clothing and other outward symbols. A growing section of the population was formed by slaves and indentured servants. Incas (1300-1500) In the Andes region. The other Native American empire to fall to the conquistadors was also a highly centralized imperial state, composed of many different ethnic groups, with extensive irrigated agriculture, a state religion and a royal ancestor cult. The Incan Empire spanned 1300 miles across, and encompassed 9-13 million people of different ethnicities and languages. It had fused the previous cultures of the Andes together into a new centralized state. In the mountains of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, the physical remnants of the Inca Empire are still visible today. On these roads information from every corner of the empire reached the capital city of Cuzco. Inca roads stretched over 30,000 kilometers, from Chile to Ecuador, from costal deserts across the hemisphere’s highest mountains, down the Amazon rainforest. The question that the Incas represent is: How can you build and rule an empire if you do not have certain kinds of things that historians of empires in Eurasia associate with empire building? The Incas were able to build and rule the very highly structured, complex, and efficient empire without the benefit of writing, of metal tools, of wheeled vehicles, or of large draft animals like the ox and the horse. The ruins of the mountain retreat of Machu Picchu testify to the wealth and power of the rulers of the Inca Empire. It was consolidated by a powerful and charismatic leader, in 1438, during a critical battle, the young prince Pachacuti donned the skin of a puma and led a counterattack that defeated their enemies. He then used his military might to expand Inca control beyond the Valley of Cuzco. The empire thus created, spread Inca culture and religion over a vast expanse of South America. The Incas did not enjoy a technological advantage in warfare. But they made up for it in sheer numbers and superior logistics. By adding conquered peoples to their ranks the Inca armies slowly increased in size. The Incas also organized their forces in ways that allowed them to field large numbers of warriors over long periods of time. Once they held a territory, they administered it very effectively, using a combination of direct and indirect rule. The Incas used several methods. One most important was really to bring the children, particularly, the sons of the local elites that the peoples they conquered, to Cuzco to be educated. While they were there in Cuzco, on one hand, they were hostages to the good behavior of their fathers. But, on the other hand, and more importantly, for the long run, they were indoctrinated/ socialized into the Inca imperial ideology, the language, and culture. So that when they returned to their homelands as adults they became local governors in the system the Incas had of indirect rule. The Role of Religion Following military conquest, Incan rulers needed to legitimize their rule. Religion was often crucial to this process. The Incas didn’t require their subjects to abandon their old gods. But they were expected to adopt the creator god of the Inca and to recognize the Inca ruler and his principal wife as divine representatives of this god on earth. The basis of Incan religion, and a core concept for Incan culture, was the cult of the ancestors. Deceased rulers were mummified and treated as intermediaries with the gods, and paraded in public during festivals. New rulers inherited the throne but not the personal wealth of the previous ruler, which went towards preserving the cult of the mummy — each ruler had to secure new land and wealth, usually by conquest. In effect, the system created an always-increasing supply of royal courts, which had to be supported by land, labor, and tribute. The cult of the dead weighed heavily on the living. Like the Aztecs, the Incas saw the sun god as the highest deity, and considered the Inca (ruler) to be his representative on earth. The Inca himself was considered virtually a god. The Incas kept records and communicated information through a coded system of “quipus”- strands of knots carried throughout the empire by a system of relay runners. In 1535 the Spanish soldier Pedro de Cieza de Leon recorded this account of the quipus system: “The tribute paid by each district – and turned over by the natives, whether gold, silver, clothing, arms and all else they gave, was entered in the accounts of those who kept the quipus. When they were ordered to go to Cuzco to give an accounting, the record keepers themselves gave it by the quipus, or went to give it where there could be no fraud, but everything had to come out right. “ The Quipus are basically strings which are knotted and tied together in different patterns. They have different forms. They have different colors, and depending upon the nature of the pattern of the colors, where the knots were, they meant different things. Some of them are clearly numerical and the problem there is that we can read the numbers but we don’t know what they represented. Others, on the other hand, may have been mnemonic devices or narrative devices. We are not sure. But what we do know is that the Quipus through their combination of knots and colors were capable of communicating extremely complex information. Networks of roads were built to move armies and goods across the empire. These roads also served to connect Andean people to many ecological niches across varying environmental zones: from arid coastal regions up to the cold highlands’ from the warm, humid canyons down to the Amazon rainforest. In order to insure complete market basket of consumer goods for their people- pre-Inca ethnic states- founded colonies in different ecology niches at different altitudes. One of the roles of the state was to assure the distribution of these products throughout this ethnic archipelago. One of the most remarkable different aspects of the Inca Empire was that it was largely constructed on reciprocity. When the Incas conquered territory, they took over ownership of the land and then reallocated some of it back to the local communities. They imposed a labor service, called the mita, which was owed to the empire. For most men this meant military service; for most women weaving, the most valuable of Inca commodities. Overall, the mita under the Incas was mostly used for military service, transportation of commodities, and public works. But in return, the individuals and their communities received a kind of welfare, the benefits of a welfare state which would help them in times of need. As the Incas led their armies into present-day Equator, they found conquest much more difficult. By the 16th century, the empire had been weakened by rebellion, deaths from smallpox, and by civil wars over imperial succession. The Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro captured and killed the Inca ruler Atahualpa in 1532, but maintained the infrastructure of the empire, controlling through Inca puppet rulers for years afterward. The story of empires is a familiar part of world history, but what did an empire look like from the perspective of the people who were ruled? And what are the complex and sometimes contradictory legacies of an empire? Even the best run and seemingly benign empire often looks different when viewed from the perspective of their subject peoples. Historians studying the Inca Empire through the lens of the ethnic groups they conquered tell a different story than the official Inca story of a benign welfare state, a view confirmed by periodic rebellions and by the collaboration of some Incas subjects with Spanish conquistadors. But 250 years of oppressive Spanish rule would make even these peoples dream of an Inca restoration. In 1790 Cuzco kuraka or headman, of Inca descent took the name of the last Inca, Tupac Amaru, and rose in revolt against the Spanish bad government. The news that the Inca had returned to claim his kingdom and free his people from Spanish misrule inspired rebellions from Columbia to Bolivia which took the Spanish four years to suppress and cost a hundred thousand lives in the highland territory whose population was only 1.2 million. Nor did the legacy of the Incas end with independence from Spain and our own times approving guerilla group named Tupac Amary, a soft drink was successfully marketed as Inca Cola, and the national currency had been named Inti and Sol with pictures referring back to the Inca Empire. At the bottom many Peruvians are still looking for their Inca. Indian Population Question Historians initially discounted the first European reports of the Americas, which stressed the huge presses of people, as clearly exaggerated. Early 20th century historians assumed a population of about 8 million total in 1492. Since that time, however, archeological evidence, combined with demographic projects which factor in disease spread have significantly raised that number. Some estimates range as high as 112 million at time of first contact. More conservative projections run around 57-72 million, with bulk of population in Mesoamerica and the Andes. This number would drop massively by the early 1660s. Although Spanish cruelty did not help, the bulk of the population drop was due to newly-introduced European diseases, which tore across the American Native populations in the years after 1492. fish avatar

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