Meet the Fishician

Andrew Huang's journey from childhood aquariums to following Amano's Legacy

By Amar Salvi, Editor — The Weekend Aquarist

Estimated read time: 6–7 minutes

Andrew Huang is a psychiatrist finishing his final year of residency in New Jersey. He is also, by his own account, someone people frequently mistake for Bruce Lee — a comparison he shrugs off, with a nod to the one lesson he thinks actually transfers from the dojo to the fish room: consistency. “In his practice he was disciplined with being consistent, practicing a kick or a punch,” Andrew says. “I think that applies to aquariums too.” He would know. Andrew has kept fish for more than 23 years, a passion that started before he can properly remember it starting. At six years old, a trip to the local fish store for food turned up back issues of Tropical Fish Hobbyist — The Weekend Aquarist didn't exist yet — with a two-part feature on chocolate gouramis. Something about the small, leaf-colored fish stuck. His preschool teachers noticed the obsession early enough to gift him a book about fish, signed by all of them.

A Mouth Full of Eggs

That childhood fixation came full circle last year, when Andrew picked up a group of chocolate gouramis for the first time in years. By January, he noticed their mouths looked swollen — a sign, he remembered, that they were brooding. Chocolate gouramis are mouthbrooders: the male holds fertilized eggs for roughly two weeks, and the fry survive off their yolk sacs until he releases them. Andrew has since raised several batches, watching the fry grow into what he calls “little adults” that shadow the grown fish at feeding time. He has had similar luck with wild discus, a fish whose parenting behavior he describes as nearly impossible to put into words. Unlike most cichlids, discus fry feed directly off a slime coat the parents secrete, riding along on their bodies for the first days of life. “The parents will take time,” Huang says of watching the behavior unfold. Neither the gouramis nor the discus were deliberate breeding projects — both, he says, “just kind of happened by accident.”

Contests, Sunrise Scapes, and a 400-Gallon Tank

Andrew's aquascaping résumé includes a 2023 entry into the International Aquatic Plants Layout Contest, where he placed 448th out of more than 1,800 entries — a result he was glad for on a first attempt. The layout, built with fellow members of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club, drew on the oak forests he saw during college in Texas, rendered with a scattering of red plants for warmth. In 2025, he competed in Aquashella New Jersey's scaping contest, where entrants are given soil, hardscape, and plants and roughly a day and a half to build from scratch — a sharp contrast to the weeks of deliberation a home aquascaper is used to. “You have to be very decisive,” he says. At home, his main system runs around 400 gallons (1,500 liters) with a sump, an acrylic tank at least two feet deep, and it houses most of his discus collection.

Following Amano's Steps

Andrew has since built much of his travel around chasing the legacy of Takashi Amano, the late founder of Nature Aquarium. Twice he has visited Oceanário de Lisboa's Floresta Submersa — Amano's submerged forest exhibit — first in 2022 on a rumor the display might close, and again this past May on a day trip from a family vacation in the Azores. On that second visit he took the behind-the-scenes tour and then simply stayed, spending roughly eight hours in front of the tank. “Once you're there, it changes the way you see yourself in relation to nature,” he says. In Japan, Andrew joined a Celesta tour that traced Amano's own influences: the cedar forests of Sado Island, shaped by heavy snow and wind into the curved branches that define the ryoboku wood-and-stone aesthetic; a Zen garden north of Niigata where Amano used to meditate; and Sumida Aquarium's four-meter tank, set up by Amano in 2012, which Andrew had studied for years before ever seeing it in person. The trip's centerpiece was a live aquascaping demonstration by Yusuke Homa, an ADA designer who builds from memory and feeling rather than formula. Before placing a single stone, Homa asked the group to guess which scene from their travels he had in mind. It turned out to be a gorge the group had hiked days earlier — down to the spot where a tired member of their party had rested between two boulders.

“A lot of people align to think aquascaping — rule of thirds, focal point, slope,” Andrew says. “But really those are just describing what exists in nature. He holds the scene in his mind, he holds the feeling. And while holding that feeling, he will go create.”

The tour ended at Amano's home, where a four-meter glass tank — kept, notably, at a cooler 24°C — still houses healthy altum angelfish under his family's care. Andrew also met Takashi Amano's wife and visited the legendary Nature Aquarium at Amano's residence. At the ADA Gallery, he watched wild altum angelfish — famous for being notoriously difficult and shy in captivity — living confidently in Nature Aquariums that closely mirror their natural habitat.

What's Next

Andrew's dream fish remains out of reach for now: a pair of red-and-gold Asian arowana, currently barred from the U.S. under an Endangered Species Act technicality that a trade group is challenging in court. Until then, he'll keep building, breeding, and — following the Amano playbook — chasing his own version of a scene held in mind rather than a rulebook.

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Watch here: The Physician Who Is A "Fishician" - Meet Andrew Huang

Read the full story in the magazine: Read the full story in the magazine: Readers who want the complete conversation — will find it in the July 2026 issue of The Weekend Aquarist.

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