dapellegrini
Aquarium Advice FINatic
I am preparing to tear down and redo my tank and am pouring over tank photos from ADA competitions, T. Amano's books, RateMyFishTank.com, some of Tom Barr's tanks, others on this board, etc...
Having maintained a high-tech, high-maintenance tank now since September, I have come to a few realizations and I now see all of these gorgeous Aquascapes very different than I used to. I see someone do a beautiful hedge with R. Rotundafolia and think "that's gonna be a mess in a week", or a great area of layered stem plants with wonderful use of colors and shadows and think, "that will look good for about two hours", etc.
I guess the epiphany was more that these gorgeous tank photos are only of a short, ideal point in time, often times with tons of prep, specifically for the photograph(s). Most seem unsustainable for any extended period of time, without weekly tear down and rework... As a novice with plants, I guess I assumed that everyone just snapped a few shots of their tanks on a slow Wednesday, while home sick... LOL
So, not to belabor my point... Has anyone on this board been able to find a good balance with Beauty and Sustainability? I am not suggesting a low or no upkeep setup. Just wondering how others who have been doing this for a long time have dealt with this dilemma of mine.
I am thinking it really all boils down to what types of plants you use, what dimension tank(s) you maintain, what lighting you have, what arrangement/scape you create etc... Next to each gorgeous photo, I would love to see the maintenance schedule required and the lifespan (total days until the scape has to be torn down).
I can't be the only one...
Having maintained a high-tech, high-maintenance tank now since September, I have come to a few realizations and I now see all of these gorgeous Aquascapes very different than I used to. I see someone do a beautiful hedge with R. Rotundafolia and think "that's gonna be a mess in a week", or a great area of layered stem plants with wonderful use of colors and shadows and think, "that will look good for about two hours", etc.
I guess the epiphany was more that these gorgeous tank photos are only of a short, ideal point in time, often times with tons of prep, specifically for the photograph(s). Most seem unsustainable for any extended period of time, without weekly tear down and rework... As a novice with plants, I guess I assumed that everyone just snapped a few shots of their tanks on a slow Wednesday, while home sick... LOL
So, not to belabor my point... Has anyone on this board been able to find a good balance with Beauty and Sustainability? I am not suggesting a low or no upkeep setup. Just wondering how others who have been doing this for a long time have dealt with this dilemma of mine.
I am thinking it really all boils down to what types of plants you use, what dimension tank(s) you maintain, what lighting you have, what arrangement/scape you create etc... Next to each gorgeous photo, I would love to see the maintenance schedule required and the lifespan (total days until the scape has to be torn down).
I can't be the only one...