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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V1 #290



> From: gtong at sirius_com (G.Tong)
> Date: Wed, 28 Feb 1996 11:33:28 -0800
> Subject: What are your aquascaping techniques?
> 
> The aquascapes in Takashi Amano's book, "Nature Aquarium World," lead me to
> ask for your techniques and tips for pruning and otherwise shaping your
> aquatic plants.
> 
> Aside from his wonderful arrangements, I notice that Amano uses
> small-leaved plants and what appear to be small plants (although scale is
> hard to gauge) in his arrangements. His water lilies and swords remain
> compact, his Java fern and bolbitis keep their shape, and the hygros are
> always bushy. In contrast, my versions of these plants grow quickly, large
> and all over the place.
> 
> Does he keep plants small and tidy through constant pruning? (He talks
> about removing large fern fronds and even cutting every Anubias nana leaf
> with algae on it.)
> Does he keep them growing more slowly through limited CO2 injection? (He
> mentions drip rates of 1 bubble per 5 seconds versus 1 bubble per second.)
> Does he severely limit fertilizer use?
> How do you shape your plants?
> 
I wondered about his techniques on several instances as well. However 
studying all his setups makes me think the " secret" of his success 
lies elsewhere.

Has anybody considered the fact he is using an extremely low light 
levels. Smaller tanks he is using(15 gal) have 4 watts/gal, medium
(50 gal) have 1 - 2 watts/gal and large tanks (200 gal +) have .5 
watts/gal or less on a really large ones. I also read somewhere he is 
using the lights(flourescent) that peak in cold colors(green !!??) I 
think a lot of aquatic gardeners(including myself) strive toward much 
higher luminesence and full spectrum lights.....

I would really like to find some more info on his tanks if it was 
available. Perhaps he is more elaborate in his second book ?? It is 
really hard to speculate, with such limited information he offers. 

As far as his pictures go....He is a professional photographer and 
has no doubt professional cameras such as Haselblaad and alike which 
cost around 10,000 dollars and we can only dream about....

Franc Gorenc                               franc at golden_net
Kitchener, Ontario                       http://www.golden.net/~franc
Canada