I tried that method in my fishroom thread. It becomes confusing. And the comments become meaningless to a person who has not seen your first post earlier. So I think taking individual Scapes and showing its maturing over time and in continuity will be more practical.
Joined: May 15, 2007 Posts: 2422 Location: Bangalore
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 5:08 pm Post subject: Re: My Journey In The World of Aquascaping
End of 2008 and 2009 was the time when i read extensively on Amano's work and studied his work. I also looked at aquascape works from other countries. Thats when i stumbled upon IAPLC, The scapes that were submitted to IAPLC blew my mind away. Studying those scapes introduced me to a vey underrrated ingredient in Aquascaping ....... "Creativity".
Today i see people talk of everything except this ! You may put in the best equipment in the world, But without creativity you will just have a tank with lot of healthy plants. This Ingredient in my opinion is what makes the difference bethween "Stunning Aquascaping" and "Planted Tank"
So what is creativity in terms of aquascaping?
In my opinion "Aquascaping is the art of putting together hardscape (Driftwood,Rock,Substrate) and Plants together in such a way as to create a Visually Appealing Aquascape with a touch of Nature" and for this you need to understand 4 things
1. Learn to arrange Driftwood/Rocks in a elegant way, This comes from practise, practise and more practise
2. Learn how different plants grow, This is very important, If you know this you can achive the below
3. Learn to visualize the scape developing.
4. Once you have your scape in mind, Put the rest of the "technical" requirements together like Tank, CO2,Lights etc etc based on the scape and plants you have in mind.
For me, Its like a movie playing in my head where a Tank i intend to create goes from Day 1 to Day 60 in 30 seconds, Then i play it over and over with different variations till i get to see what i like (I hope this makes sense) ............. It takes a while to master this by the way ! You will be able to clearly see the difference by looking at the scapes of 2009 and 2011 which will come later on.
Anyway, Armed with all the these details i went about creating my first IAPLC entry and here it is
Joined: Jan 31, 2009 Posts: 2526 Location: New Delhi
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:01 pm Post subject: Re: My Journey In The World of Aquascaping
Nice explanation on aquascaping for novice like me
Your tanks are really a treat to watch ...Would want to drop in this time i am there.Hope you dont mind.
Joined: Jan 25, 2005 Posts: 2922 Location: Bangalore
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 8:13 pm Post subject: Re: My Journey In The World of Aquascaping:Updated 03 Jun'11
Now this! I call it a beautiful stagewise demo of maturing of a scape.
The initial flora has been moulded over a period of time to form a beautiful garden.
The problem is people with difficulty in growing plants trying to do scaping. The first month flora is different from the second month. And by the sixth month the flora, fauna and the decor is totally new from what was initially planned or planted and than calling it a matured scape. That is not scaping. That is a planted bouquet changed every month and anybody with money and a little bit of effort can achieve it!
That is a planted bouquet changed every month and anybody with money and a little bit of effort can achieve it!
Regards,
Sorry to disagree with this point Nayak. You can't have the final look at day one or first month. Only the creator can visualize the final output what he wants when the tank will mature according to him. It might be a complete faceoff of the initial scape also. And thats the fun of Aquascaping.
Joined: May 15, 2007 Posts: 2422 Location: Bangalore
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Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2011 11:46 pm Post subject: Re: My Journey In The World of Aquascaping:Updated 03 Jun'11
Tirtha
I guess what Nayak is saying is that there are people who want to make a planted tank and will attempt one without first gaining knowledge on what it takes to grow plants well in the first place, After a month the tank reaches nowhere, they rip it down or change things and its that way for another month and so on and so forth. So it goes nowhere.
That is a planted bouquet changed every month and anybody with money and a little bit of effort can achieve it!
Regards,
Sorry to disagree with this point Nayak. You can't have the final look at day one or first month. Only the creator can visualize the final output what he wants when the tank will mature according to him. It might be a complete faceoff of the initial scape also. And thats the fun of Aquascaping.
I guess what Nayak is saying is that there are people who want to make a planted tank and will attempt one without first gaining knowledge on what it takes to grow plants well in the first place, After a month the tank reaches nowhere, they rip it down or change things and its that way for another month and so on and so forth. So it goes nowhere.
Tirthankar,
I never expected the final look at day one or the first month of any scaping. And it is not only the creator who can visualize the final output of what he wants. Provided he does not do major alterations to the scaping, any person with a knowledge of how the different plant grows can approximately visualize the intentions of the aquascaper too.
For eg: Seeing the first picture of the newly set up scape of Seetharam, the focal point is the drift wood with the Eleocharis and Crypts providing the strong contrasts. The slow growing plants like the Moss and anubias are only the garnishing which he will use to smoothly blend any sharp edges.
And he has achieved that!
But suppose say, someone shows the initial picture of his(Eg: Seetharam) scape in the first month,
The second month he takes out the driftwood and adds some rocks, The eleocharis are not growing so he adds some stem plants after removing the eleocharis...
The third month he has algae poblem, so he nukes his tank with glut. Takes out the crypts which are algae covered and adds some different plants. removes the rocks and adds another two pieces of driftwood.....
Fourth month he is unhappy with the placing of driftwoods, so he separates them to the two corner of the aquarium, Removes the stem plants planted in the second month since they are not growing and adds rosette plants again....
And so on and so forth......
Now I can safely say the initial wannabe scaper himself is not sure of what he wants and is, flowing with the tide of his capability of buying things and his efforts in procuring them and replanting his aquarium every month.
That is a planted bouquet changed every month and anybody with money and a little bit of effort can achieve it!
Regards,
Sorry to disagree with this point Nayak. You can't have the final look at day one or first month. Only the creator can visualize the final output what he wants when the tank will mature according to him. It might be a complete faceoff of the initial scape also. And thats the fun of Aquascaping.
I guess what Nayak is saying is that there are people who want to make a planted tank and will attempt one without first gaining knowledge on what it takes to grow plants well in the first place, After a month the tank reaches nowhere, they rip it down or change things and its that way for another month and so on and so forth. So it goes nowhere.
Tirthankar,
I never expected the final look at day one or the first month of any scaping. And it is not only the creator who can visualize the final output of what he wants. Provided he does not do major alterations to the scaping, any person with a knowledge of how the different plant grows can approximately visualize the intentions of the aquascaper too.
For eg: Seeing the first picture of the newly set up scape of Seetharam, the focal point is the drift wood with the Eleocharis and Crypts providing the strong contrasts. The slow growing plants like the Moss and anubias are only the garnishing which he will use to smoothly blend any sharp edges.
And he has achieved that!
But suppose say, someone shows the initial picture of his(Eg: Seetharam) scape in the first month,
The second month he takes out the driftwood and adds some rocks, The eleocharis are not growing so he adds some stem plants after removing the eleocharis...
The third month he has algae poblem, so he nukes his tank with glut. Takes out the crypts which are algae covered and adds some different plants. removes the rocks and adds another two pieces of driftwood.....
Fourth month he is unhappy with the placing of driftwoods, so he separates them to the two corner of the aquarium, Removes the stem plants planted in the second month since they are not growing and adds rosette plants again....
And so on and so forth......
Now I can safely say the initial wannabe scaper himself is not sure of what he wants and is, flowing with the tide of his capability of buying things and his efforts in procuring them and replanting his aquarium every month.
Joined: May 15, 2007 Posts: 2422 Location: Bangalore
Status: Offline
Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 4:04 pm Post subject: Re: My Journey In The World of Aquascaping:Updated 03 Jun'11
The IAPLC Tank was ripped down soon within a month after picture submission as i was not too happy with the scape, I felt it had too much weight on the left, I just made some hardscape changes to balance out the whole scape and replanted.
After Redo
Final Shot
This Tank got neglected badly in 2010 due to heavy work at office and was ripped down end of 2010.
2009 was also the year i improved on my skills to create Iwagumi Style Aquascaping. I decided to put together Iwagumi and my favourite foreground plant "Cuba" , I decided to start a emmersed setup. and below is what i ended up with, This eventually became the home for my first batch of Crystal Red Shrimps.
Crystal Island
Start of DSM
End of DSM
Tank After Flooding
Now at this point i had learnt enough to realize that the tank was not a perfect Iwagumi, So i went ahead and picked up more stones and added to the scape, though it was not a perfect Iwagumi yet, It had a much more better look to it that the previous scape. Below is what i ended up creating.
This tank was decommisioned end of 2010
Now i do not dwell too much into all the aspects of Iwagumi, I follow some principles but in the end its all about creating a natural looking stone placement.
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............. It takes a while to master this by the way ! You will be able to clearly see the difference by looking at the scapes of 2009 and 2011 which will come later on.
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