Hi I am a newbie to ukaps. I have just returned to the hobby after some 25 years absence and I am flabbergasted at how much has changed.
I am also more than a bit surprised to find that methods I took for granted way back then are only just beginning to come in to their own. For instance, and at great risk of sounding conceited, I was doing things the "Walstad" way at least a decade before the book was published, when I was a mere teenager.
And then to add in to the mix we have Takashi Amano, he seems to have an almost supernatural status in the planted tank world. However, as a conservation biologist with a specialism in wetlands, and as someone with more than a little business acumen, I respect him more for his marketing skills and turning the hobby in to an art form than for his supposed concern for the natural world, upon which he has built a very successful business; in short his science just doesn't add up beyond giving his products very convincing and cohesive stories which most of us swallow hook line and sinker.
Anyway, I am certainly no Takashi Amano when it comes to aquascaping but I thought I might introduce myself and post an image of my recently set up 55 litre 30cm x 30cm x 60cm aquarium.
Hope you like it, there is definitely room for improvement, but I suppose it isn't that bad for my first effort in 25 years.
I am also more than a bit surprised to find that methods I took for granted way back then are only just beginning to come in to their own. For instance, and at great risk of sounding conceited, I was doing things the "Walstad" way at least a decade before the book was published, when I was a mere teenager.
And then to add in to the mix we have Takashi Amano, he seems to have an almost supernatural status in the planted tank world. However, as a conservation biologist with a specialism in wetlands, and as someone with more than a little business acumen, I respect him more for his marketing skills and turning the hobby in to an art form than for his supposed concern for the natural world, upon which he has built a very successful business; in short his science just doesn't add up beyond giving his products very convincing and cohesive stories which most of us swallow hook line and sinker.
Anyway, I am certainly no Takashi Amano when it comes to aquascaping but I thought I might introduce myself and post an image of my recently set up 55 litre 30cm x 30cm x 60cm aquarium.
Hope you like it, there is definitely room for improvement, but I suppose it isn't that bad for my first effort in 25 years.
