PFK Aquascaping Special

[ghostsword]

I have had a look at this month edition of PFK, to check the 28 pages of planted tanks information. It is a very good introduction to keeping planted tanks, but I am sure that the novice to the hobby will be scared by the price of putting a tank together, especially on these lean times.

Also, the pages only appeal to really novices, or people that do not know about UKAPS, but it is a good start.

Pitty there isn't a magazine like aquajournal in english, that would be worth a subscription, even at £5 per magazine.

Obviously I didn't buy the pfk, 10 minutes glance at WHSmiths was more than enough.

 

[andyh]

lewis, your a tough man to impress! you did forget to metion the readers tanks, which was our very own Mark Evans aka Saintly. Great interview and tank!

 

[ghostsword]

lewis, your a tough man to impress! you did forget to metion the readers tanks, which was our very own Mark Evans aka Saintly. Great interview and tank!

I did see them.. but I recognised them from UKAPS. A reader has not to be on UKAPS to make good use of the magazine.

For example, the picture of Graeme, looking at the Tropica plants. The pics on his thread are much, way much, better than that.

So maybe UKAPS is too good, , but after seeing some of those tanks here, better interviews here, and after looking at the Amano Natural Aquarium books, hell, even after visiting TGM, do you expect someone to be impressed with those 28 pages? LOL

What I am looking for now is the exibition to be held in London on the 4th of November, that will be impressive for sure.

 

[Ian Holdich]

just finished reading this months PFK, i thought the planting section was well written. Very well put across as well. Well done George. I do agree with Luis regarding having a UK based mag, that the whole of UKAPS cound contibute to, it wouldn't even need to be monthly, quaterly would be OK.

 

[Luketendo]

Also got the magazine today, was pretty good but my main focus was looking at useful stuff for the TMC nano. Although the little section of tweezers and scissors certainly helped!

 

[stevec]

just finished reading this months PFK, i thought the planting section was well written. Very well put across as well. Well done George. I do agree with Luis regarding having a UK based mag, that the whole of UKAPS cound contibute to, it wouldn't even need to be monthly, quaterly would be OK.

if the whole of ukaps would contribute to pfk surely it would become the uk planted magazine that you all require

 

[Aeropars]

Having subscribed for about 2 years I've just cancelled my subscription to this. I found that it all got a bit stale and lacked anything to grab my attention.

One feature I think you should implement is something along the lines of 'Pimp my Tank'.

ONly experienced plant keepers can set up from scratch and keep an algae free tack while getting good plant growth so I'd like to see a feature that addresses common problems in tanks that are not perfect from the inset.

I'm the perfect example of being in the game for over 4 years but have still not hit what I am looking for in terms of plant growth. I struggle to get some plants growing.

It seems theres 'something' wrong with my setup, be it equipment, technique or something else, but to have someone come and 'fix me up' would no doubt help me along immensly. As would lots of other readers.

The thing I found frustrating on my introduction to planted tanks was that theres no inbetween. Your either planted or your not. Theres no inbetween as such. When you first buy a tank your never into the planted type so you spend your cash on inferiour stuff for the planted tank and then as you get into it you realise you need to change hell of a lot. There doesnt seem to be anything directed at the people who may be in a transition state or cannot afford everything that might be needed.

Just my 2p's woth on how a new feature like that might freshen things up a little.

 

[ghostsword]

just finished reading this months PFK, i thought the planting section was well written. Very well put across as well. Well done George. I do agree with Luis regarding having a UK based mag, that the whole of UKAPS cound contibute to, it wouldn't even need to be monthly, quaterly would be OK.

if the whole of ukaps would contribute to pfk surely it would become the uk planted magazine that you all require

Even TGM newsletters have much more information than the PFK Magazine. I am not sure how much it costs to setup a magazine, but maybe UKAPS, and some of the site sponsors, could setup some sort of e-zine, with paid subscription, or paid downloads and DRM, to cover for the expenses. If it worked well, then they could get it printed on hard copy, even if it was direct subscription first, or stocked at the sponsor shops and purchased online.

I have been keeping tanks since I was 11 years old, and had plants before, vallis, h. disformis and amazons, but only after seeing UKAPS, and reading the post was I pointed on the right direction and started to actually "keep plants", and I am still learning. My plants do not die, and I do not have issues with algae, cannot aquascape to save my life, but I got healthy plants.

Now about hardware, it is true that unless you know what you are doing and are pointed on the right direction, one will buy a lot of crap to start with, but this again where UKAPS and the posts help out a lot.

It would be great if all the information that there is on the site was also on printed paper and in WHSmith, so that other people had access to the good information and experience the beauty of a planted tank.

 

[Aeropars]

Luis,

The problem is that until you are into fish keeping your not likely to be into planted tanks. Therefore you buy inferiour equipment beforehand and ent up needing to replace a lot of it. If PFK could give articles on that transition people would learn more in my eyes. After all i think we all learn quicker for our own, or others mistakes.

 

[ghostsword]

Luis,

The problem is that until you are into fish keeping your not likely to be into planted tanks. Therefore you buy inferiour equipment beforehand and ent up needing to replace a lot of it. If PFK could give articles on that transition people would learn more in my eyes. After all i think we all learn quicker for our own, or others mistakes.

I would see planted tanks as reefs. Would people go first for salt water fish and then for reefs, or would they go straight to reefs? And reefs are much more expensive than keeping a planted tank.

I believe that the issue is lack of information, and looking again at the PFK magazine I think that it did a good job about it, to start having people looking at keeping a planted tank.

If there was a magazine about planted tanks, like there are gardening magazines, people would be able to start straight away with it.

 

[George Farmer]

I know quite a few people that have jumped straight into hi-tech planted and reef.

However, the majority do start of with basic aquaria and slowly build up. Two main reasons; budget and realising what they actually want from the hobby.

PFK will be featuring a lot more planted tank and aquascaping articles in the future. Jeremy Gay is the new editor, and aquascaping is a passion of his...

Regarding a planted tank dedicated magazine; this subject has been brought up before. It's a good idea but it's not feasible as a monthly publication, unless it's limited to 10-20 pages or so. Otherwise the lifespan before it became too repetitive would be too short.

I like the idea of an article about how to convert a 'regular' aquarium into a fully planted. Thanks.

 

[ghostsword]

Regarding a planted tank dedicated magazine; this subject has been brought up before. It's a good idea but it's not feasible as a monthly publication, unless it's limited to 10-20 pages or so. Otherwise the lifespan before it became too repetitive would be too short.

I got the 5 or 6 ADA Aquajournal magazines, the ones in English and they are far from boring. Actually they may even be magical, everytime I read them it seems that the articles get better and better.

 

[Aeropars]

I know quite a few people that have jumped straight into hi-tech planted and reef.

I like the idea of an article about how to convert a 'regular' aquarium into a fully planted. Thanks.

Glad you liked it but if you use the 'pimp my tank' idea can you do mine first as founder of the idea?!

 

[NeilW]

I got the 5 or 6 ADA Aquajournal magazines, the ones in English and they are far from boring. Actually they may even be magical, everytime I read them it seems that the articles get better and better.

I'm not knocking PFK as it is a good magazine at trying to cater for so many different expectations but for me the appeal of any ADA publication lays in its graphic design. On the whole PFK has good content and photography but IMO the layouts are awkward and blocky with no clear underlying grid (sorry if thats offensive to anyone, I don't mean to be saying anything too controversial as I have little experience in editorial design). On balance however I can appreciate PFK do have a lot of awkward content to fit in with advertising and actual quantity of stuff that ADA don't have to shoehorn in. ADA can pick and choose what they want to include as AquaJournals actually function as another piece of marketing for them- they are the advertisers themselves so don't need to give away valuable space. I would like to say I do frequently buy PFK, but its because of the content and not because I can rub my hands in a 'design nerdy' way and think 'thats a lovely piece of type setting'.

The 'magic' of ADA is created from good clean layouts, clear overall art direction and stunning photography. Maybe 'planted tank people' are more in tune with visuals as thats probably one of the reasons they picked planted tanks in the first place?

I would say we are the Mercedes car buyer after sophistication, clean lines AND content, whilst others in the fishy world are maybe the Toyota buyer who are purely after utility and content on its own. Just speculation but I would say that if PFK had a clearer art direction and layout then any content could be made appealing to the planted tank bunch and so actual number of pages of planted tank stuff would be less hotly discussed. We all take an interest in nature so I'm sure some obscure article on marine biology or fish exploring would be more palatable if presented in a similar clean visual language what were used to the planted tank world. Maybe its the nature of what we do but generally content designed for the planted tank market has good art direction and design; take a look at Tropica's new website, TGM's art direction and generally all of ADA's marketing and branding

Of course I would welcome more pages given to planted tank content BUT I buy PFK knowing it is intended as a general fish keeping magazine not just Practical Plant Keeping.

The content submitted by any UKAPS member to PFK I've seen (whether photographs or writing) has been top quality and the 'Aquascaping Guide' in the current issue was excellent

Keep up the good work guys!

(PS - I hope this doesn't across as coming over as completely destroying PFK as I do like it and buy it, honest! )