Onoma1
Member
A few years back I stumbled on a George Farmer Video, found the Green Machine Videos, went to their shop just before they closed, found the UKAPS Forum, started my first tank, travelled to Aquarium Gardens. There I marvelled at their wonderful tanks and was presented with a sticker from ADA courtesy of @Siege. The sticker is now stuck on this laptop …my sister thinks that I may have joined a cult, however, is too polite to ask and my colleagues are perplexed by the Japanese Characters on my laptop but too polite to ask. I then started my second tank (incipient MTS) and then was lucky enough to visit Florestas Submersas while in Lisbon and Ecoarium in Portugal (concentrate I will be asking questions later).
In Ecoarium I saw the manicured ADA tanks and the then one in the corner. It was a bit messy, lots of emergent plants, full (and I mean full) of plants and looked (to be honest) a bit out of place. After I left the shop I started thinking about the strange tank, and my thought was that of all the tanks that was the only one that in anyway accurately reflected a ‘normal’ aquatic environment (you know the one you played in as a kid catching tadpoles or minnows).
Ok – back to the sticker, I was assured by @serge that a translation is “To know Mother Nature, is to love her smallest creations”. I can’t read Japanese and trust that @Serge and @dave aren’t ‘having a bit of a laugh’. This simple sentence is , however, the heart of the ADA way.
But I am perplexed, the ADA way leads to beautiful pieces of artwork, however, they are a far removed from ‘nature’ as could be possible. While some refer to them as ‘delicately balanced’ nature aquariums after two years of scaping I would refer to them as like balancing a feather on a bloody razorblade while pedalling a unicycle backwards…only achieved after years of pointless pain, practice and failure.
An there is so much, angst and despair from new (and not so new) aquascapers on the forum when they fall of their ‘unicycle’ as natural processes interfere with their attempts to achieve the ADA aquascaped version of nature. Is it the really the end of the world if you have green dust algae on rocks? If algae is an essential part of the natural ecosystem why don’t we welcome a bit of it in our tanks? Wouldn’t it be better for the hobby if we saw less of the ADA type tanks and more of imperfect but attainable and real slices of nature? Would more people stay in the hobby?
Please don’t misunderstand me I watch the ‘Zen Masters’ of Aquascaping with awe, I love their creations (just as I love looking at a piece of beautiful art). To take the metaphor of painting or art a bit further, I am probably still at the level of the chunky crayons, however, I expect more of artists.
What do I mean by this? Well their art pieces don’t say anything, they may look for five levels of depth perception within their scapes, however, they only have one level of meaning: the surface level. I get the reflective meditational element of watching a planted aquarium and believe me that’s helped me in my darkest days, however, shouldn’t our high art say something shouldn’t it have a purpose a value beyond the aesthetic? Even our ‘bad boy’ of aquascaping Oliver Knott doesn’t produce work with challenges or excites. It’s not new. Just as we strive for stasis within our tanks it feels like our art form isn’t progressing as we all aspire to produce an airbrushed version of Amano’s tanks. @Geoffrey Rea recently posted to say there needs to be more about the art and less about the science (I paraphrase from memory). I think he is correct, however, my view is this needs to be about the future artistic vision not about reproducing one vision (not that @Geoffrey Rea suggested this).
They are also (as systems) inelegant and wasteful – lots of inputs and outputs with the aim of stasis. One of my non-aquascapting friends looked at all my kit to keep the tanks going and commented that it looked a bit like the equipment you would see in a hospital (this wasn’t meant in a positive way). And we use all this kit to keep things the same. Our aquascapes don’t change – evolve – develop, decompose. The aim is to get to that point of equilibrium and stay there until you get bored, take the tank down and rebuild. Oh and don’t get me started on Dioramas. No really…
Then we have the alternative of the Walstad method which are more robust environments, however, let’s face it not the most beautiful aquariums. And biotopes the design of which necesitates sourcing the correct plants from exactly the same area or your proud post about your biotope will be flamed by an irate mob of biotopians with pitchforks and a bonfire ready for you and your heretical photo of your ‘so called biotope’. And let’s face it although biotopes really are the authentic slice of nature their aesthetic is an ‘acquired taste’.
After listening to the soothing voice of Scott Fellman at Tannin Aquatics talk on his podcast ‘The Tint’, I thought he might have an answer – until he also started to talk about 50% water changes per week, every week (btw he really needs to change his by-line my smutty minded older kids thought it was a spoof when they heard it and resolutely refused to explain why it was so hilarious).
So what’s my answer? I am not sure. I am still watching and listening to the voices on this forum. My artistic vision is mine, it’s personal and I like it (even if rendered in chunky crayons). I am beginning to play with botanicals, tinted water, emergent growth, living walls combined with aquatic elements (not quite a paludarium), dirted tanks, floating plants, trying to build ecosystems and I am looking for a way off my own aquatic ‘unicycle’. Perhaps my tanks will end up looking like the one I saw in Ecoarium. The journey will be interesting.
So what’s the future of aquascaping? In my view it has to evolve to look to shift beyond an ADA vision of the art and craft of building a planted aquarium. We need to be more sustainable, less reliant on technology to maintain fundamentally unstable systems and instead build intrinsically stable systems. If fear if we don’t then the future of aquascaping will be brief and incomplete.
In Ecoarium I saw the manicured ADA tanks and the then one in the corner. It was a bit messy, lots of emergent plants, full (and I mean full) of plants and looked (to be honest) a bit out of place. After I left the shop I started thinking about the strange tank, and my thought was that of all the tanks that was the only one that in anyway accurately reflected a ‘normal’ aquatic environment (you know the one you played in as a kid catching tadpoles or minnows).
Ok – back to the sticker, I was assured by @serge that a translation is “To know Mother Nature, is to love her smallest creations”. I can’t read Japanese and trust that @Serge and @dave aren’t ‘having a bit of a laugh’. This simple sentence is , however, the heart of the ADA way.
But I am perplexed, the ADA way leads to beautiful pieces of artwork, however, they are a far removed from ‘nature’ as could be possible. While some refer to them as ‘delicately balanced’ nature aquariums after two years of scaping I would refer to them as like balancing a feather on a bloody razorblade while pedalling a unicycle backwards…only achieved after years of pointless pain, practice and failure.
An there is so much, angst and despair from new (and not so new) aquascapers on the forum when they fall of their ‘unicycle’ as natural processes interfere with their attempts to achieve the ADA aquascaped version of nature. Is it the really the end of the world if you have green dust algae on rocks? If algae is an essential part of the natural ecosystem why don’t we welcome a bit of it in our tanks? Wouldn’t it be better for the hobby if we saw less of the ADA type tanks and more of imperfect but attainable and real slices of nature? Would more people stay in the hobby?
Please don’t misunderstand me I watch the ‘Zen Masters’ of Aquascaping with awe, I love their creations (just as I love looking at a piece of beautiful art). To take the metaphor of painting or art a bit further, I am probably still at the level of the chunky crayons, however, I expect more of artists.
What do I mean by this? Well their art pieces don’t say anything, they may look for five levels of depth perception within their scapes, however, they only have one level of meaning: the surface level. I get the reflective meditational element of watching a planted aquarium and believe me that’s helped me in my darkest days, however, shouldn’t our high art say something shouldn’t it have a purpose a value beyond the aesthetic? Even our ‘bad boy’ of aquascaping Oliver Knott doesn’t produce work with challenges or excites. It’s not new. Just as we strive for stasis within our tanks it feels like our art form isn’t progressing as we all aspire to produce an airbrushed version of Amano’s tanks. @Geoffrey Rea recently posted to say there needs to be more about the art and less about the science (I paraphrase from memory). I think he is correct, however, my view is this needs to be about the future artistic vision not about reproducing one vision (not that @Geoffrey Rea suggested this).
They are also (as systems) inelegant and wasteful – lots of inputs and outputs with the aim of stasis. One of my non-aquascapting friends looked at all my kit to keep the tanks going and commented that it looked a bit like the equipment you would see in a hospital (this wasn’t meant in a positive way). And we use all this kit to keep things the same. Our aquascapes don’t change – evolve – develop, decompose. The aim is to get to that point of equilibrium and stay there until you get bored, take the tank down and rebuild. Oh and don’t get me started on Dioramas. No really…
Then we have the alternative of the Walstad method which are more robust environments, however, let’s face it not the most beautiful aquariums. And biotopes the design of which necesitates sourcing the correct plants from exactly the same area or your proud post about your biotope will be flamed by an irate mob of biotopians with pitchforks and a bonfire ready for you and your heretical photo of your ‘so called biotope’. And let’s face it although biotopes really are the authentic slice of nature their aesthetic is an ‘acquired taste’.
After listening to the soothing voice of Scott Fellman at Tannin Aquatics talk on his podcast ‘The Tint’, I thought he might have an answer – until he also started to talk about 50% water changes per week, every week (btw he really needs to change his by-line my smutty minded older kids thought it was a spoof when they heard it and resolutely refused to explain why it was so hilarious).
So what’s my answer? I am not sure. I am still watching and listening to the voices on this forum. My artistic vision is mine, it’s personal and I like it (even if rendered in chunky crayons). I am beginning to play with botanicals, tinted water, emergent growth, living walls combined with aquatic elements (not quite a paludarium), dirted tanks, floating plants, trying to build ecosystems and I am looking for a way off my own aquatic ‘unicycle’. Perhaps my tanks will end up looking like the one I saw in Ecoarium. The journey will be interesting.
So what’s the future of aquascaping? In my view it has to evolve to look to shift beyond an ADA vision of the art and craft of building a planted aquarium. We need to be more sustainable, less reliant on technology to maintain fundamentally unstable systems and instead build intrinsically stable systems. If fear if we don’t then the future of aquascaping will be brief and incomplete.