• fz
  February 14th, 2008 at 6:57 am

  Hard to clean? I’d love to replicate this for my living room.

• Empty
  February 14th, 2008 at 11:36 am

  The “Nature Aquarium” style was pioneered by Takashi Amano… Check out a search on Google Images for more of the masters work:

  http://images.google.com/images?q=takashi+amano&hl=en&client=firefox-a &rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:official&hs=0Ch&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=images&ct= title

  To answer the other commenter, they aren’t hard to “clean” per se, because the plants eat the fish wastes and you stock them with a variety of algae-eating animals (notably otocinclus and Amano shrimp) that do that part for you. As far as maintenance though they ARE demanding, requiring frequent pruning and more equipment than a regular “fishtank”. As an example, I have a pressurized CO2 tank and 100W of light(a “moderate-high” level in planted-tank terms) on a 20G tank. A tank that size would normally have about 20W of light on it. Additionally, other fertilizers must be added several times a week.

  In my opinion, worth the effort, but there is a learning curve for sure.

• J'ni
  February 14th, 2008 at 12:24 pm

  I hope to customize one of my tanks like this! check out my custom aquariums - http://www.orbedge.com!

• Christophe
  February 14th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

  Snails can be useful for algeas too, like the ampuleer. Oh yes, they’ll eat your plants too;)

  Owner of a fish tank, I’m amazed by the gardening time those pieces of art represent.

• Ali S.
  February 14th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

  So beautiful! Yeah just get a few snails and algae eating fish and bam the cleanest Aquariam ever.

• andy cochrane
  February 14th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

  I have slowly lost several aquariums to algae and disrepair over the years- as amazing and beautiful as these are, I don’t think I could ever trust myself to keep them looking like this! Very cool find, guys.

• Lea
  February 14th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

  I’ve seen something like this before. They’re beautiful. Be careful with snails though. They breed like…well…certainly more fruitfully than rabbits. I bought two for my mom’s aquarium and had a couple hundred in a week…

• Alex
  February 15th, 2008 at 6:04 pm

  I agree with Lea on snails: pretty much all aquatic plants bought from stores will have snails. I used to treat the plants with potassium permanganate before putting it into my tank.

  If you have a snail infestation, it’s quite difficult to get rid of. For mild infestation you can float a piece of lettuce - snails will flock to the lettuce. Simply float new lettuce leaf every few hours or every day until you don’t have snail anymore.

• oakling
  February 16th, 2008 at 11:03 pm

  Those are amazing! I’m so glad I live near SF I’ve been putting off restocking my aquarium for months!

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• fz
  February 14th, 2008 at 6:57 am

  Hard to clean? I’d love to replicate this for my living room.

• Empty
  February 14th, 2008 at 11:36 am

  The “Nature Aquarium” style was pioneered by Takashi Amano… Check out a search on Google Images for more of the masters work:

  http://images.google.com/images?q=takashi+amano&hl=en&client=firefox-a &rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:official&hs=0Ch&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=X&oi=images&ct= title

  To answer the other commenter, they aren’t hard to “clean” per se, because the plants eat the fish wastes and you stock them with a variety of algae-eating animals (notably otocinclus and Amano shrimp) that do that part for you. As far as maintenance though they ARE demanding, requiring frequent pruning and more equipment than a regular “fishtank”. As an example, I have a pressurized CO2 tank and 100W of light(a “moderate-high” level in planted-tank terms) on a 20G tank. A tank that size would normally have about 20W of light on it. Additionally, other fertilizers must be added several times a week.

  In my opinion, worth the effort, but there is a learning curve for sure.

• J'ni
  February 14th, 2008 at 12:24 pm

  I hope to customize one of my tanks like this! check out my custom aquariums - http://www.orbedge.com!

• Christophe
  February 14th, 2008 at 1:34 pm

  Snails can be useful for algeas too, like the ampuleer. Oh yes, they’ll eat your plants too;)

  Owner of a fish tank, I’m amazed by the gardening time those pieces of art represent.

• Ali S.
  February 14th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

  So beautiful! Yeah just get a few snails and algae eating fish and bam the cleanest Aquariam ever.

• andy cochrane
  February 14th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

  I have slowly lost several aquariums to algae and disrepair over the years- as amazing and beautiful as these are, I don’t think I could ever trust myself to keep them looking like this! Very cool find, guys.

• Lea
  February 14th, 2008 at 9:13 pm

  I’ve seen something like this before. They’re beautiful. Be careful with snails though. They breed like…well…certainly more fruitfully than rabbits. I bought two for my mom’s aquarium and had a couple hundred in a week…

• Alex
  February 15th, 2008 at 6:04 pm

  I agree with Lea on snails: pretty much all aquatic plants bought from stores will have snails. I used to treat the plants with potassium permanganate before putting it into my tank.

  If you have a snail infestation, it’s quite difficult to get rid of. For mild infestation you can float a piece of lettuce - snails will flock to the lettuce. Simply float new lettuce leaf every few hours or every day until you don’t have snail anymore.

• oakling
  February 16th, 2008 at 11:03 pm

  Those are amazing! I’m so glad I live near SF I’ve been putting off restocking my aquarium for months!

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