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I would really like to watch a vidio of the guy planting something like that. It must be wild.

I have seen thoughs pictures before. I can't grasp having a tank that large but some day I would like to build one in the wall with all plumbing right there.....

Just keep dreaming......

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

No, it's definitely MH. Did you check out the other links connected to that gallery. I think it's mostly under Oliver Knott. Warning there is so much eye candy you get kinda sick looking at it all.



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No way plants grow that big and bushy under regular flour lighting... but to be honest, I think it looked better in the older stage, not over grown

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In case you haven't seen it, here's a link showing many more pictures of the tank after it grew out and how it sets in his home.

http://www.pbase.com/plantella/niigata2005amanoshome

My Scapes

In one of the pics of the big tank and the lights it looks like he also lets in some natural light through a skylight. Looks may be decieving though. What a beatiful tank and I like the italian link, it would be a lot easier to 'copy' from those pictures and have the steps in the right order for a beginner to aquascaping. I added both links to my favorites. A girls gotta have a dream!

"If you're afraid you'll make a mistake, you won't make anything."
-Family Circus

I've also read that he rarely uses CO2 injection, and even the light requirements aren't terribly high for most of the tanks. I'm fairly certain that this big tank does not require CO2 injection

He use Co2 a lot. Any Amano tank I've ever seen certainly had it. He takes all the equipment out before a shot. But certainly in photos of his HQ every tank was running Co2. This one may not be, certainly there's nothing there plant wise that would require it to survive, but God knows what's in his sump.

and I'll bet he doesn't have anything much more powerful than shop-light fluorescents over it.

No, you can quite clearly see he's using MH lighting. He'd have to , it's the only way to get light to pierce that depth of water.
While it's true most of his tanks are basically low light, he usually uses fixtures with a mixture of HQI and Flourescent bulbs. He does the noon time blast routine, rest of the time they are low light. He also only uses 8000K bulbs. This is very heavy in the green spectrum.He has them specially made. Unfortunately outside of ADA bulbs this spectrum is next to impossible to find. I suspect lighting maybe a big factor in his success, along with his substrate methods.

As to his writing - Japanese is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn. It's difficult to translate. A lot of info may be lost in translation. But as you can see from his house he is very wealthy. He got that way from his aquascaping business, he's not going to share everything with us, I wouldn't, so he may be purposely keeping everything a bit vague and fuzzy.

Certainly his tanks shouldn't look anywhere near as good as they do if the parameters he published were to be believed.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Yeah NowherMan6,

That was one of the pictures I had seen before but could never find again .

I would give my right arm for just having that room in which the tank is housed (well, maybe only the tip of my left pniky ).

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Good follow-up Nowher, show's some add'l planting steps and the room the tank is in. Most be nice to be Mr. Amano

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Here's another link showing the set up of this tank, as well as a few others. It's all in italian i think, so I have no idea what it says (a lot is easy enough to figure out), but you basically scroll over the numbers and a new picture will come up. The big tank is Allestimento 5.

http://www.naturacquario.net/amano/

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Back in the saddle!

Really, Amano style tanks are very simple. He uses mostly low-maitenance, slow growing plants
Illustrae,
That is simply not true. Amano uses fast growing stem and ground cover plants that require constant maintenance.
Yes, some of his tanks might be 90% moss and only 3 species of plants, but the maintenance is there. I'm not sure why you describe his tanks as "Dutch" There is a definite distinction between a nature styled aquarium and a dutch one.

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Really, Amano style tanks are very simple. He uses mostly low-maitenance, slow growing plants, but it's the planning that goes into even a small tank that is so extremely detailed. I've also read that he rarely uses CO2 injection, and even the light requirements aren't terribly high for most of the tanks. I'm fairly certain that this big tank does not require CO2 injection, and I'll bet he doesn't have anything much more powerful than shop-light fluorescents over it. As long as the plants are getting the nutrition they need, algae won't be a problem, so really... a very simple, if ambitious in its size, aquarium.

However, it's not anything that you'd ever find in nature... even though his style is inspired by nature, there's a healthy dose of the dutch-style aquascaping involved here, making each tank very manicured and contrived. It's beautiful, but I wouldn't call it natural.

Hoping that there must be a word for everything I mean...

My only critism of Amano is the way some of the books are written. Is this a translation problem? I'm not sure who the books are written for. He makes things seem to simple. Maybe he's gotten so good that is is that simple, but to someone trying to create a nature aquarium, most will never attain one by reading about what he does in his books. Look I must admit, he's a big reason I got into planted tanks, just from his pics. One of my favorite amano lines goes something like this "When algae starts, put 100 yamato shrimp in." So I guess in this big tank that would be 10,000.

Last edited by tetratech at 11-Jan-2006 12:18

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his planning and plant choice show the tanks are very long term viable.

This, and your earlier quote about how awful and impossible an algae problem would be in a tank like this made me think: is this another example of the merits of fully planting a tank from the get go?

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Back in the saddle!

I meant no insult to amano mr. bensaf

I know that. I understood what you were saying. But there have been many doubters. "Oh he only builds them that way for a photo, they're not viable long term" or "he has a big team of gardeners always manicuring them".

Many who say this don't have to experience to see that his planning and plant choice show the tanks are very long term viable.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Hey now, I'm not attacking him in any way, shape or form. I haven't heard such rumors of him knocking tanks down after taking pics etc. I was just curious if he ever did that from a photography standpoint, but as you pointed out, from an artistic standpoint that's not his way.... which I dont know, since I've never read all that much about the man or his work... dunno, just thinking out loud I guess.

I meant no insult to amano mr. bensaf

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Back in the saddle!

There's always the questions/stories of does he grow them , snap a pic and then they fall apart. As if somehow he's "cheating" or the tanks aren't viable long term.

He's a very wealthy businessman. The bulk of his money come from designing and building tanks for corporate clients. You don't get to be sucessful at that if you are selling a very expensive product that's going to fall apart in a few months or requires a lot of work.

As far as I can tell all his tanks are long term viable. More so then the majority of ours. So what if he tears down some after they have peaked and starts over. How is that any different to what we do ? Hell, how many times have you, I or LF or tetra ripped our plants up and moved everything about ? Are we "cheating" ?

I think a lot of these rumors come from folks who see the pics but don't know a lot about how a planted tank works.

His plant choice is always superb. That's the key. He's introduced quite a few plants to the hobby, mainly because he was looking for alternatives to what was already available that were less work.

His recent tanks reflect this, lot's of moss, narrow leaf fern, blyxa and cyperus helferi. There are plants that look similar to these but none so easy to work with and maintain. These are tanks that can last for years. His planning and plant choice reflect a real concern for longevity.

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

If you haven't seen this I thought my planted tank friends would like it - Enjoy

http://www.oscarfish.com/takashi-amano-at-workmust-see-pics-vt46172.html?start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=

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WOW I cant imagine how he planted that monster, would he have done it before, halfway or after the water went in? I'm soooo jealous!!!

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Those who say they cant, Never will !!!

I have seen pictures of this tank on various sites and magazines.

It seems that this tank is a rather permanent installation that he maintains to show the greatness of his works, in a positive way.

Ingo

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Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

How long does he keep these tanks running? Does he set them up, grow them out to his preference, then take pictures and then tear them down?

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Back in the saddle!