AQUASCAPING Vs. DECORATING AQUARIUM Vs. PLANT KEEPING

The world of fish keeping rose to a new height in the early 90’s when the book NATURE AQUARIUM WORLD by Takashi Amano hit the bookstores. At that time we as fish keeper hobbyist realized that the aquarium we have isn’t merely a glass cage for keeping the fishes we have. It is now 2009 and of course we still fascinated by the look of finely decorated aquarium.

In this article I would like to discuss, or furthermore, differentiate the terms of aquascape. At first, we, of course, own an aquarium. What will we do with the aquarium is the next question. A fish enthusiast will of course provide the needs of his/her beloved fish into the aquarium. However, not all us aquarium hobbyist are into fish exclusively. Some of us are really more into plants. Aquatic plants to be exact. Regardless what comes first into our minds, what we really want is a good looking aquarium stand in our living room, so we can proudly show the piece of art to our visitors.

Aquacaping is the act of how we scape the aquarium. Just like a garden designer turns the yard in our house into garden. The designer is land-scaping our garden. When aquascaping our aquarium, we should consider many things, such as how we want the aquarium looks like in the end. Do we really want its look like a habitat from where our fish originated? Or do we want it to look like a lush, underwater garden like those shown in the book? Or we just want to have our fish look happy while the aquarium does not look to bare? Regardless what will you do, in my opinion, aquascaping is the pinnacle of aquarium hobby.

Decorating the aquarium, is the more simple term than aquascaping. You can simply put decoration into your aquarium so it will look more nicely than a bare aquarium. You can put many ornament into the tank, such as driftwood, rocks, artificial plant, or, to the non-purist aquarium, sunken ship or else.

Plant keeping is the more complex subject than decorating the aquarium. If the aquascape focus on how we decorate our aquarium so it will look as natural as possible, plant keeping simply turn the aquarium into underwater forest. Modern hobbyist, however, have learn, that simple plant keeping will not look very nice without the touch of design here and there. In the past, aquarium hobbyist tend to ingnore the basic rule of design so in the end their aquarium look to be a jungle. Not a jungle design aquarium, but an actual jungle. We can barely see the fish or whatever in the tank because the plant grow so big it block our view. If we focus on plant keeping, we must concentrate our subject on technical matters, such as CO2, fertilizers and lighting. All of those can be learn, albeit it takes quite sometimes.

So, in the end, one question remains. What is the best option to have a nice, decorated aquarium? Is it aquascaping? Is plain decorated aquarium? Or is plant keeping? The choice is yours exclusively. If you focus on the fish, I recommend decorating your aquarium accordingly to your fishes’ requirement. If you want a more complex system, then the term aquascaping comes to mind. It balances your options between keeping fish and plant. And if you really, really like aquatic plants, then go for it. Turn your aquarium into aquatic jungle.

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NATURAL VS BIOTOPE AQUARIUM

Have aquarium decorated with beautiful, is the dream of almost all hobbies aquarium. An Aquarium that has been decorate well, especially when using a life water plant can be as highest ideals for hobbies of the aquarium decor. Often when we see a beautiful aquascaping, we often think that the glass is in the box is really natural, as if we move a small part of nature itself into a limited space which is in the room where approximately located.
But if it always so?
An aquarium can be called with the term natural aquarium, in the ecosystem when the aquarium is already there and also water plants fauna, and has been a cycle of chemical and biological sustainability.
Meanwhile, the biotope itself can be defined as the environment that reflect the specific circumstances in which the species of flora or fauna originated. Biotope be equated with the general habitat, but will better reflect the uniformity in biology in general. The explicit, describing the habitat of a living organism-specific, both animal and plant (eg, swamps, lakes, rivers), while the biotope specifically describe the place is derived organisms (eg, Whitewater or blackwater).
Prominent differences from the Natural Aquarium Biotope and patterns of use are materials used in designing an aquarium that would have been decorate. Natural Aquarium, will use the materials to support the aquarium's initial design. So on a NA-valid only if we use the dwarf amazon sword plant originating from South America in the foreground, Driftwood originating from Borneo as her focal point of view aquarium, and Vallisneria sp. Coming from North America or Hygrophylla corimbosa coming from Asia as a background for the large size. Discus fish form a graceful slow swimming fish be under guard by gang Rasbora. In short, in a Natural Aquarium, we're not limited by any aquascaping realize to create in our dreams. Only directed imagination that gave us our limits.
Meanwhile, if we want to be pure designing an aquarium that can be called a biotope, so many things that needs to be a consideration. We need to know exactly where flora or fauna that would keep us come, and as much as possible we use materials that originate from the area. Therefore, if we want to show the biotope deputize her Asian waters, it will be very good if we concentrate using materials originating from the area.
So if we compare these two things after we know what the meaning of each term and Natural Aquarium Biotope , Aquarium Natural whether more can be considered to be superior compared to the biotope aquarium, because there is no limitations that we rein in designing to create a aquascaping?
Honestly, the author assumes that designing biotope aquarium is the work more challenging and more fun to it. In business designing a biotope is good, we must better understand the needs of plants or animals that we keep, and with the understanding what they need, of course, they will get better care more, so that their viability more guaranteed. With the limitations in trying to create when we create a biotope, we are required to be more creative in determining the choices of materials we would use.
Nature is showing the extraordinary that can be inspired by people in designing aquarium, but only touch the human soul that can be improved the beauty of it. Thus, a beautiful aquascaping be defined as a work of art.
Biotope is intended to show the form of flora and fauna as natural as the place such as where they originate. If we aim to keep them and hope they show the beauty of their maximum, and it isn’t best that the prison that we call the aquarium we built in accordance like their homes in natural habitat

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