{"id":2751,"date":"2015-03-15T23:52:15","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T23:52:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/?p=2751"},"modified":"2015-03-23T02:08:10","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T02:08:10","slug":"the-beauty-of-aquascapes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/?p=2751","title":{"rendered":"The strange and serene beauty of aquascapes."},"content":{"rendered":"

There is a fascinating place in San Francisco that I like to visit when I am in town. It is called \u00a0Aqua Forest Aquarium <\/a>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/strong> and it is the first aquarium store in the US dedicated to the “nature aquarium style” concept and the first aquascaping shop I have ever seen in my life.<\/p>\n

I thought aquascaping was kind of niche until I went to an aquascaping show at the magnificent Conservatory Of Flowers<\/a><\/strong> <\/span>in Golden Gate Park last weekend. Done in collaboration with AFA <\/a><\/strong><\/span>and Ocean Treasures SF<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 the show focuses on the smaller and simpler tanks, unlike the complex aquariums found at AFA , but the Conservatory is an absolute must if visiting the city.<\/p>\n

This is what wikipedia<\/a><\/strong><\/span> says :\u00a0Aquascaping<\/b>\u00a0is the craft of arranging\u00a0aquatic plants, as well as rocks, stones, cavework, or\u00a0driftwood, in an aesthetically pleasing manner within an\u00a0aquarium\u2014in effect,\u00a0gardening\u00a0under water. Aquascape designs include a number of distinct styles, including the garden-like Dutch style and the Japanese-inspired nature style.\u00a0Typically, an aquascape\u00a0houses fish\u00a0as well as plants, although it is possible to create an aquascape with plants only, or with rockwork or other hardscape and no plants.<\/em><\/p>\n

Although the primary aim of aquascaping is to create an artful underwater\u00a0landscape, the technical aspects of aquatic plant maintenance must also be taken into consideration. Many factors must be balanced in the\u00a0closed system\u00a0of an aquarium tank to ensure the success of an aquascape. These factors include\u00a0filtration, maintaining\u00a0carbon dioxide\u00a0at levels sufficient to support\u00a0photosynthesis\u00a0underwater,\u00a0substrate and fertilization,\u00a0lighting, and\u00a0algae\u00a0control.<\/em><\/p>\n

Aquascape hobbyists trade plants, conduct contests, and share photographs and information via the Internet.<\/em><\/p>\n

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\"aquascapes\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are several styles of aquascaping :<\/p>\n

Dutch style<\/strong> which\u00a0employs a lush arrangement in which\u00a0multiple types of plants\u00a0having diverse leaf colors, sizes, and textures are displayed much as terrestrial plants are shown in a\u00a0flower garden. This style was developed in the\u00a0Netherlands\u00a0starting in the 1930s, as freshwater aquarium equipment became commercially available<\/p>\n

Japanese style or nature style <\/strong>which was introduced in the 1990s by\u00a0Takashi Amano.\u00a0Amano’s compositions draw on\u00a0Japanese gardening\u00a0techniques that attempt to mimic natural landscapes by the asymmetrical arrangement of masses of relatively few species of plants, and which sets rules governing\u00a0carefully selected stones or driftwood, usually with a single focal point.<\/p>\n

Iwagumi style <\/strong>which\u00a0is a specific subtype of the nature style. The\u00a0Iwagumi\u00a0term itself comes from the Japanese “rock formation” and refers to a layout where stones play a leading role<\/p>\n

Jungle style <\/strong>where the plants are left to assume a natural, untrimmed look. Jungle style aquascapes usually have little or no visible hardscape material, as well as limited open space.<\/p>\n

And Biotopes<\/strong> which replicate exactly a particular aquatic habitat at a particular geographic location, and not necessarily to provide a gardenlike display.<\/p>\n

The growing aquascaping community spreads out to all corners of the world. For some dreamy moments check out the results of the\u00a0first Eastern European Planted Aquarium Design Contest 2013<\/a><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0.\u00a0<\/strong>With names like Whisper Of the Pines, \u00a0Charm Of Light, \u00a0Forest Lair, \u00a0Wild West, Reborn, Windtalkers : wonderful.<\/p>\n

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\"aquascapes-art-underwater-gardening-96\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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Examples of salt water reef aquascape \u00a0 and biotope aquascape<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Reef_Aquascape\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"biotope<\/a><\/p>\n

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There is a fascinating place in San Francisco that I like to visit when I am in town. It is called \u00a0Aqua Forest Aquarium \u00a0 and it is the first aquarium store in the US dedicated to the “nature aquarium style” concept and the first aquascaping shop I have ever seen in my life. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2763,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[68,4,43,2],"tags":[1016,1015,1011,1010,1008,1009,1014],"class_list":["post-2751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-inspiration","category-things-that-work-for-me","category-travel","tag-afa-san-francisco","tag-aqua-forest-aquariums","tag-aquarium-art","tag-aquascape-aquariums-the-flower-conservatory-san-francisco","tag-aquascapes","tag-aquascaping","tag-ocean-treasures-aquariums-san-francisco"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/Screen-Shot-2015-03-14-at-3.50.38-PM.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3BVEi-In","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2751"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2812,"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2751\/revisions\/2812"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fashionsphinx.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}