The Aquatic Gardener’s Association convention in November is now open for registration. There are a number of compelling reasons to go to this year’s convention:

• Florida is amazing on November.
• Tissue Culture Workshop by Michael Kane.
• Field Trip to Florida Aquatic Nurseries — where nearly all of the plants in U.S. fish stores come from. See all of the plants your stores can order for you, and be amazed by their quality
• Speaker lineup is fantastic: Claus Christensen, Mike Kane, Ghazanfar Ghori, Jason Baliban, et al.
• ADG Iron Aquascaper Competition
• Be the first to hear AGA Aquascaping Contest Results.
• Meet other hobbyists, be inspired, make lifelong friendships.

Don’t miss the premiere U.S. planted aquarium event this year. Register today!

I haven’t posted in a long time, largely because I’ve been incredibly busy preparing for Aquafest 2009 in Laurel, MD. As president of GWAPA, one of the three clubs hosting the convention, there was plenty to do, but after a blur of a weekend, I think the convention was a success. Thanks to all of the sponsors, attendees, and volunteers who helped us pull it off! The main event that I was responsible for was the aquascaping challenge between Jason Baliban, our speaker, and Jeff Ucciardo, GWAPA’s vice president.

We spent the hour prior to the event sorting a mass of materials into two equal piles so that Jeff and Jason would start on a completely level playing field. Above is some of the manzanita wood that we got from Manzanita.com to use in the scapes. Jason got off to a quick start, putting in the white pool filter sand, developing a hardscape, and topping it off with some Aquasoil.

Jeff took a little bit of time to plan his scape, but was right behind Jason once he got his hardscape placed. Jason chose to extend the white sand all the way from front to back, while Jeff kept the sand confined to the foreground. Both competitors divided the tank into two mounds, one larger than the other.

In the end, both Jason and Jeff finished before the hour was up, which is quite impressive given the amount of time I usually spend working on an aquascape. Below is Jason’s finished scape from the side. The judges liked the rockwork in his scape, as well as the use of manzanita to provide flow to the layout.

However, the judges thought he could have filled in the scape with more plants than he did, but recognized that it should fill in nicely once it grows in. The tanks themselves are very nice, being a first look at Aquarium Design Group’s own line of rimless aquariums. They are 24″x16″x16″ and Catalina Aquarium donated a pair of HO-T5 lights to go with them.

Jeff’s finished aquascape is below, and as you can see, he did a very nice job filling in the scape with plants from the get-go. The judges took off points for his hardscape saying that it got lost in the plants.

They also wondered why he didn’t extend the white sand front to back between the two mounds. Ultimately, we ended up being able to exhibit two very nice scapes, especially considering that they were completed in an hours’ time frame. The judges gave a slight nod to Jason’s scape, but explained to the audience what they liked and disliked about each.

Also, during the whole hour, I gave a mini presentation about Aquascaping in general. We wanted to avoid folks from getting bored while the planting was going on, so I fielded a number of questions keeping the competitors from having to. Our A/V team also did a great job projecting the two tanks live onto two large screens so that everyone could see what was going on. Overall, the event was a success!

On October 17th and 18th, three D.C. metropolitan area aquarium clubs, GWAPA, CCA, and PVAS, will host Aquafest 2009. Aquafest is a bi-yearly event in Laurel, MD where each club brings in an expert speaker to present on Saturday. In addition, GWAPA will give an aquascaping tutorial and competition and CCA is conducting a high-caliber fish show where some very prized fish will be on display. Top notch vendors will also be selling their goods and livestock. On Sunday, PVAS will conduct an all-day auction, which is open to the public, where just about anything fish, plant, or piece equipment imaginable will be for sale.

Registration for Saturdays lectures and events is only $15.

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear veteran fish-keeper Ken Davis talk about the fishes of Uruguay. Jason Baliban, an award winning aquascaper, will talk about aquascaping and photography, and participate in an aquascaping faceoff with local GWAPA talent. Randy Carey, expert breeder and author, will discuss barbs, danios, and rasboras.

There will be something for everyone. You will get to mingle with some of the top breeders, aquascapers, and aquarium keepers in the region. Don’t wait to register, as space is limited. I hope to see you there!

This past weekend I flew down to Houston to attend Houston Plant Fest, a planted-aquarium weekend put on by the Nature Aquarium Society of Houston (NASH). The event kicked off on Thursday evening at Houston Aquarium Warehouse, a local fish store and importer who caters much of his store to the planted aquarium hobby.

Daniel, the owner of the store, brings in many smaller fish which are perfect for an aquascape where you don’t want the fish to overpower the environment around it. I saw some of these Paraguayensis Tetras (Aphyocharax paraguayensis) and had to buy a small school for my 50G aquarium. It was simple enough to get them back home in my checked luggage without any loses.

On Friday morning, two vans arrived near our hotel at 5:00am to take us on a 3 hour trip to the San Macros River. The river runs through the middle of the college town, where huge stands of Hygrophila polysperma, eel grass, Hydrocotyle, Cabomba, Ludwigia repens, and Texas wild rice all live. It was bittersweet to see Texas wild rice in its own remaining habitat, as development along the water has brought it to endangered status. Clearly, we didn’t collect any of this.

In some areas of the river, Cryptocoryne beckettii is purported to grow, but we didn’t see any during our trip. As an introduced exotic, the local government has been very dedicated to trying to eradicate it so it does not further diminish the Texas wild rice population.

That evening, we all returned to Houston to gather at The Fish Gallery in town to eat and appreciate their beautiful gallery of aquariums. They also have a retail store attached to the gallery in which they tailor to the higher-end aquarist.

On Saturday, we all filed into Aquaruim Design Group’s gallery for an aquascaping presentation by Mike Senske. Mike and Jeff Senske are long time hobbyists, and are well known for their beautiful aquascapes in the ADA and AGA aquascaping competitions. ADG is one of the few stores in the U.S. that carries and distributes ADA aquariums and products, so the Houston folks are quite fortunate to have them in their backyard.

Mike aquascaped an ADA 90P aquarium, which will now be displayed in their conference room. The scape was a wood-based scape using two beautiful pieces of driftwood that they found locally. They filled in the rest of the scape with plants easily available in stores. Overall, it was a good presentation.

From there, we went to one of the NASH member’s homes to enjoy some Texas-style BBQ, and just talked plants for the remainder of the evening. Sunday, we all had flights to catch. It was a great weekend spent with fellow hobbyists. These little excursions really help to keep the hobby fresh, and energize me to try different things in my aquariums. Thanks for a great weekend Houston!

The 2008 Aquatic Gardener’s Association Convention started with a field trip to the Georgia Aquarium, which was conveniently just a few blocks away from the convention hotel. We all assembled in the lobby of the hotel, and created a mob of people filling the street toward the aquarium. It was a great way to meet up with folks that you haven’t seen since the last convention.

The aquarium is rather new in Georgia, and that shows through in the cleanliness and general niceness of the tanks and facilities. The building has a central cafe/atrium area with wings heading off in different directions. We were first guided into their river wing because they had the planted aquarium staff there to answer any questions we had about those tanks.

The planted tanks that they had were nice tanks. They wouldn’t place highly in an aquascaping contest, but they’re well designed, and accomplish feats that most of us don’t usually attempt. By that, I mean that some of these tanks must have been 5-6 feet tall, and yet they still managed to adequately light them to the floor.

In addition, I asked one of the staff how they trimmed their plants in such a deep tank, and they said that they literally put on a wetsuit, and dive into the tank. If it was such a rigmarole for me to trim my tanks, I don’t think they’d ever get attention!

In addition to the planted tanks, they had a fair number of other freshwater tanks, including a large river tank with huge catfish, an African rift lake tank, a piranha tank, and several others. I would have liked to see more freshwater stuff at the aquarium, in comparison to the marine sections, but the things they had were nicely done.

One of the cooler attractions at the aquarium was their beluga whale pool. I counted four whales playfully swimming back and forth, clearly recognizing the humans on the other side of the glass. It’s always amazing to watch humongous creatures maneuver so gracefully and with such ease underwater.

And of course, they had a sea dragon exhibit. These odd-ball creatures don’t seem to move around much, but they’re fun to watch just due to their unique appearance.

I would be completely negligent if I didn’t show a picture of a guitarfish (below), for which this blog is *not* named after, but a coincidence that was nice to discover. Although they kind of look like a shark, they’re actually in the ray family, and cruise along the bottom searching for small crustaceans to eat.

The most impressive display at the Georgia Aquarium is their huge tank, which I believe is the largest aquarium in the world. They had large informational cards that you could take listing most of the species in the aquarium, so that you could find and identify the various fish in the tank. I could have sat in front of this glass all day long.

In fact, I believe that they several events in this room with the aquarium as a backdrop, and they even allow you to sleep over in some cases, where you can fall asleep watching the fishes. Obviously, there were countless other exhibits throughout the aquarium, but two of my favorites, which most public aquariums seem to have these days, were the eels/worms, and then the jellyfish below.

It’s just so neat to watch both of these creatures flow in the current, just waiting for food to come their way. The jellyfish, especially, are beautiful with the blue backdrop, and their orange and reddish colors.

I would recommend the Georgia Aquarium to anyone who’s in Atlanta and needs something to see. It’s definitely got a lot of offer, and is worth the price of admission. That huge tank is worth it by itself.

The informational part of 2008 Aquatic Gardener’s Association Convention wrapped up on Saturday evening with Karen Randall talking about her collecting trip to Thailand with aquatic plant author and expert, Christel Kasselman.

When they first got to Thailand, they wanted to experience the huge market in Bangkok. They had heard stories about the size and quality of the aquarium-related stands setup there. After much walking, they finally came to some of the dealers, finding rack after rack of aquariums filled with aquatic plants. Karen said that they could pretty much locate any aquarium plant known to the hobby in that market, in addition to some new ones.

Take for example this variegated fern shown above, which was purportedly a form of Java Fern. Unfortunately, with several weeks ahead of them, they weren’t confident they any plants bought in the market would survive to make it back to their homes. In addition to the plants, the markets had an amazing selection of other materials including rocks, wood, equipment, and even an insane variety of gravel. (shown below)

I can only imagine what it must be like to walk through so many shops who really get it in terms of aquatic plants. From there, Karen and Christel traveled throughout the country, collecting various crypts and other plants trying and find something new. They did find some interesting stuff, which she promised we’ll hear more about soon.

The next day, Sunday, was an all-day auction. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a thousand bags of plants spread across 4-5 rows of tables. I took 30 bags of plants myself to sell, but only came home with four. There was pretty good variety present in the auction, and prices were all over the map. In the beginning, prices tend to be a little bit inflated, but as the day wore on, several folks got some really good deals. It’s interesting to see relatively well-known plants, such as Anubias barteri var. nana, go for high prices while lesser known new plants go for less than they’d sell for online. Every auction is different, however, and I had a great time chatting with folks, while occasionally placing a bid. After 4-5 hours, I was off to the airport, after enjoying a fantastic convention. I highly recommend that every aquatic plant enthusiast try to attend at least one of these conventions in the future.

Saturday afternoon at the 2008 Aquatic Gardener’s Association Convention, Takashi Amano setup a beautiful ADA 90P aquarium from start to finish to demonstrate how to properly design an aquascape. With many helpers at hand, and tables full of rocks, wood, substrate, and plants, he began by segmenting with poster-board the floor of the aquarium into bright sand and aquasoil sections.

He then added the substrate, and positioned moss-covered-rocks along the line between the two types of substrate. After positioning the driftwood, he began positioning ferns and Anubias into the hardscape. One thing with Mr. Amano, is that he plants incredibly densely, so that when he’s done, it looks like a near finished aquascape. (Often times hobbyists don’t have the luxury of having that many plants available to scape with, and have to grow them out within the aquascape.)

Once the more static plants were in place, Amano partially filled up the tank with water, and began planting the stem and other background plants. Again, he planted very densely, so that it would only require a couple trims before the aquascape was completely full and lush.

After filling up the tank, and allowing the water to clear, below is his finished scape. It’s amazing what he was able to pull off in just about an hour. Beautiful!

Jeff Senske, of Aquarium Design Group, spoke at the 2008 Aquatic Gardener’s Association Convention about using Effective Design in your aquascapes. Basically, he like most of us, started trying to aquascape by throwing a lot of different plants together in a tank. Eventually, he learned how to grow the plants properly, but the tank was still a mishmash of healthy plants. He said that at an AGA Convention in the early 2000′s, he brought a picture of his tank to show to Mr. Amano, who was presenting at the time. Mr. Amano looked at the picture, complemented the healthy looking plants, but said that his aquascape lacked philosophy. Ever since then, Jeff has kept that in mind prior to designing any aquarium, whether it’s freshwater planted, reef, or plastic plants, he deploys design principles to his work.

Running an aquarium service company, Jeff often has to harmonize the aquarium equipment and aquascape with the rest of the room. Above, you can see how Jeff matched the style of the aquarium stand and wood type with the rest of the room. The aquascape itself, is also an open-style scape, just like the open floorplan of the room. Jeff also stressed that design should not have to suffer due to maintenance issues. In his experience, aquariums require water changes regardless of whether they’re high tech or low tech, full of plants, or not. He doesn’t see trimming as a barrier to upkeeping a design. That said, he’s not afraid to use a beautiful ADA setup with zero plants, such as the tank below.

In fact, this tank might be more like the angelfish’s natural habitat in the Amazon River, minus the tannin-stained-water, than a heavily planted tank would be. Still, the wood makes it an interesting tank to look at, as does the top-end equipment. All-in-all, Jeff Senske just wants all of us to design our aquariums with purpose.

After critiquing the ADA entrant tanks during his presentation at the 2008 Aquatic Gardener’s Association Convention, Takashi Amano proceeded to discuss some tanks of his own. He spent a long time showing the exact progression several of his tanks have gone through from empty tank to finished aquascape. Afterward, he did show a number of pictures of his finished layouts.

He started by showing a picture which was featured on the cover of Tropical Fish Hobbyist and given the title “Amano Magic!” He stated that it they called it magic because to the human eye it’s believable that this could be a natural habitat for those angelfish. He then said that this was incorrect.

He stated that it’s easy to fool a human eye, but the true test of an aquascape is whether or not the aquascaper has fooled the fish inhabitants that this is a natural environment. This could be discerned by looking at the coloration and interaction of the fish in the tank.

He showed a number of his tanks, such as my favorite one above, which are truly extraordinary, both in aquascape and photography. He flipped through a number of aquariums, demonstrating different types of aquascapes.

Some were more heavily planted, with moss covered wood as the focal point. He didn’t spend any time talking about the photography side of his aquarium pictures, but clearly he knows what he’s doing. I’ve read elsewhere that the ripple effect on the water’s surface was created using a hairdryer.

Amano also described how to create an iwagumi aquarium layout, such as in picture above. This is a more traditional iwagumi scape, utilizing only one or two types of plants, allowing the rocks to be the focal point.

He also showed that it was possible to create a nice iwagumi with more plants in more of a hybrid way, utililizing background and accent plants. Of course, the rocks are still the primary focus of the scape. Rock positioning and selection either make or break this type of scape.

This final aquascape was one of the ones that he showed from start to finish. As you can kind of see above, he started with a bare tank, and used poster board to keep the Aquasoil and Bright Sand separate. The two substrates were further separated by moss covered stones, and accented by driftwood. The tank is then planted, and allowed to grow in. After a rather harsh trimming, the plants grow back more bushy, and a few months later, you have your final aquascape below.

Mr. Amano ended his presentation talking about some non-aquarium-related work that he has been doing, nature photography. As you may know from his beautiful picture-books of the Amazon and Rio Negro, Amano is an expert photographer. He had two of his works displayed at the G8 Summit recently held in Japan with many world leaders.

The particular photograph displayed in the background above is of a huge tree in one of Japan’s ancient forests. He then answered a number of questions from convention attendees, and finished his presentation. Overall, it was a very insightful presentation, which some beautiful aquascapes on display.

The obvious headlining speaker at the Aquatic Gardener’s 2008 Convention was Takashi Amano. Aided by his translator, Mr. Amano gave a very insightful view into the mind of a judge for his ADA Aquascaping Contest. As someone who has entered these competitions before, this information is very helpful for when I design my future aquascapes. Therefore, I wanted to share a number of slides from his presentation, as well as, his comments for what the entrant could have done better to receive a higher placing.

#31: The driftwood is too centered. If moved to the right a little bit, it would be been more balanced.

#32: The large rock is too far to the left, throwing off the balance of the aquascape.

#43: The wood is too centered, and too close together. Spacing the wood further apart would have helped.

#44: Not enough negative space in this aquascape. It looks too cramped.

#48: There are too many stem plants around this tree stump.

#49: The photographer used a wide angle lens when shooting this tank, making the driftwood appear distorted.

#61: The rock on the right is laying down too much. It should be pointing up at more of an angle to be balanced with the other rocks.

#63: The rocks are too much in a line. They should be staggered a little bit to look natural.

#69: The plant selection in the foreground and background are too different, making it look like the two don’t go together.

#72: The plants on the left don’t match the plants on the right. While both look very nice, they don’t go together.

#75: Nice scape, but the two pieces of driftwood nearly touch, which is distracting and unnatural looking.

#79: The left side is too heavy, and not following the principles of the golden ratio. Also, the slope of the trimmed plants on the right and left don’t match. The right slope is too steep.

#81: The moss is overgrown, and needs to be trimmed.

#85: This scape would be better if the skinny piece of driftwood just left of center was removed entirely. Lots of entrants used too much hardscape to their detriment.

#87: The mossy rock on the left is too close to the front of the glass creating a dark area.

#94: The driftwood is unnatural and doesn’t match. The left pieces are skinnier than the right — they should be the same size.

#98: Nice pieces of wood, but the whole scape should be shifted, as the wood is too centered.

#106: The left side is too heavy, too oppressive.

#110: Very progressive layout, but it’s lacking much open space.

#117: Too much rock was used in this aquascape.

#122: Lacks focus, with no particular place being the focal point. Plus, the rocks are misplaced.

#123: The driftwood is far to large for this aquascape.