Aquascape of the Month June 2008: "Picture of My Childhood"

June 2008 Aquascape of the Month
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Picture From My Childhood
by Slobodan Lazarevic

INTRODUCTION
[imgl="white"]http://www.aquascapingworld.com/gallery/images/1/large/1_ja.jpg[/imgl]My name is Slobodan Lazarevic, for most of local fish keepers and close friends of mine better known as Laza. I'm from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia (former republic of Yugoslavia, SE Europe). I'm a member of several fish keeping web portals word-wide under the nickname Octopus or OctopusBG. I've been involved in plants and fish keeping for about 30 yrs.

Today, the fish keeping and aquatic plants are my business, my hobby and still my obsession. Aquaria is my love and also my way of living. I am a breeder of freshwater fishes, aquatic plants, corals and as well as I'm aquascaper. I've been dealing with aquascaping for many years but in last few years, have to admit that I'm focused a bit more on reef scaping.
I have a plenty of tanks. The most of my tanks are located apart from my living space, in separate space which my wife has named Laza's Green House.

Decision made by your admin team to take my nano tank into consideration and to announce it as a tank of the month June 2008 is highly appreciated and personally, it's a great honor.

Ever since I was a child, my parents have had aquarium so my first footsteps had been made by the aquariums and their inhabitants. Love for the living beings under the water surface has been shown to me by my parents, who are BTW veterinarians. Thanks to that and my wish to know as much as possible about those living beings, I have decided to attend Biology at University of Belgrade. As I've already said, I was involved in fish keeping long time ago but I am still glad when I recall my first steps in this hobby. I am quite sure that I will never forget my first successes as well as a certain disappointments that each of us simply have to face soon or a latter.

I've became interested in aquascaping a long time ago, probably even before I've met for a first time a term “Aquascaping”. As a student, besides fish breeding, I have became interested in aquascaping as well. Some Dutch tanks I've seen including some early works of Mr. Takashi Amano have made very strong impression on me. Particularly, his nature style have influenced me so strongly. Therefore, I've decided to make and develop some kind of my own aquacsaping style, of course inspired by the above-mentioned layouts. So far, my intention is still to replicate some images of a nature I have in my mind as much realistic as possible, in all of my tank. For that reason, some of my colleagues determined my own stile in aquascaping as a “Hyper-realism”.

Today, the most of my interest and addiction is focused on Reef keeping but still, I did not give up of Aquascaping and accordingly, I'm trying to create at least 1-2 new layouts every month. The point is that the Aquascaping is the best stress reliever for me. IME, that kind of creative work is very successful way to relax and to divert my attention from regular daily tasks. Nano(aqua)scaping is a thing that I've been doing for a last few years. The point is that Nanoscaping does not require a lot of spare time, neither some specific materials that should be used for a purpose of hardscape in a tank. However, besides all of my nano tanks, there are always several bigger tanks arranged in the same manner as nano ones. The biggest one is approx 205gal. Some of my tanks has already been posted on ASW and the pictures of the rest of them will be shared with you in near future. Also, all of ferts that I'm using in my tanks are self-made products, as I'm deeply involved in aquatic plant fertilization for a while.



AQUASCAPING A PICTURE FROM MY CHILDHOOD
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My general aquascaping plan was to make something small but still capable of reflecting the beautiful parts of landscapes that has inspired me so much. In this particular case, I was inspired by one picture from my childhood that is still so clear in my memory. My friends and I used to play at that field that was mostly surrounded by woodland. Three huge rocks nearby the edge of the forest were hardly visible but they are still in my memory. However, when we were very young, these three rocks have had some mystical looks and some strange meaning for all of us. I also remember my grandma who used to tell me legends about strange little creatures like elves that could be seen near those three rocks every night.
Anyway, many years later, I recently revisited that special place and picked up few little rocks from there. That's how I got the idea of my new aquascape.

When I first posted the picture of this tank on ASW, I've decided to name it “Mini Iwagumi", but it was much more appropriate to name this tank “Picture From My Childhood". The picture captured in this scape appears very small but at same time is very realistic.

Personally, I have always admired various little amazing things made by men as well as their manufacturers. I admire those people capable to make a model ship in the bottle. Things like that have always aroused my admiration. The same is with nano tanks as they require a lot of focus and concentration to create, but at the same time are excellent stress reliever. Of course, needless to say, every time I try my best to make an aquascape as realistic as possible.

AQUASCAPING TECHNIQUES
Hardscape is for sure one of the most important thing in all setups I've made so far. No need to say that appropriate decorative materials enable us to make a final setup of any tank to look as realistic as possible. In this particular case, few stones from that place reminded me on whole landscape and all pictures of that place in my memory. The point was only to find three stones the most similar to the huge ones from the real forest. To some experienced aquascapers it could look simple as that to properly place all needed hardscape and plants together, but in fact, it was a bit difficult due to limitation of available space in the tank. At the bottom of this tank I've placed quartz sand, granulation less than 0.5mm. Such fine white sand together with appropriate small stones enable to tank looks significantly bigger than it actually is. In such small tanks, most of regular aquascaping tools can not be properly used so I had to make my own tools using the various needles, pinches and scissors. [imgr="white"]http://www.aquascapingworld.com/gallery/images/1/1_DSCF4544.jpg[/imgr]

In this tank I've used only three different mosses as aquatic plants. One of them was a local species that we named Serbian minimoss. It grows nearby my hometown, sticked to stones near river streams. Considering that moss is submersed most of time during fall and spring season, I've decided to place this moss into the tank a while ago. So far I'm more than satisfied with this moss species when submerged but it's necessary to say that this minimoss requires a bit lower temperature of water. Under high light and frequent W/C, the pearling caused by this moss is very intensive and very visible. Beside that moss, I've also used Star moss and Fissidens moss.
It was very difficult to set up those three moss into the tank, and at the same time to achieve realistic layout of the tank, to be so similar to the landscape I've tried to describe above. That kind of aquascaping needs a lot of patience.

In general, I have never made any drafts of a tanks prior to aquascaping process. Instead of drafts, the only thing I do is trying to imagine a picture in my head that I'm following during the whole process of aquascaping.

Probably, I pay too much attention to various small details in the tank, and that's why all of those tanks looks much more better “face to face” then on my pictures. I do not have relevant experience as a photographer and high quality photos are just what all nano tanks, like this one require, in order to look as good as possible on the pictures.

Click here to view Tank Specifications
Click here to view Plant and Fauna List

GREATEST CHALLENGES[imgr="white"]http://www.aquascapingworld.com/gallery/images/1/1_img_2561.jpg[/imgr]
It is a great challenge for most of aquascapers to make any kind of aquascape in such a small tank. The whole process requires a lot of patience, skill, and attention to details. I've made several completely different nano scapes (El Lazarinjo seen to the right) but have to emphasize that this scape "Picture of my Childhood" aka “Mini Iwagumi” was the biggest challenge for me so far as it's the smallest tank I've ever had.


Also, it is very difficult to keep such small tank in good shape during the long period of time. For example, only a few days is more than enough time to run out of all 20ml of water. Also, slow growth of plants is the thing of extremely high importance in such small tank. It is very important to choose only those plants that are slow growing in order to enable aquarium setup to be in needed shape as long as possible. Therefore, all fast growing plants should be avoided in nano scapes. This is why I've chosen only mosses to be placed in “Mini Iwagumi”. Under the low light, growth of all mosses will be slow enough but still they will look healthy. Regular daily W/C are also very important and for that purpose, I'm using a water from my biggest planted tank, as the all water parameters are stable and well balanced. Low light, stable water parameters with appropriate quantities of macro elements and TE, regular W/C are most important things if we want to have good looking and healthy plants in nano tank which is at the same time free of algae.


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FINAL THOUGHTS AND THE FUTURE
I prefer wild nature and accordingly have tried to emulate that note in all my setups so far. This is the reason why I do not use trimming of the aquatic plants too often. All my efforts in aquascaping are focused on attempts to make aquarium layout that looks natural and only to reflect nature realistically in all its beauty. All my spare time I spend in the nature, searching for some decorative materials that could be used as a hardscape in my tanks. At the same time, some of landscapes inspired me a lot and that is how I've got some ideas. Anyhow, aquascaping is a great thing for a people to express their creativity as well as to relax themselves.

Development of Aquascaping is so rapid in last several years. It it more then obvious difference in quality of aquascapes today and those only few years ago. Unfortunately, bad side of so rapid development of aquascaping is that I see a lot of similarity between different tanks. Therefore, my advice to all new aquascapers would be at least to try to make something original and not just to use “copy/paste” technique. Aquascaping is a wide enough for all of us to show different and original ideas. It is also important to keep in mind that each aquascaper should work hard on education in order to understand plants needs and accordingly to provide them what they need under appropriate conditions. Success in aquascaping is kind of mix of necessary basic and sometimes even advanced knowledge of natural sciences, experience and of course, a lot of creativity.

For me, aquascaping is a way of relaxation, the escape from boring things that we face every day and the different world made of my imagination. It is strange to me sometimes how aquascaping can divert my full attention from usual problems and show me a whole beauty of a world of silence and creativity. Water itself, all the related parts of water, and the specific peace and silence that it provides, have always had a special meaning to me. After every successful setup I made in some of my tanks, I feel much, much better.