# 'Heteropoda's Throne' IAPLC #463



## James Marshall (6 Nov 2012)

Many of you will have already seen this scape, but this was the one i decided to enter in the IAPLC, upholding my tradition of using a 20 litre tank for my contest piece. 






Cheers,
James


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## Antoni (6 Nov 2012)

Congrats for the lovely scape! 
I really like this small Iwagumi of yours, and IMO it should of been placed higher, but in IAPLC for some reason don't accept well nano tanks....


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## LondonDragon (6 Nov 2012)

Looks great James, but a 20 liter tank will not cut it out for IAPLC I would assume


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## Notator (6 Nov 2012)

It _seems_ so simple...Looks beautiful... 
And made me realise I have FAR too many plants in my nano!


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## Ady34 (7 Nov 2012)

Great choice and use of plants, and does look like a stone throne. As the name suggests, are the shrimp really wild cherry form?
Just personal choice, but i think if the 'throne' were slightly more biased to the left or right it would be even more appealing to the eye....it was probably placed quite centrally intentionally though?
Cheerio,
Ady.


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## James Marshall (7 Nov 2012)

Antoni said:
			
		

> Congrats for the lovely scape!
> I really like this small Iwagumi of yours, and IMO it should of been placed higher, but in IAPLC for some reason don't accept well nano tanks....





			
				LondonDragon said:
			
		

> Looks great James, but a 20 liter tank will not cut it out for IAPLC I would assume


Thank you guys 
I agree, nano tanks don't seem to fair well at this contest. I did think about entering the 60 litre but then I would have no excuse for not ranking well  



			
				Notator said:
			
		

> It _seems_ so simple...Looks beautiful...
> And made me realise I have FAR too many plants in my nano!


Thank you Notator.
I do usualy limit the numbers of species I use in small tanks, as i find things can look a bit chaotic with too many.
That said my scapes are often very regimented, which is not to everyones taste.
If you look at pages 16 & 17 of "Nature Aquarium World book 2" you see that Takashi uses 5 species in a 3 litre tank and that looks stunning.



			
				Ady34 said:
			
		

> Great choice and use of plants, and does look like a stone throne. As the name suggests, are the shrimp really wild cherry form?
> Just personal choice, but i think if the 'throne' were slightly more biased to the left or right it would be even more appealing to the eye....it was probably placed quite centrally intentionally though?
> Cheerio,
> Ady.



Thank you Ady
I'm afraid I don't know much about the shrimps except thatI got the shrimps from Paulo (Londondragon) about 3 years ago and they have breeding like crazy ever since.
You are correct the central focal point was intentional, whilst I am a proponent of the golden mean (now sometimes called the golden rule) I do not believe that is necessary to use it in all aspects of a layout. Instead I just keep placing and moving the harscape until i am happy with it on a purely personal level, I then usualy find that the golden mean crops up in several places in some way or the other.

Cheers,
James


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## Ady34 (7 Nov 2012)

Yeah i know what you mean...no pun intended!
If you look at the stone formation as a whole it appears quite central but when broken down into individual rocks it kinda covers all the hot spots.
Great looking nano none the less and pristine as are all of your scapes.
Cheerio,
Ady.


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## wearsbunnyslippers (8 Nov 2012)

top drawer james!


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## Jennifer Brown (8 Nov 2012)

I think this is the most traditional Iwagumi I have seen you produce.  I thought it was really serene in the flesh but have to say the photo doesn’t do the Christmas moss the full justice it deserves as I have never seen it grow so perfectly frondy and bouncy before.  Thank you for letting me steal some of it for my own little tank


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