Onoma1
Member
I would like to start this with a caveat. I am an absolute beginner. Compulsive watcher of Youtube aquascaping videos - currently binge watching George Farmer, Green Aqua, TGM (again) to ingest any nuggets of wisdom. I am also immensely grateful for the gentle corrections and support of people in the forums as I bumble along with my trial tank. I am a novice.
I have, however, a statement and two questions:
Firstly, I have the feeling that Aquascaping is seen as an engineering problem - measure the PAR, flow, CO2, nutrients and then you can control the auqascape 'system'. The aim isn't to to develop a self regulating system (i.e Walsted) but to engineer an aesthetically pleasing (often temporary) miniature landscape using approaches which are not sustainable (fertilize every day then throw most of it out in a weekly water change). Thus we have a system which is highly fragile and heavily reliant on external inputs.
Artistically much of the work focuses on replicating nature. To do this it draws upon a very limited set of artistic 'rules' either drawn of art from before the 19th century (i.e the golden mean) or which look towards a very traditional approach to eastern art.
The first question is - is anyone challenging the engineering approach and suggesting that you can take a more holistic approach drawing on alternative approaches to systems? One trend, for example, in the wider gardening community is to move away from artificial fertilizers and instead building robust systems. This could be (for example) understanding of the role of mycorrhizal fungi or using a no-dig approach. These concepts could be applied to aquariums . To take the example of fungi - we have known for ten years or more that these fungi are important for transferring nutrients (especially phosphorus) to plants in aquatic habitats. Recent work suggests that they play a key role in tropical environments and are important to the growth of many of the plants we use (i.e Hygrophylla) (de Marins et al.,2009), while the relationship is complex (Fusconi et al., 2018) is seems particularly important for some types of aquatic plant. I am missing something here?
Secondly, aquascaping is an artistic endevour. The tanks that I have seen are breathtaking, however, the dominant approaches either mirror an ideal form of 'nature' or represent a mythical world. In both representations it is interesting that humans and our interventions do not feature and rather than engage us with the world (and the challenges that aquatic landscapes outside of the aquarium face) this is an art form that directs us away into a parallel worlds and landscapes. So the question is - where is the avant garde in aquascaping?
Apologies if I have offended anyone or if these are ignorant questions. I will return to planning how I can engineer my homage to Green Aqua's 90cm cube tank.
Fusconi, A., & Mucciarelli, M. (2018). How important is arbuscular mycorrhizal colonization in wetland and aquatic habitats?. Environmental and Experimental Botany.
de Marins, J. F., Carrenho, R., & Thomaz, S. M. (2009). Occurrence and coexistence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and dark septate fungi in aquatic macrophytes in a tropical river–floodplain system. Aquatic Botany, 91(1), 13-19.
I have, however, a statement and two questions:
Firstly, I have the feeling that Aquascaping is seen as an engineering problem - measure the PAR, flow, CO2, nutrients and then you can control the auqascape 'system'. The aim isn't to to develop a self regulating system (i.e Walsted) but to engineer an aesthetically pleasing (often temporary) miniature landscape using approaches which are not sustainable (fertilize every day then throw most of it out in a weekly water change). Thus we have a system which is highly fragile and heavily reliant on external inputs.
Artistically much of the work focuses on replicating nature. To do this it draws upon a very limited set of artistic 'rules' either drawn of art from before the 19th century (i.e the golden mean) or which look towards a very traditional approach to eastern art.
The first question is - is anyone challenging the engineering approach and suggesting that you can take a more holistic approach drawing on alternative approaches to systems? One trend, for example, in the wider gardening community is to move away from artificial fertilizers and instead building robust systems. This could be (for example) understanding of the role of mycorrhizal fungi or using a no-dig approach. These concepts could be applied to aquariums . To take the example of fungi - we have known for ten years or more that these fungi are important for transferring nutrients (especially phosphorus) to plants in aquatic habitats. Recent work suggests that they play a key role in tropical environments and are important to the growth of many of the plants we use (i.e Hygrophylla) (de Marins et al.,2009), while the relationship is complex (Fusconi et al., 2018) is seems particularly important for some types of aquatic plant. I am missing something here?
Secondly, aquascaping is an artistic endevour. The tanks that I have seen are breathtaking, however, the dominant approaches either mirror an ideal form of 'nature' or represent a mythical world. In both representations it is interesting that humans and our interventions do not feature and rather than engage us with the world (and the challenges that aquatic landscapes outside of the aquarium face) this is an art form that directs us away into a parallel worlds and landscapes. So the question is - where is the avant garde in aquascaping?
Apologies if I have offended anyone or if these are ignorant questions. I will return to planning how I can engineer my homage to Green Aqua's 90cm cube tank.
Fusconi, A., & Mucciarelli, M. (2018). How important is arbuscular mycorrhizal colonization in wetland and aquatic habitats?. Environmental and Experimental Botany.
de Marins, J. F., Carrenho, R., & Thomaz, S. M. (2009). Occurrence and coexistence of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and dark septate fungi in aquatic macrophytes in a tropical river–floodplain system. Aquatic Botany, 91(1), 13-19.
