The Tint

The term “Nature Aquarium” pervades well- everything in our hobby-or so it seems. It’s an homage to the great Takashi Amano, who coined the term years ago. Yet, I think we might have veered off a bit; pushed into “artistic interpretation”, and lost sight of the origins... are we, the lovers of the natural, botanical-style aquarium, an offshoot of this? Could we be “The Lost Tribe of Amano?”

As enthusiasts of natural, botanical-style aquariums, were very accustomed to the brown color of our water. And we have a different definition of “clarity” than a lot of the aquarium-keeping world...and there is some confusion about this stuff.. let’s clear it up!

Are you they type of aquarist who insists that EVERY fish, plant, rock, piece of wood, or leaf come from the same geographic location in Nature? Are you obsessed about imposing rules about what “belongs” and what doesn’t? Does it matter? My thoughts, of course. And a confession!

In our pursuit to create unique aquariums, I think we often overlook the amazing inspiration offered up by Nature herself. Today we discuss a few niches which we thing deserve more representation in aquariums...

Although there is a good amount of information on brackish water habitats, as a hobby, aquarists have distilled their aesthetics down to white sand, a few rocks, and maybe some Java Fern...and it’s pretty much been mired in that aesthetic HELL for decades. Time for a change, right?

Those of us who play with natural, botanical-style aquariums are sort of “outliers” in the aquarium hobby. There are certainly some limits to what we can do- but few limits to what we can attempt with research, discipline, diligence, patience...and work.

Everything in our aquariums changes over time. This is especially true in our botanical-style aquariums. How we accept it and embrace it is an important factor in how happy we are with our aquariums.

You can be a very responsible fish owner without obsessing over making every micro-semion of conductivity, or every ppm of phosphate in your tank match that of your fishes’ wild habitat.

We in the aquarium hobby need to let go of our long-held beliefs about what is truly “beautiful.” We need to study and understand the elegant way Nature does stuff- and just why it is that natural aquatic habitats look the way they do. Let’s celebrate aquariums which depict Nature as it really is...

One of the “best practices” for using natural botanical materials in our aquariums is proper preparation. In today’s podcast, we review those basic prep steps and answer some common questions on this process.