|
Amano vs. Dutch Planted Aquariums |
|
|
|
Written by Administrator
|
For those that would like to keep aquarium plants with their cichlids, you need to choose cichlids that won't destroy the plants, as well as an aquascaping style. Generally speaking, one can summarize the two types of planted aquariums in the following manner:
Dutch
These aquascapes are based on the principles of heavily planting a tank to resemble an aquatic garden. They are not designed to resemble any particular biotope but use the placement and grouping of plants in order to create the illusion of depth based on perspective. The placements are based on colour, size (horizontal and vertical), texture and growth rates.
Dutch tanks were the first real attempt at planted aqauriums and have been around since the 1930's. All planted aquariums and most of the equipment are derived from the knowledge and experimentation done using this style.
Here is a typical Dutch tank:
Amano
The main emphasis behind the Amano style tanks is to represent an aquascape that one may see in nature. In other words, they are designed to replicate a painted picture of nature; many times they are biotope specific. This type of aquascaping began in the early 1980's with Takashi Amano who is currently looked upon by many as the foremost expert on planted aquariums. His "new world" style shattered and revolutionized previously accepted ideology that had been around for decades. Many currently well known aquatic plants were brought into the industry because of his work; glosso and HC "cuba" are but a few.
Here is my all time favorite planted aquarium picture which follows the Amano thought:
Hope this was helpful. Feel free to add and correct me.
|
Cichlid Keeping 
