Takashi Amano has clearly mastered the art of creating beautiful aquatic landscapes. His art reflects a superb combination of aesthetic and technical skills and his books 'Nature Aquarium World' atest to his brilliance.
Has anybody noticed the light levels used by Takashi?
I've gone through the watts/gall for data provided in Book 3 and the statistics reveal a range from 0.6 for his huge tanks (5000 litre) to a maximum of 3.15 for the smaller ones (240 litre). The average watt/US gall is 1.9. There is a curved relationship between size of tank and light supplied with the larger tanks irradiated with much less light than the smaller ones.
He can, without disput, grow amazing plants at what would be considered in this forum as a low light systems (lets say 2.0 watts/Gall).

I'm wondering if the advocates for 4-5 Watts/gall may be supplying more light than what is actually needed to produce really healthy aquarium plants?
Other parameters seem to follow an EI approach - regular large water changes, standard gH and KH values, and CO2 injection (data on levels not supplied apart from bubble counts).
The nutrient dosing regimes cannot be determined or assessed as products such as Green Gain, Variety K, Green variety are used. These products are a mystery to me as they are certainly not available in Australia. And I wonder also, how these may compare with the EI dosing recommendations??

Just pondering those awfully pretty pictures and aspiring to be just as good --- one day

Robin

About his picture, it look like he put way more light that 4w/gallon whan he takes the picture. has you said, He probably do not use that mutch but when it's time to take a shot, I think things change to get more impressive picture.
That guy is a photographer and photographer use many tools to get bether picture.

If you want a slow growth tank, this is a good way to do it, obviously he gets good reds, health etc at 2 w/gal, but sooooo many folks whine, cry, kick and have hissy fits claiming they need more, in the 4-5w /gal ranges.

I can grow nice gloss at 1.5-2w/gal.
Things are easier to grow well over time, not faster.

Less light allows more wiggle room on any fertilization routine you might have.
In some the books, he routinely has extremely suspicous similar parameters for every tank. If you test over a 24 hour peroid and then test daily over a week, these parameters change a lot more than that.

They are fudging the data or they just did a big water change right before they took the photo and then tested the water column.

There's just no way the test would come back with 0.1ppm of PO4 for every tank, or less than 10ppm, that shows a cheap, poor range test kit for both parameters.

CO2?
In some tanks he uses inert ceramics/sand etc, yet has 23ppm of CO2 with a KH/pH of 2 and the pH of 7.0. Other similar tanks have the same pH/KH and the CO2 is 13 ppm.

I'd not put too much weight on the water column parameters.
CO2 added to a low light tank works very well.
L:ikewise, if you want very low water column ppms, a non CO2 tank is the best option over time.

Regards,
Tom Barr

Before you do such work and think it's a "unique" idea, always, always, always search the internet first. Someone have already done this and a calculator too =)
http://www.fitchfamily.com/lighting.html

Hi robin,

Try this link. ADA products are definitely available here in Oz.
http://www.aquariumproductswholesale.com/

shake

Some of these things sound like snake oils, much like adding hormones to aquatic plants for improved health/growth.

While there may be sound foundation in theory, the actual application is not found and there are a few studies that also suggest strongly such additions do not improve growth vs controls.

Basically if it's not the basic things: N, P, CO2, light, Fe, etc.......your plants do not need it.

Remember this: plants make everything they need with what is available in the inorganic forms, organic ferts etc, are mineralized into the inorganic forms.
A few things can be taken up in the simple forms, but generally these don't significantly influence growthas much as simple providing good non limiting conditions over time.

Bacteria/fungi and some fauna do play a large role(but seldom are discussed except in very general non descript ways), but that is between them and the plants. Not some "bio balancing" secret sauce.

I work at an Agriculture school, if they suggest not going this direction here with things like Rice, an aquatic plant, chances are pretty good it's not going to do much for your plants either.

I've detailed out most of the nutrients thus far, I will start going into other interactions, phytochromes, hormones, bacteria, fungi, etc.

You can easily have a top rated example just like in the ADA photo's without the products by using ADA AS, EI or most fert routines.
Yoiu are certainly welcomed to use the entire line of ADA products if you chose, just make sure that there is quite a bit of doubt about whether they do what is claimed.

Folks like to say I do not know everything, I speculate, but they seldom use that same part of the brain when something is sold and easily will try anything based on weak speculation ..............

Now why is that?

If you question me, why the heck not ADA? Dupla? Dennerle? Bubba Joe?
The one product that's really done anything and made it easier thus far is still ADA AS. I love the tanks personally and some of the glass ware, but most folks can have a great tank obviously without all this too.
I think the ADA AS makes some plants and tanks in general have an easier time and I have stated why and tested it. There is the general observations from many folks on this one product, I cannot say the same about the various little concotions.

These tend to subtle in nature even if there is any science behind them.
Thus are very difficult to see by the average aquarist who has trouble maintaining a control and treatment tank.


Regards,
Tom Barr

I'm with you, as most plants have nutrient requirements that are well understood and can be supplied by standard fertilisers as long as they meet the macro and micro demands of the plant. In aquatic systems these are reasonably well known.
The EI system is an up front method that states what, how much and when. I'm a little suspicious of those products that don't actually state whats involved, even though the end product may look pretty good. Faith is not enough in some cases. And if that wasn't enough the price of ADA products are well and truely beyond my meagre budget.

R