July 2008

Nature Aquarium World

by Takashi Amano

ISBN: 0-7938-0089-7

If there ever was a book that changed the face of a hobby, I suspect this is it. Published in a large 9.5″ x 12.5″ format, it is a gorgeous photographic collection of aquatic plants, artfully aquascaped, in a great “coffee table” sized book. The plant layouts are breathtaking, but it is the photography that really makes this book come alive. And that’s no surprise, as at the time of the writing of this book, the author Takashi Amano had spent most of his career as a photographer. The book was published in 1996 - quite a while ago - and much has changed since then. Mr. Amano has since spawned a mini-empire of premium planted aquarium products under the Aqua Design Amano (ADA) brand. This was his first major book available in English, and it remains a classic today.

People that stick with the aquatic plant hobby do it for a number of reasons. But I think we all begin for the same reason… because at some point we all saw a planted tank that took our breath away. And we wanted to do the same thing. So after perusing this book anyone would have to wonder, “How many people started their aquatic plant hobby because of this book?”

It is an inspiration.

In this book Mr. Amano shows his “Nature Aquarium” style, a significant departure from the previously dominant “Dutch” aquascapes. He throws out the old style of neatly ordered avenues and rows of plants, and introduces a less ordered, but still artfully balanced arrangements of plants. The practiced eye will notice the liberal use of Riccia fluitans as a foreground plant, and even Cardinia japonica shrimp for algae control. Though you do have to look, and know what to look for, because surprisingly the book provides scant information about the flora or fauna in his aquascapes.

There are over 60 separate aquascapes presented, many with multiple camera angles and two page spreads. And most do have a good bit of information about them:

• Tank size
• Lighting watts
• Filter type
• Substrate
• CO2 supply rate
• Water change frequency and volume
• Temperature
• pH
• Total Hardness (GH)
• Carbonate Hardness (KH)
• Nitrite PPM
• Nitrate PPM
• CO2 PPM
• O2 PPM

But the book is not limited to pictures of beautiful aquariums. It provides a primer on use of the “Golden section” and basic aqascaping layouts.  There is good treatment of driftwood selection and positioning, rock arrangement, and the use of both as anchors for plants (including Riccia). Also a bit of treatment on the correct tools for aquascaping.

There’s even a beginner level - though very good - treatment of the role of the critical components of a planted tank: CO2, biological filtration, lighting, substrate, fertilizer, and maintenance. There is even a bit of treatment of algae, snails, plant trimming, and diseases of aquatic plants.

With nearly 200 pages of beautiful photography, this is not - per se - a beginners book. Not in the sense that it provides all the technical detail you need to get started. But at the same time, all those technical books fall so far short in the inspiration department. And in that sense this is a beginners book, because it provide that in abundance. But even for the expert - and anyone in between - it’s one book that will be enjoyed each time you pull it out.

It could be argued that some of Amano’s subsequent books were better. I’ll review those too. But this one started it all. When I first laid hands on it, it was a major inspiration. I could barely put it down… turning page after page just wishing I could do the same, and deciding to try. Then flipping through it again and again, trying to decide which of the many aquascapes I was most inspired by. My personal favorites are on pages 16, 26, 60, and (most inspirational) page 90. What do those ’scapes look like?

Sorry. Get the book. But when you do, you won’t be sorry! Read it, be inspired by it, and go try it for yourself!