The aquarium with arranged plants to enjoy its beauty is generally called the planted aquarium. Nature Aquarium is a part of planted aquariums in a broad sense; however, it has unique philosophy and maintenance approach. They are based on the fundamental concept, “learning from nature”. Now, what is it to learn from nature? That is to learn the beauty of nature and to incorporate the aesthetic expression into a layout. It is like to clip the beautiful piece among endless beautiful landscapes existing in nature by building a composition with stones and driftwood and arranging plants in a tank to represent a beautiful aquascape.
The environment in Nature Aquarium is supported in the small ecosystem formed by plants, fish and microorganisms while interacting each other. Nature Aquarium is like a microcosm of nature, and that is why we can see lively swimming fish in their true colors. Creating Nature Aquarium to build an aquascape where the fish confuse with natural environment and to recreate a natural ecosystem in full scale is simply one of the great ambitions. In May 2013, Takashi Amano, the aquascaper having such huge dream, received an invitation form Oceanário de Lisboa in Portugal. That was the beginning of this lifetime Nature Aquarium project.
It is a 40m in length containing 160t, a supermassive tank at unprecedented scale. The challenge is to create the world’s largest Nature Aquarium within one week. For the success of this unprecedented try, the scrupulous advance planning and preparation were critical. At the same time, of course it required the many staff involved to function as roles of individuals in the team under Amano’s leadership.