In this Article I will show you the process of making a beautiful and truly stunning work of living art. This is a gigantic Aquascape made by the legendary Takashi Amano (the father of aquascaping). If you want to know more about what Aquascaping is about and get a little info about who Takashi Amano was, take a look at this Article: https://steemit.com/art/@simonsess/what-is-aquascaping-my-favorite-artform
This is one of the first posts in a series I will be doing about the art of Aquascaping. I will start of this series with one of my favorite works of art, Takashi Amano's private Aquarium, a Amazon biotope and an amazing Aquascape.
So to start of Amano and his trusted assistants started with laying the foundation on which the Aquarium would stand. For this project they built the entire building in which the Aquarium would be placed. Here you can see the first steps of the construction process.
This is the finished concrete construction where the Aquarium will stay.
Here the construction workers use classic Japanese woodworking joinery to make the roof construction on which the roof will be resting.
Now that the building is done, the heat cables are installed to make it easy and convenient to keep a steady and warm temperature in the aquarium. The heat cables also makes it easier to keep a consistent and stable temperature by spreading the heat underneath the entire Aquarium.
After the heat cables are installed a thin layer of wet concrete is poured over them to make a flat and stable surface for the Aquarium to rest on.
Then to the aquarium. This aquarium was build to special dimensions provided by Takashi Amano for this particular case. It is a huge tank that can fit more then 7000 liters of water. It had to be brought to the site on a truck. Cranes forklifts and a lot of manpower was needed to fit this gigantic tank into place.
The Aquarium is now in place and it looks beautiful. Also pay attention to the several rounded cut-outs in the ceiling. This is where all the powerful lights will be installed.
Now that the tank is in place the entire pump and filtration system is put in place.
Behind the tank, hidden from plain sight is another tank which is also pretty big. This is whats called a sump. A sump is a separate aquarium with different types of filters put into it. These filters can be different types of sponges or different types of bio and bacterial filtration. By having such a big tank just for the filtration it makes the bacterial flora and the ph value of the main aquarium more stable and easier to maintain.
The Aquarium is now ready for the Aquascaping to begin. For this project Takashi Amano brought in some gigantic roots from the Amazon which would fit perfectly for his special made aquarium. And since this project is supposed to mimic the look and feel of an Amazon riverbank, these beautiful roots fits perfectly.
Amano's assistants are here putting the roots in place. Several hours and a lot of iterations happens at this stage. Amano is a perfectionist and everything has to be in the perfect position for the finished Aquascape to look perfect.
When all the roots are in a perfect position, large stones are placed around the base of the roots to compliment them and make a more natural composition. The main composition of the Aquascape is now starting to show.
When the larger stones are placed correctly and when Amano is happy with the general composition, his assistants starts pouring finer and finer stones in the tank.
In the end when the smallest stones are placed correctly the beautiful sand is poured into the composition. The hardscape is now done and ready for plants. By having the different sizes of stones and sand the look of the hardscape is natural and believable.
Thousands of plants where brought in for this project. The process of putting all the different plants into the tank took several days and was a hard and slow process.
His assistants are here connecting plants to the different roots with wires. Takashi Amano is always standing in the background and telling them what to do and where to put everything.
After several days of work the final composition of the Aquascape is done and the tank is filled all the way up with water. No the aquarium has to get the bacterial flora started and the ph values to stabilize for a couple of weeks before the fish is added to the tank.
After a couple of weeks the water in the tank is now stabilized and the plants are starting to grow beautifully. The different types of fish are added to the tank and the project is finally finished.
I really like the look and composition of the final project and think it really recreates a beautiful and believable scenery.
Almost half a year later, this is how the Aquascape has evolved into. An overgrown oasis from the riverbanks of the Amazon. Absolutely stunning.
What do you think about this Aquascape? Was it interesting to learn more about the process? If you would like to see more of this type of content, please upvote and follow me to keep track of future posts and articles about the Art of Aquascaping.
Thank you and have a nice day!