15 years ago, a time before Amano

[plantbrain]

This tank is about 15 years old, older than the local club.
No one had heard of ADA or Amano, just Dutch and German aquarist mostly.
I've not posted these since they are from film cameras(remember those?)
The internet was still populated by academics and nerd programmers.










Open top, high light, plain sand EI type dosing/WC's lots of fish, lots of plants, DIY CO2( :roll: ), cork backed tank with lots o plants growing on it.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[MCHRKiller]

IMO that tank looks better than the faux nature amano does, it actually looks like something you would expect to see in a river or pool of water instead of a bonsai tree or field of grass.

[Hyzer]

Thank you for a blast from the past.

[plantbrain]

Regards,
Tom Barr

[CL]

Ah, yes. The tank from your avatar over at barrreport.
Looks great. Thanks for posting the full size pics

[Jadelin]

That's such an interesting look with the hydrocotyle growing out of the top like that . . . I like it! I didn't know it could stand up that much on its own; is it rooted in the cork back?

[Francis Xavier]

Cool tank and photos Tom!

[Bowles42]

Yeah thanks for posting these. I hope I'm still in the hobby in 15 years.

[plantbrain]

Originally Posted by Jadelin

That's such an interesting look with the hydrocotyle growing out of the top like that . . . I like it! I didn't know it could stand up that much on its own; is it rooted in the cork back?

A bit of both, the Anubias and java root well to cork, then the pennywort piled on top of that.

I have a similar top growth/emergent mix without any CO2 on my ADA 60p as well.

But virtually no plants submersed. Moss provides the water conduit for upper reaches on that tank, unlike this tank. The pennywort flowered year round and I sold quite a bit of it back then(when folks would pay 20$ for a big bag of most any plant species).

I did not own a camera back then since my OM-1 Olympus was stolen a few years prior. This was a borrowed pentax k1000, then transferred (poorly) to a slide scanner. But you get the idea. I had a nicer front and center display a few times when I worked the riccia more.

I'm trying to remember where I first saw the riccia tied, I think it was German, who may have seen it from Amano before the English versions and the TFH started publishing it here. So there might be some indirect influence, but the cork is 100% dutch, I came up with the nails though and the view I wanted.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[Captivate05]

That's a beautiful tank, Tom! I find the natural looking tanks to be more stunning than many of the polished, 'scaped tanks. They just have their own charm

[xmas_one]

Hamilton halides, nice. That's an awesome tank, is it still up?

[Quesenek]

Nice, for just 15 years ago it has a nice vintage look to it.

[plantbrain]

Originally Posted by xmas_one

Hamilton halides, nice. That's an awesome tank, is it still up?

Big ugly globes.

No longer up, I have more tanks and rimless these days.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[plantbrain]

Sort of killed the "excess PO4 is bad" theories back then.
My tap had a fair amount.


Regards,
Tom Barr

[!shadow!]

Wow that's some nice riccia there tom, thanks again for the photos.