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120 Gal Dutchy Freestyle - Now with 35% less water volume!
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Thanks everyone^, I really appreciate it!
The other day I asked Bart Laurens on Facebook if he had any advice on how to improve my tank. He was kind enough to oblige.
Good stuff, check it out - Uitslag internationale Aqua Scape contest AGA 2017 categorie Dutch Style. | Bart Laurens
Teaser :icon_eek:
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The other day I asked Bart Laurens on Facebook if he had any advice on how to improve my tank. He was kind enough to oblige.
Good stuff, check it out - Uitslag internationale Aqua Scape contest AGA 2017 categorie Dutch Style. | Bart Laurens
Teaser :icon_eek:
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There are still some of us fighting the good fight :icon_smil
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I joined FB under weird circumstances.
11 of us left a horse forum similar to this forum.
Too much daily bs and rif-raf always chiming in.
Moved to a Secret Group on FB.
Settings can be made tight so no one has found me in 3 years so far.
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I only signed up a couple years ago myself, for the sole purpose of joining a few planted tank groups. Dennis Wong and a couple other guys run a nice one with over 20K members. There's a few others as well. AGA has a pretty nice group page (dont have to be an AGA member to join their group).
Some good places to buy and sell plants too.
Other benefits, for example Bart Laurens and Fred van Wezel has a lot of stuff about their tank going back years. Its public too so anyone can see it (at least their tank stuff is public).
If you ever decide to pull the trigger shoot me a mssg and I'll link some of that stuff. Greggz or anyone else
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What is the group called that Dennis Wong runs? The few aquatic plant keeping groups I belong to are pretty slow. And the fish keeping ones are hit or miss. The specific family groups (Corydoras, Characins, etc.) are pretty good but the general fish groups are often full of people raging about Bettas kept in anything less than 50 gallon aquariums and other such nonsense.
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High-Tech Planted Tanks
You may also want to try Aquascaping the World, another big group.
Planted Aquariums has 11K
Couple others that are small but OK are Waterforest Aquatics and The Aquascapers Collective
There's also a "Low-Tech Planted Tanks" group (if I got the name right) that's really big and I would assume very active. Im not a member of that one though
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OK so Vin gave some thoughts on Bart's analysis and diagram of the tank in my journal on barr report. Assuming a lot of folks here dont read over there, I think it's a good discussion so Im posting it here along with what I think it all means too. Thoughts are welcome
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1/2. Yes
3/4. I think the Xs are somewhat incidental and do not indicate anything themselves. It's more or less just the two planes of the triangles coming together. The significance of the triangles is to show how symmetrically similar both "halves" of the tank are. The combination of the groups involved both form triangles which originate from the same general area in each half, and flow in the same general direction.
5. More symmetry imo. Two spots of the background exposed approximately equal in size and shape in both "halves" of the tank.
6. Yes, that, plus both groups are sorta dividing the tank, compounded by the fact they are roughly in line with each other.
7. Reinforces symmetry imo. Each half has a little triangle mound doing basically the same thing
8. Not sure if I would say that or not. The vertical boundaries of the tank sides are gonna be there regardless. I dont think having curtain plants on both sides would change anything. Although obviously it would be best if they contrasted with each other to some degree.
The symmetry thing never occurred to me either until I saw those red lines. Now it is painfully obvious. In fact, it looks so symmetrical to me now you'd think I had meticulously mapped it out that way. But it was entirely on accident. Probably because that's the only way I knew how to arrange the groups, and I just happened to do the same thing on both sides.
The way I interpreted it:Pikez said:
1/2. Yes
3/4. I think the Xs are somewhat incidental and do not indicate anything themselves. It's more or less just the two planes of the triangles coming together. The significance of the triangles is to show how symmetrically similar both "halves" of the tank are. The combination of the groups involved both form triangles which originate from the same general area in each half, and flow in the same general direction.
5. More symmetry imo. Two spots of the background exposed approximately equal in size and shape in both "halves" of the tank.
6. Yes, that, plus both groups are sorta dividing the tank, compounded by the fact they are roughly in line with each other.
7. Reinforces symmetry imo. Each half has a little triangle mound doing basically the same thing
8. Not sure if I would say that or not. The vertical boundaries of the tank sides are gonna be there regardless. I dont think having curtain plants on both sides would change anything. Although obviously it would be best if they contrasted with each other to some degree.
The symmetry thing never occurred to me either until I saw those red lines. Now it is painfully obvious. In fact, it looks so symmetrical to me now you'd think I had meticulously mapped it out that way. But it was entirely on accident. Probably because that's the only way I knew how to arrange the groups, and I just happened to do the same thing on both sides.
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First off, congrats! It's great to see the field getting stronger in the AGA Dutch category, and you have a tank to certainly be very proud of.
I think the layout and symmetry of your tank is probably about as good as you can get given the dimensions of the tank. The length:height ratio of 2:1 naturally divides into two squares. In order to try and follow basic design principles (golden ratio, rule of thirds) in such a tank you have to have some groupings dead center in order to get the layout to divide into thirds. If you go and look at most of the classic Dutch tanks, the viewing pane is more of a 3:1 or even 5:1 length:height ratio, making it easier to get layouts that adhere more comfortably to those common design principles.
I think the layout and symmetry of your tank is probably about as good as you can get given the dimensions of the tank. The length:height ratio of 2:1 naturally divides into two squares. In order to try and follow basic design principles (golden ratio, rule of thirds) in such a tank you have to have some groupings dead center in order to get the layout to divide into thirds. If you go and look at most of the classic Dutch tanks, the viewing pane is more of a 3:1 or even 5:1 length:height ratio, making it easier to get layouts that adhere more comfortably to those common design principles.
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Design principles are principles, not laws - I for one would be very excited to see a less symmetrical rescape of this tank! I've been following this thread for a while and find it really interesting that while I definitely think the scape is pretty, I too have had the feeling that there's something not quite right, but I don't have enough experience to be able to pinpoint what I thought didn't work. And now that the symmetry has been pointed out I can't unsee it...!
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Thanks man. Nope, didnt change anything
Where do you now stand on this?
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And don't forget the AGA Facebook page. It tends to be more general. :grin2:
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Definitely a good one, and you dont have to be a member of AGA to join.
I mentioned this in the earlier post is why I didnt include it in the second one.
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