Dear Mr. Nenad Djordjevic,
Thank you very much for your continued support to Aqua Design Amano, Co.,Ltd.!
We really appreciate your time for taking an interiew for our monthly magazine, Aqua Journal...
The article featuring your interview is now released in the latest issue, vol.#174.
Sincerely yours,
PR Department
Aqua Design Amano, Co.,Ltd.
1. What was your first reaction when you found out your contest ranking this year?
# Having in mind that this is my first contest, I was more than pleasantly surprised
2. Please tell us about your layout in this year’s contest, such as
its concept, design, motif etc..
# Primary idea was to get simple, neat, clean-cut tank layout. Since my tank was very small, my aim was to get as much of depth as I could. All the time I had in mind to create something that was not seen in the world of aquascaping. My fascination with Japanese gardens made me to include some small parts of them for my aquarium.
Thank you very much for your continued support to Aqua Design Amano, Co.,Ltd.!
We really appreciate your time for taking an interiew for our monthly magazine, Aqua Journal...
The article featuring your interview is now released in the latest issue, vol.#174.
Sincerely yours,
PR Department
Aqua Design Amano, Co.,Ltd.
# Having in mind that this is my first contest, I was more than pleasantly surprised
2. Please tell us about your layout in this year’s contest, such as
its concept, design, motif etc..
# Primary idea was to get simple, neat, clean-cut tank layout. Since my tank was very small, my aim was to get as much of depth as I could. All the time I had in mind to create something that was not seen in the world of aquascaping. My fascination with Japanese gardens made me to include some small parts of them for my aquarium.
3. Please tell us a story “behind-the-scenes”: did you experience any difficulties or problems in the process of creating the layout? What aspect of the layout are you most pleased with?
# I am glad you asked “behind-the-scenes” question, as my story is quite interesting. It is very strange that I had no problems, because I used no professional equipment. Everything in this aquarium was home-made and low budget. In my earlier set-up I tested flowering substrate for gardening flowers (Terra Magma) that simmed to have more than enough phosphore and to give a good starting nutrients. This time, for a first couple of months, my job was only very frequent partitional water change with an addition of microelements and CO2. After two months, PO4 and NO3 tests showed it is time for a macro. I have problems with no algae at all. I am definitely most pleased with the effect of depth in such a small tank.
4. The back ground of your layout photo looks very unique and creative.
Please tell us about the photo-shooting process of this layout.
Did you experience any difficulties while taking layout photos? If any, in which aspect of photo-shooting do you think most challenging?
# I used T8 neon light for the aquarium, so my idea was to add tungsten lamp in background in order to create sunset effect. Behind the lamp, I put some white chipboard and the rest was on camera. 18mm lens was the widest I had, and I used it to enhance the depth of the tank. After shooting RAW, I just needed white balance correction to get an sunset-like effect.
5. From your layout, we get an impression that you are really into aquatic plants.
Please tell us about your choice of plants, and how to arrange and take care of them.
How can you keep your plants in such a good condition? Do you use any special techniques for that?
# The decision was to add my favourite plants, and not to use many plant species. I chose the different colours of plants to enhance the contrast. Of course, the size of plants was adjusted to the size of my tank, and often trimming helped mi in that aim.
6. How did you remove algae? And/or what did you do to avoid algae?
# To avoid algae, I watched out for the levels of nitrogen and phosphor, with often partitional water change (15 l on every 3 days). Only the level of microelements and CO2 were kept on the maximal values. Photo-period was 7 hours maximum. I mechanically removed very few algae that appeared in my tank, and Japonica-shrimps probably helped me a lot.
7. Do you have any favorite aquascapers? If any, please tell us in what aspects you like about his/her layouts.
# It is hard to choose one of so many aquascaper names, and not to mention Mr Amano, but my choice for now would be an artist from Hong Kong, Mr Garry Wu. I appreciate this autor’s innovation, precision and neatness. In every new aquarium of him, there is a new spark of originality that I hardly wait to see.
8. Please tell us about a trend in the area of aquarium hobby in your country.
# This is very young hobby in my country, and I think that new talented artists are still to came.
9. Is there any difficulties or problems of aquarium hobby particularly found inSerbia? For example, it's very hard and costly to maintain optimal water temperature inside aquariums, the number of aquatic plants available for aquarium is very limited etc.....
# A common problem in Serbia is very high water hardness (10-20 KH). The stores that sail “quality” fertilizers, soil and aquarium plants are too expensive (2-3 time more prices than in other European countries), not well supplied and could be found only in Belgrade. For example, ADA programme can not be found anywhere in Serbia. To get new plants, people often exchange them with each other because the stores offer very limited number of species.
10. What makes you attracted to the Nature Aquarium? Do you see any influence of the Nature Aquarium in your personal life?
# Nature aquariums are very nice example of junction between science, nature and art. In modern life, it could be powerful tool for relaxation, and a cave to escape from every day problems.
# I am glad you asked “behind-the-scenes” question, as my story is quite interesting. It is very strange that I had no problems, because I used no professional equipment. Everything in this aquarium was home-made and low budget. In my earlier set-up I tested flowering substrate for gardening flowers (Terra Magma) that simmed to have more than enough phosphore and to give a good starting nutrients. This time, for a first couple of months, my job was only very frequent partitional water change with an addition of microelements and CO2. After two months, PO4 and NO3 tests showed it is time for a macro. I have problems with no algae at all. I am definitely most pleased with the effect of depth in such a small tank.
4. The back ground of your layout photo looks very unique and creative.
Please tell us about the photo-shooting process of this layout.
Did you experience any difficulties while taking layout photos? If any, in which aspect of photo-shooting do you think most challenging?
# I used T8 neon light for the aquarium, so my idea was to add tungsten lamp in background in order to create sunset effect. Behind the lamp, I put some white chipboard and the rest was on camera. 18mm lens was the widest I had, and I used it to enhance the depth of the tank. After shooting RAW, I just needed white balance correction to get an sunset-like effect.
5. From your layout, we get an impression that you are really into aquatic plants.
Please tell us about your choice of plants, and how to arrange and take care of them.
How can you keep your plants in such a good condition? Do you use any special techniques for that?
# The decision was to add my favourite plants, and not to use many plant species. I chose the different colours of plants to enhance the contrast. Of course, the size of plants was adjusted to the size of my tank, and often trimming helped mi in that aim.
6. How did you remove algae? And/or what did you do to avoid algae?
# To avoid algae, I watched out for the levels of nitrogen and phosphor, with often partitional water change (15 l on every 3 days). Only the level of microelements and CO2 were kept on the maximal values. Photo-period was 7 hours maximum. I mechanically removed very few algae that appeared in my tank, and Japonica-shrimps probably helped me a lot.
7. Do you have any favorite aquascapers? If any, please tell us in what aspects you like about his/her layouts.
# It is hard to choose one of so many aquascaper names, and not to mention Mr Amano, but my choice for now would be an artist from Hong Kong, Mr Garry Wu. I appreciate this autor’s innovation, precision and neatness. In every new aquarium of him, there is a new spark of originality that I hardly wait to see.
8. Please tell us about a trend in the area of aquarium hobby in your country.
# This is very young hobby in my country, and I think that new talented artists are still to came.
9. Is there any difficulties or problems of aquarium hobby particularly found inSerbia? For example, it's very hard and costly to maintain optimal water temperature inside aquariums, the number of aquatic plants available for aquarium is very limited etc.....
# A common problem in Serbia is very high water hardness (10-20 KH). The stores that sail “quality” fertilizers, soil and aquarium plants are too expensive (2-3 time more prices than in other European countries), not well supplied and could be found only in Belgrade. For example, ADA programme can not be found anywhere in Serbia. To get new plants, people often exchange them with each other because the stores offer very limited number of species.
10. What makes you attracted to the Nature Aquarium? Do you see any influence of the Nature Aquarium in your personal life?
# Nature aquariums are very nice example of junction between science, nature and art. In modern life, it could be powerful tool for relaxation, and a cave to escape from every day problems.
Nenad , congratulation for this great work and that reference in this great magazine .
ОдговориИзбришиUn saludo
At the very beginning in this hoby, I was more than happy to get two pages in Aqua Jurnal. It came as s great suprice for me :)
ОдговориИзбришиHvala Diego :)