Personal Blog on Social Networks

From now on, I will not update anymore this blog.
I will not delete it... all information will stay here, maybe some day I will come back when I get fed up of social networks.

You can check for updates in Facebook and Google+.

Facebook:
www.facebook.com/FAAOAquascaping

Google+:
+FaaoBlogspot-AquaPhoto
Or my personal profile:
+FilipeOliveiraFAAO

13th of December - Live Aquascaping Workshop (Rotterdam/Netherlands)

Live Aquascaping Event Zowizoo 6&7 December (Belgium)

Tree of Life - 60lt Update 21.08.2014

Update of my 60lt Planted Aquarium after trimming and weekly maintenance!

Step by Step (TL) and General View of Ecoarium Planted Aquarium

Step by step (Time Lapse) and general view of the aquarium with 2 days after setup.

Side view of my 60lt Aquarium - Tree of Life

Update of my 60lt Aquarium, side view. Now it is time to wait and trim the Vesicularia dubyana just to give the shape and size that I want. Not too full and with too much volume as previous layouts. I want to keep it simple and more natural (close to nature) as possible. 

Tree of Life - Small changes (NEW Layout 2014)

After being away for 2 weeks for Interzoo, this tank ran out of CO2 and liquid fertilisation and Hemianthus suffered with lack of nutrition and the better conditions to grow healthy. 

But after a good trimming, it was recovering very well, however, Hemianthus demands a lot of care and maintenance. Trim it is not always so easy to do, mostly when the aquarium is small and we have a lot of details that difficult even more that task... My back don't allow me to stay trim it for about 2 hours because everybody knows that Hemianthus has very small roots and if you don't trim it carefully, it will release from the substrate. 

So I have decided to exchange it by Eleocharis mini from Aquaflora and IMHO the layout looks much better now then before... 

What you think? Do you share the same opinion as me?

Ps. About the moss on the Tree (Bonsai), I took it off and just let a few tips. I have a lot of time to finish this layout and I don't want to give the same volume to the top of the tree as before, but just keep some green in order to look more natural as possible as real trees. Let's wait and see how it will develop. 

New layout @ Ecoarium (Shop) Portugal

And if suddenly after being away from my personal blog, I have decided to come back?

I had to stop for awhile because of a discal herniation and surgery; since then I'm recovering and getting strengths again to come back to Aquascaping.
So, from this point forward you can expect some new layouts, new articles and probably a new visual with interaction of a new hobby, landscape photography!

I have a lot of news to show, but I will start this return with my last setup, from yesterday at Ecoarium shop in V. N. Gaia, that will have its grand opening today (Saturday - 5-July-2014).
If you live on the north of Portugal, I think that you should visit this new shop, IMHO you will be pleased with what you will see. A new concept of shop, mostly in the north of Portugal but something usual to see in Lisbon and some cities of other countries.
It is a fish shop and not a pet shop... you will get access to a showroom, enjoy of a beautiful space where you can delight with nice planted aquariums, get inspiration, knowledge and something that people usually appreciate... Workshops!

I will let you with some pictures of the layout that I setup last Thursday.

  

I hope that you enjoy it and if you have the opportunity to visit the shop tomorrow, you will find me there! I will not promise that will be there all day, but I will be there for sure and I will bring also some new pictures of the shop. 

2013 New Announcement

ANNOUNCEMENT:

My dear Aquascapers and hobbyist friends from Facebook, since the 1st day of this year, I became the ELOS PR Manager (Officially!)... so, if you are looking for my new layouts, reviews, articles and much more; I will be pleased in accept your friendship in:

https://www.facebook.com/ElosEurope

In a couple of days I will clean from my Facebook page most of the people, keeping only the close friends and family. I really appreciate your support, dedication and for following my work; Now, you can continue following me in a different page and also on my blog. Of course that I will publish more information and different projects in my new Facebook page. I hope that you understand the situation and you know where you can find me!! 

Please share this information with your friends and hope to find you on my new "workplace".

New Year, new job and of course, I promise a lot of news... and maybe some offers ;-) 

Who knows?! 

Ps. Don't forget to do a "like" on the ELOS page:

https://www.facebook.com/ElosAquariumCompany

Use your imagination ' Update 2013

Due some health problems some of my aquariums stayed in auto-maintenance but never have been forgotten! Of course that I could not have done the regular maintenance as it was supposed, but I always tried to keep them in the best conditions as possible. This doesn't mean that I lost the passion for Aquascaping or even Aquarium hobby, but the problems on my backs really let me down for a few months (discal hernia) but now that I'm recovering, I'm also coming back to update my blog and explain what really happened to my 60lt Aquarium "Use your imagination".

Usually when we can't do maintenance to aquariums is when the problems happen... The project was going as planned but unfortunately the bonsai started to loose most of the leaves and I never discovered if the problem was the water inside of the plastic recipient or due its characteristics (deciduous's bonsai) I decided to transplant it to a new plastic recipient and try to recover it!

In fact the transplant resulted, I really don't know if the cause was too much humidity, but it worked; at beginning I thought that the project was ruined or I would replace the bonsai by a new one, but after a few weeks and after have added a few liquid fertilizer (ELOS Fase1, Fase2, K40 and Extra1; just 1ml of each) few days after, new leaves start to born and for my surprise the bonsai recovered.

After few days:


After 2 weeks:

At the moment, the project still going and I have made a short video just to show how it looks like right now:


New video coming soon!

Use your imagination ' Video of 4th week

The videos are equal but they are hosted in two different servers; If for some reason it isn't possible to see it on youtube, you can now watch it on Vimeo. Enjoy it!

1 Month after setup ' 60L Aquarium

The layout of my 60L Aquarium made 1 month after setup and till the moment I'm very pleased with its development. Plants are growing as expected, not so fast on the bottom but it depends of the intensity of the light, because on the higher part of the hardscape and near of the bonsai, Hemianthus grew 2x faster. I had to remove the cladophora from the junction of the plastic recipient because it was letting the soil too wet and compromising bonsai's health.

I trimmed the bonsai to get more light on the left side and to improve the growing of Hemianthus on the corner, otherwise it was getting very poor and dying. So, for the moment I don't have anything more to explain, I will let you with some updated pictures of the aquarium and I hope that you enjoy it.

Later I will publish a small video of this aquarium.

The NEW ELOS AQUASTUDIO in NEW YORK

Elos has a new space in New York, an amazing Aquastudio that I would like to share with all of you. Enjoy it!!!


Source: ELOS Official BLOG (Blog.elos.eu)
The NEW ELOS AQUASTUDIO in NEW YORK

Welcome to ELOS Aquastudio and enjoy our newest space on New York (533 Millburn Avenue, Short Hills, NJ)

If you have the time and are curious how it looks live, please join us on the Grand Opening from 26 to 29 of July! We will let you with some pictures of the space and hoping to meet you there soon!

      

More pictures on ELOS Blog: http://blog.elos.eu

60L Aquarium ' Video

Short video of my 60L Aquarium. I got feedback that some of my videos aren't seen in some countries due youtube copyrights, so I have decided to upload the video in two different hosts. Now you can see it on Vimeo and also on youtube. I hope that solves the problem!

Vimeo:


Youtube:

60L Update ' What really happened in two weeks...

Two weeks after setup, I added the fishes and shrimps to help cleaning the layout. Some algae appeared, but nothing that should be worried about, quite common when you setup a new planted aquarium. Some partial water changes of 50% twice a week, solved the problem and established the water column. 

I added the same fishes that had on my last layout and were kept on other aquarium while the nitrogen  cycle wasn't finished.

Let me show how the Layout looks like after 2 weeks.

Panoramic picture of submerged layout:

General view of the entire layout:


Close Up of the bonsai and also of the underwater cliff:


View from the left:


A bonsai's root that went out from the plastic recipient and is growing inside of water column:

Take a look how it went out and how big it is! The root looks very healthy and it seems that the bonsai needs even more water than it is getting from the humidity provided by the Cladophora that is keeping the humidity inside of the plastic recipient. Hemianthus callitrichoides spread very fast on the top and it seems that very soon will need a trimming.

And it is all for now... I will try to do a movie on the next days to show this layout with more detail.

Interview for Kolkata Aquarium Club

Filipe Oliveira, the world famous aquascaper and avid landscape photographer. The man who is always trying to achieve something new, trying to break the traditional aquascaping techniques or working on something very unique and fresh approach. With every new scape he is trying to raise his own goal higher.

Read full Interview on the link bellow:

Interview With :: Filipe Oliveira

Video of New layout

Here it is a video of my new layout. Enjoy it.

60L full planted ' Setup day 06.07.2012

Plants arrived sooner than I expected... It was supposed to arrive next week but for my suprise they came today and I couldn't let the planting part for tomorrow! :-) 

I used Hemianthus Callitrichoides cuba on the bottom and also on higher piece of hardscape; On bottom you can see also some Eleocharis aciculares and Vesicularia dubyana. On top and near of the bonsai, with Hemianthus and on the join of the plastic bottle where is placed the bonsai, I used some Cladophora aegagropila to disguise the plastic and make the transition to HC.

General view of the layout (emerse and submerse)

I'm preparing a video to show all the details of the layout, so stay tuned and I hope that you enjoy it ;-)

Use your imagination! 60L New layout

After long time without giving news about my layouts it was time to rescape my small aquarium and try to bring something new and more directed to landscape. Everybody knows that I love landscapes and mostly something that is related to trees; this scape will be a little bit different of what I usually do but more eye catching than old layouts. 

This layout is not finished and I need to improve a lot of things on the white sand, add the plants and disguise the plastic bottle where is placed the real bonsai. I intend to recreate a cliff and use also the bottom of the higher piece of hardscape to plant some foreground plants to be more realistic and have a good transition from the bonsai to plastic's stones (Replicas from Unipac UK of my friend Roy).

My first attempt for the hardscape was to use plastic bottles but definitely I gave up of the idea once I saw the work that I was involved... Not really a good idea! It was a crazy idea and at first sight, when I started working on it but after spent a lot of time building it, it doesn't gave the natural aspect that I was expecting. So I have decided to use a big stone's replica and cut it on the middle in order that could be possible to put inside the plastic bottle with the bonsai. 

Looking to the hardscape right now, I'm very pleased with the work and it seems to me very promising... I hope that big plastic stone where is the bonsai don't fall apart and ruin the entire layout!!!!

I will let you with some pictures and I hope that you enjoy it! As soon I have more news I will publish it.

Elos Europe Blog: NEWS!! Black Soil is now available in small and me...

NEWS!! Black Soil is now available in small and medium granulometry

Now, the ELOS Black soil is available in small and medium granulometry and also in 9lt and 5lt bags.

Terra Black and Brown soil 

Elos Natural soils are collected from nature and not manufactured, this gives a special touch of quality when used in the aquarium, due to its porosity, it is excellent for bacteria fixation and root expansion without asphyxiating plant propagation.

More information, here: Elos Europe Blog: NEWS!! Black Soil is now available in small and me...