2nd Week ' Update of Planted Aquariums

First update of Planted Aquariums from Seminar

1 week later from the Seminar in Moscow and here it is some updates! Enjoy it!

Moscow Seminar 3rd and 4th Day

During my speeches and slideshow presentation, they saw my tree scapes and even that I tried to persuade them to not do it, they decided to go on and try.

3rd and 4th day of Seminar was almost practice for the participants, so they spent all most of the time planting and tie the moss to the wood.

During this process I teach them some secrets about how can they tie the moss, give more details to the wood and how they need to trim to give the correct shape to the top of the "tree".

Guys, if you are reading this, do not reveal the secret :-)

On this kind of layout the most important is a good hardscape and keep all the things in proportion to the size of the tank. This layout was setup with what we had available at the moment, so even that we wanted to do it better, it wasn't possible. The wood used for trees needed to be worked and improvised to get the best shape for the layout. Usually I take 1 or 2 months to prepare one scape like this, but we hadn't time, so for such short time and wood available, the layout was very nice... IMHO of course!

After they tie the moss and placed the wood on the right position, it was time to start planting the foreground plants (Eleocharis parvula and Cryptocoryne parva).

The layout was done, it was time to fill the aquarium with water! With careful, we used newspaper to cover entire bottom to prevent mix the soil and cloudy water.

Aquarium filled with water and with ELOS Rea30 working.

Picture of the TEAM:

From the left to the right: Michael, Dimitriy, Sergey, Varvara, Sergey (2), Sara, Tanya, Jazgool, Goolya, Maxim and Maxim (2)... and me on the middle.

Moscow Seminar 1st and 2nd Day

Moscow Aquarium has the most beautiful Marine aquariums that I ever saw in my life, but something was missing there… where were the planted aquariums? A new trend needs to be settle to complete the aquarium exhibition and this was the reason of my visit; to teach all the team how to setup planted tanks, tips and tricks and how to use ELOS products. The seminar was organized by subject for a better understanding of all participants. During the mornings, I did a several speeches where I showed with slideshow presentation, some of my layouts, how I started in planted tanks and after that some pratice.

1st Day, after talking about planted tanks in general, it was time to show how I usually prepare the planted tanks. The hardscape was prepared in two aquariums according with kind of layout to make. The System 120x50x50 was prepared only with rocks and System 160x60x60 only with driftwood.

2nd Day, some changes needed to be done on System 160x60x60. The hardscape of this aquarium wasn’t good enough, so I just added more wood to the hardscape and explained that is possible to improve without remove the main driftwood.

Using plastic ties and some small rocks, I placed more driftwood wood near of main driftwood, the composition was now more balanced and with more details. After that, it was time to do another speech about aquatic plants, how to use it, trimming and general position inside of the tank, before start planting.

Those are the results of the aquariums, after planted!

More pictures of seminar very soon!

First pictures of Moscow Aquarium ' Seminar 11/2010

My fellow friends, for a better understanding of some articles and international posts, I will start to write them in a language that can be readable for all; so, this will be my first post in English on this Blog. I know that my English is not perfect, but I think that is much better than an online Translation from google.

To the Portuguese community, please accept my apologies for doing it in a different language.

Returning to the Seminar, I arrived to Moscow on Monday evening (08/11/2010) and after 1h of traffic; I just arrived to Moscow Aquarium for first impressions. It was a greatest surprise for me what I just saw, in one simple word... unbelievable!!!! In all these years of aquarium hobby, I never saw something like that… my eyes simply began to shine with such beauty!

I will let you with some pictures of Marine Aquariums and hoping that you enjoy it!!!

More pictures coming soon!

Voo para Moscovo em 08.11.2010

E foi assim que tudo começou...

Saí de Portugal dia 8 de Novembro para dar um Seminário em Moscovo no "Moscow Aquarium" sobre aquários plantados. Para já deixo-vos algumas fotos tiradas do avião na manhã de Segunda-feira, destino Frankfurt onde fiz escala para Moscovo.

Vista aérea sobre Alemanha.
Aproveitei para tirar algumas fotos sempre que possível e quando o tempo permitia. Havia muitas nuvens e qualquer aberta, era um bom motivo para fotografar.

Mais fotos para breve dos aquários de exposição e do Seminário.