Its been quite some time since my last blog post and a lot has happened since then. The last time i wrote here was about the George Farmer event at aquarium gardens, since then i have moved away from London to Portugal. Settling in, finding a new job and a baby on the way meant that blogging and doing videos on youtube as taken a back seat. It doesn't mean that nothing has happened around here aquarium wise, quite the contrary.  It just means i didn't have time to write about it. At the moment i have four aquascapes running at home, some looking better than others, but points given f ..read more

Attending aquascaping events have become the norm for me in the past few months, in part because I love watching the masters at work, but also because I believe they are an amazing way to promote our hobby. So both with the AQUADesign blog and youtube channel I can use them to do my share of helping aquascaping grow. I've attended workshops both in England, Germany and Portugal and had the pleasure to see some of the best scapers do their thing live. In the UK for anyone that follows this blog its not difficult to see the impact that George Farmer has had in the past few years. We now have ..read more

If you are keeping planted aquariums, sooner or later there will be a time where you will want to try supplementing co2 to help your plants grow. But despite coming along way from the early aquascaping years, some still see co2 more as a source of problems than a benefit. There are a few reasons for this and here are some of them: co2 systems are expensive Aquariums using it require more maintenance An aquarium using co2 tends do be more expensive to run So the question as to be made. Do aquarium plants need co2? Yes Do all aquariums need co2? No All plants need co2, but some ..read more

No one can deny the impact that social media has had in our society in the past 10 years, that impact has also been felt greatly in the fishkeeping and aquascaping hobbys. More than ever we have the means to share our passion for fish and nice planted aquariums to a wider audience. The same can be said for youtube, while a lot of the knowledge hobbyist get on how to keep and maintain a successful aquarium still comes from forums, we have also seen the rise of dedicated fishkeeping and aquascaping channels. I for one run a small channel, but in the grand scheme of things eve ..read more

After a nice aquascaping tour in Portugal it was time to go back the UK for another run of events. The UK aquascaping scene as actually been teeming up with amazing events in the last month, which show's how much the hobby is spreading around here. We had the Aqua depot showroom opening event, George Farmer aquascaping a blackwater aquarium at Fishcove's aquatics and at crowders aquatics. We also have some great events coming up on the horizon, but the biggest one is the live scape off between George Farmer and The King of DIY Joey Mullen on his first visit to the UK. That's the one any aq ..read more

And so we arrive to the final part of my Portugal aquascaping tour. We began with a visit to the amazing Aquaeden in Malveira, followed by a short visit south back into Lisbon to marvel at the beauty of Takashi Amano's impressive Florestas submersas aquascape. And for the final part we are heading a bit more south, crossing the Tagus river (Rio Tejo) our destination is a Solucoes aquaticas (aquatic solutions) in Barreiro. We made our way trough the busy traffic, it was already 4 p.m by the time we left Lisbon, so like in London the rush hour traffic starts to pile misery to c ..read more

Last article was part one of my aquascaping tour in Portugal. In the first visit of the tour we went to Aquaeden, an amazing shop located in Malveira. In today’s article we are going to pick up where we left off. After leaving Aquaeden we headed back to Lisbon, the destination was the “Parque das nacoes” (Nations park) to visit the “Florestas submersas” exhibit. This was my fourth visit to Takashi Amano’s amazing 40 meter long aquascape. The first visit was in the first weeks after it opened and it blew my mind away. It was the most impressive aquarium I had ever seen, second visit was a ..read more

Me and Rui Alves at Aquaeden Back in March i posted a few articles about scapetour. For those not aware this was an event that took place in Lisbon and Amsterdam and was organized by a group of aquascapers from the USA. Eventually it gained a lot of attention and turned out to be an international gathering of hobbyists from all over the world. The main events were the visits to Takashi Amano's giant aquascape Forests underwater at the Lisbon oceanarium and the visit to Aquaflora in Amsterdam. But in between the group got to know Lisbon quite well and v ..read more

Left to right: Me, Ryan, George Farmer and Chris Powell When it comes to aquascapers in the Uk there's no one more known to the community than George Farmer. Like Oliver knot in Germany and Amano worldwide, no one has had a greater impact in the hobby here than George. As the most active British aquascaper you'll most likely have come upon his work, either being photos of his aquariums or the many videos he posts daily on social media. He's also together with Evolution Aqua part of the Team that brought us the Aquascaper range of aquariums. I first met George personally in ..read more

Every year aquascapers across the world prepare themselves to submit their works for competition. IAPLC takes the top spot when it comes to importance and visibility of these contests. But others are slowly gaining importance too. One of them is the EAPLC, or European aquatic plants layout contest. The contest started in 2012 under the name German aquatics plant layout (GAPLC), originally it was open to aquascapers from Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Belgium. Over the time the success of the contest meant that in 2014 it opened to all the countries in Europe and in 20 ..read more