ADG Shop Offers New Driftwood

If you've ever tried to find fancy, branchy driftwood like they use in the aquascaping competitions, you probably got frustrated by those horrible looking sandblasted stumps nailed to an unwieldy piece of slate that every pet shop seems to have exclusively. Buying it online isn't exactly easy either, since you often don't get a piece that looks like the picture. Finding good driftwood is tough. Always a pioneer in providing aquascaping basics to hobbyists (like ADA Aquasoil and ADA rimless tanks), Aquarium Design Group has recently started selling custom pieces of driftwood, called TX Select. No, they won't just send you anything they have in a size range, they'll send you the exact piece pictured. How cool is that? Although it's a little pricey (a medium piece will set you back $50-75), you know what you're getting, and it's been used in hundreds of their amazing layouts before with minimal tannins and minor buoyancy.

With my year-old Manzanita driftwood getting softer by the day, it might be time to look into replacing it pretty soon...

North American Discus Association 2010 Show

 

Planted tanks and discuss go together like peanut butter and jelly. There's almost no more colorful, majestic freshwater fish than the discus, and seeing a school of them swim through some of Takashi Amano's aquascapes is breathtaking. I've even considered keeping some...that was until I saw the rigorous water changing schedule required to keep them healthy. My plants (and algae) keep me busy enough. A fussy $50+ fish that requires a daily water change? Maybe when I'm retired.

If you have the time and dedication to care for these gorgeous fish and live near the Dallas area, you may be interested in the 2010 North American Discus Association (NADA) Show that will be held on June 10-13 of this year. For $45, you get a discus show, an auction, and a slew of speakers discussing everything from Discus 101 to Diseases and Sickness. Heck, for $45, forgo the hundreds you'd spend on the fish and live vicariously though others for a few days!

Question: Aesthetically pleasing equipment worth it?

You're looking at the brand new Fluval Edge aquarium kit. Recently released, the kit is innovative in a number of ways. Although lots of people have been poo-pooing the practicality of the design, I think Fluval is really onto something. It's rare that a traditional equipment manufacturer incorporates such advanced design aesthetics and brings something like this to the market. I feel like some in the aquarium equipment industry have really sat up and taken notice of ADA's success with its high end line of rimless aquarium tanks and minimalist glass equipment. Of course, the aquascape inside a tank will always be the main focus, but just like any good painting, a decent frame can do wonders.Yeah, it may not have the best lighting, but when has that stopped us?

So what do you think? Would you spend $129 (Edit: The price has dropped a bit from this already to $119) on the Fluval Edge when an equivalent traditional tank, filter, and light would probably cost half that? How much weight do you put in your equipment's appearance?

2009 AGA Aquascaping Contest Results

My apologies for running behind on announcing these; you've probably all seen them by now, but in case you haven't, definitely go check out the entries to the 2009 AGA Aquascaping Contest. The best in show tank (above) is just amazing. The dangling branches are a really creative touch, although I'm not sure how the whole tank looks from a normal viewing angle, since there has to be some sort of structure above to hold those in place. The driftwood is placed in such a perfect manner that it looks exactly like roots of a dying/dead tree. Honestly, I think this aquascape would be just as impressive without the branches dipping in, though a little unbalanced. What do you think? Will you be trying this new method?