Great piece! Thanks for posting it.
I might add another 'syndrome' myself: ADA, Amanophyllic Dysfunctional Admiration, or Amanoitis, or "trying to be more Amano than Takashi-san himself". I am one of Amano's biggest fans, but his Nature Aquarium is not the end of aquascaping, nor is he The Prophet, and even less is he a god. It's OK not to follow Amano's steps, not accept every choice he makes, not to take his taste as law and his vision as the Sacred Truth. There are other paths in the aquascaped garden, and you may choose to follow one of those.
I, for one, go for more of a truly natural aquarium than Amano's Nature Aquarium; that is, while I find Amano's work terrific inspiration, it makes no sense to me to see a tank that looks like a meadow or a mountain path---I've never seen tetras flying above mountaintops; I guess it clashes with what I know being an ichthyologist. Perhaps my approach of finding beauty in nature as it is---a boulder-laden riffle, a tranquil floating meadow, an eroded overhanging riverbank, a dying seasonal pond---and capturing it in an aquatic, truly aquatic garden, might be more true to the Japanese aquascaping art? I guess capturing that watery beauty, especially the richness of the ecotonal zones, is my own path.
Also there is Amano's absolute dislike for floating plants. I think a hanging aquatic garden can be as aesthetically pleasing, and even more of an artistic challenge for an aquascaper. Yet another issue is the choice of fish: it's not such a challenge to create an aquascape for tetras or minnows; quite another thing is to aquascape for annual killiefish or rheophylic cichlids.
"Too see the world as it is---this is equanimity. To see the world as it is and choose to look at what is beatiful and good--- that is wisdom." |