Creative Aquascape Union

Filipe Alves Oliveira's way to relax

Written by Administrator

2007/10/19

If you always surfing around aquatic related web site, Filipe’s layout may already drawn your attention. AGA 2006 Aquatic garden Large category 1st place and Best of the Show, Aquatic garden first run up in the small category, and this year ADA 2007 10th honour prize. All of these are encourage result. CAU just invite Filipe to interview, so everybody would know more about him.

Can you briefly describe your background and why you like aquascape as your hobby?
Aquascaping is like a kind of therapy. It helps me to relax and relieve all the stress of my job.

What elements would inspire an idea of your aquascape?
Essentiality, the nature and natural landscapes; I love to recreate nature spaces and I take a lot of time preparing all the hardscape with reasonable proportion to give the better look as possible. I can take 3 months joining rocks, wood and observing the scape that I've in mind.

How you feel about the western style aquarium like Dutch style compare with the eastern style like Japanese nature style? Which style of aquascape you like most, why?
I don't appreciate the Dutch style. It's too much variety of plants and they don't use hardscape on it. For me the Aquascaping needs to have rocks, wood, few varieties of plants and of course a certain level of accuracy.

Filipe's layout of AGA 2006 2nd prize in small category <<Rise>>

How often you go to aqua- shop? For what purpose? Sourcing new plant and fish and decorative material, meet with other hobbylist? or just window shopping?
2 ~ 4 times a month only for curiosity to see if appears something new! My rocks I collected them from the nature, wood I had purchased a few to have something in stock and improvise when the things are different then I expected or give a different touch to the aquascape. Most of the cases I only go there to talk a bit with a few friends and buy fish food. 90% of my aquarium's stuff I buy it on internet and forums. One of the reasons that I don't buy on aqua-shop is the lack of quality. Generally are really poor!!!

You are participating to aqua-communities regularly on internet, why?
Yes, I participate in forums to share information with the other users. You can learn a lot with the experience of the other persons and you're wrong if you think that know everything. Sometimes, when you create an aquascape, you are so fixed on what you have done, that you don't see some errors on it. When you share the pictures, some commentaries and critics will help you to see that something should be corrected on the next layout.

There are a lot of great aquascapers in the world like in Brazil, Portugal, German, France and Italy, only the language barrier that we may not know, do you have any website that you can introduce to us.
I'm feeding a personal blog at http://faao.blogspot.com but in Portuguese. Perhaps in a near future I'll translate it to English or create a parallel blog.。
The biggest problem is what you mentioned, the barrier of the language! The unique tool that can help us to understand the text is the online translator, but always with a several errors.

Any tips to take the photo of an aquascape?
A good camera or/and lens with a high aperture like f2.8, it will help us to take good pictures without up the ISO. The pictures should be taken without flash, the room should be dark and use only the aquarium's light. To avoid the reflection, you must shot moved away from the glass 2 a 3mt distance and use dark clothes.

How often you do regular maintenance, what lighting system, substrate and fertilizer you prefer.
Usually I clean my filters, pumps and CO2 reactors one time at each 2 months. The tubes 1 time each 6 months and the lights once a year. I prefer the T5 tubes and HQI for the lightning because the intensity of the lights is higher and when you combine them perfectly, you will obtain excellent results. You can use T5 for all the photoperiod and HQI for 3 a 5 hours to give more light intensity to the plants that need more light requirements.
Substrate and fertilizer, since I started to use ELOS, I never changed the brand. I think that we should keep the brand how much we can and explore all the capabilities of the products. Once you obtain the results, you should use them to maintain your aquariums healthy.

What kind of aquatic plant and fish you like most?
It's very difficult to choose. I think that is the moss in general. About the fish, I'm living a different experience with Discus. I never thought that some day it was possible, but they caught my attention! I can't explain... probably their personality.

How you tackle algae issue?
Usually I remove the algae manually with my hands or; a little bit of H2O2 when they appear on hardscape, some algae eaters or I'll just stay calm and wait. It depends of the volume of algae. Only one time, I had more algae than plants... When I started with Discus! Sometimes a lack of nutrient or low Co2 is the main cause for algae appearing. So, I recommend to everyone to stay calm and once the aquarium is stable the algae go naturally! Don't forget the regular maintenance like TPA, cleaning the filter and good dose of CO2; are the best for preventing the algae.

Any advises and recommendation to newbie to start aquascape?
Do the right things, even if you need to wait. Once you start doing something, finish it! Never gives up! In most of the cases, I know that you feel that starting again is the better situation. but not, stay calm, deep breath and relax (like the song)!

Read through Filipe answer, I think most of us would feel his enthusiasm and persistence to aquascape. When look back his aquascape, it express the sense of peace and relax. The message to the newbies is actually a social life philosophy. It is hard to imagine a common hobby with a small piece of micro world link up two of us at another side of the earth.