Finding Nemo

Aloha from sunny Hamilton Island…. After 5 glorious days basking in sunshine and azure waters I’m now sitting at the airport about to head home. How sad it is to leave paradise especially when the weather is a fine 28 degrees and Sydney is freezing.

However not all is lost, the pristine waters of this magical place have inspired me to research today’s blog - designer aquariums.

Now my personal experience with aquariums has never gone beyond a lonely fish in a glass bowl so seeing the work of artistic aquarist Takashi Amano completely blew my mind!

Takashi Amano’s work has popularized the art of acquascaping, where you set up the aquariums to look as close to real and natural scenery.

He has opened a company called Aqua Design Amano where he introduced Japanese gardening concepts (similar to bonzai) into the aquascaping hobby. A form of art that changes your normal aquarium into an art of nature. He has an outlet in Australia http://www.adaaust.com.au/

Some of his gorgeous work is featured below

Another unique aquarium concept that requires much less maintenance is the Ecosphere. A totally enclosed ecosystem requiring no maintenance - no feeding and no changing water!

The sphere is completely airtight and the plants and fish are self-sustained. The concept for this mini-aquarium comes from a NASA project where a ecosphere was taken into space.

Prices for these carefree mini-worlds range from 99 pounds to 499 pounds http://www.eco-sphere.co.uk/