Following the threads concerning red plants and photos/layout contests has merely rekindled an old point of curiosity - how does one travel with a tank and aquascape and still maintain "show quality"?
My very first tank, over 40 years ago, essentially "set the bar" for the rest of my tanks for more than a quarter-century in that they had plants, but in a way that was more "biotopish". I lived in Washington County, Maryland then (specifically Williamsport and Hagerstown), and I used native plants from the nearby Potomac River to form a relative "slice" of the riverbed similar to the sections of the river where I fished for Small Mouth and Channel Cats. Didn't matter to me at 12 that it wasn't quite authentic to the region where the Angels came from, but that it did at least bear some semblence to a river bottom. That's the way I kept things until about 15 years ago when I first started following the UseNet alt.aquaria.* and rec.aquaria.* news groups. That, after all the time I'd been keeping tanks, became my real introduction to aquascaping as an art form as the Dutch Style was still heavily prevalent at the time. Then, when Amano and Nature World came along I was fascinated by the more natural feel of the tank in general rather than the tank merely being a section of garden on display.
My tanks have always centered around the fish species and other fauna rather than specifically emphasizing the plants and relegating the fish to a rather minor role as food sources for the plants, so I kinda adopted a blend of styles somewhere between Dutch and Nature and my selection of plants started to grow in both quantity and complexity. But the only other relative constant in my life is the necessity to move quite regularly. My family moved often, then I moved even more often when I went into the Military. Even after serving, I often found it necessary to once more uproot and move everything to do things like find a job or move to where the job took me.
Whenever I moved, the tanks were always the first things set up in a new house and the absolute last items to be broken down when leaving so as to minimize the amount of time the fish and plants were kept in buckets for the move. And some of the interstate moves were quite time consuming, believe me. I was very fortunate to lose nothing more than but a few of the fish - ever. The only incident I can recall as having generated a loss of more than just a fish or two among the smaller species was when a friend helped to carry a few buckets during a more localized move and he set a bucket in the bed of his truck without bracing it and it overturned. But I haven't always been as fortuante with the plants, and after some of the longer moves I would have to search to replace the more delicate samples that were lost. Sometimes it took as little as a couple of days in a bucket of water vibrating with the truck bed to totally break up or destroy a few of the plants.
Now while I realize that those who participate in these local contests aren't moving several hundred to a couple of thousand miles across several days, it still "dumbfounds" me as to how they can consistently move everything to one of these contests and still be able to set a tank that looks like it's been maintained in that spot for half of forever. Anyone here ever participate in these sorts of activities that would care to share some of the techniques? It seems that in the next four months or so there's a distinct possiblity that I'll have to, yet again, make at least one more move and I grow weary of constantly having to start anew and almost from "scratch" every time this happens. It's trouble enough to replace the substrates and wait for the environment to mature enough to not be worrisome without having to deal with everything else involved in a move...
My very first tank, over 40 years ago, essentially "set the bar" for the rest of my tanks for more than a quarter-century in that they had plants, but in a way that was more "biotopish". I lived in Washington County, Maryland then (specifically Williamsport and Hagerstown), and I used native plants from the nearby Potomac River to form a relative "slice" of the riverbed similar to the sections of the river where I fished for Small Mouth and Channel Cats. Didn't matter to me at 12 that it wasn't quite authentic to the region where the Angels came from, but that it did at least bear some semblence to a river bottom. That's the way I kept things until about 15 years ago when I first started following the UseNet alt.aquaria.* and rec.aquaria.* news groups. That, after all the time I'd been keeping tanks, became my real introduction to aquascaping as an art form as the Dutch Style was still heavily prevalent at the time. Then, when Amano and Nature World came along I was fascinated by the more natural feel of the tank in general rather than the tank merely being a section of garden on display.
My tanks have always centered around the fish species and other fauna rather than specifically emphasizing the plants and relegating the fish to a rather minor role as food sources for the plants, so I kinda adopted a blend of styles somewhere between Dutch and Nature and my selection of plants started to grow in both quantity and complexity. But the only other relative constant in my life is the necessity to move quite regularly. My family moved often, then I moved even more often when I went into the Military. Even after serving, I often found it necessary to once more uproot and move everything to do things like find a job or move to where the job took me.
Whenever I moved, the tanks were always the first things set up in a new house and the absolute last items to be broken down when leaving so as to minimize the amount of time the fish and plants were kept in buckets for the move. And some of the interstate moves were quite time consuming, believe me. I was very fortunate to lose nothing more than but a few of the fish - ever. The only incident I can recall as having generated a loss of more than just a fish or two among the smaller species was when a friend helped to carry a few buckets during a more localized move and he set a bucket in the bed of his truck without bracing it and it overturned. But I haven't always been as fortuante with the plants, and after some of the longer moves I would have to search to replace the more delicate samples that were lost. Sometimes it took as little as a couple of days in a bucket of water vibrating with the truck bed to totally break up or destroy a few of the plants.
Now while I realize that those who participate in these local contests aren't moving several hundred to a couple of thousand miles across several days, it still "dumbfounds" me as to how they can consistently move everything to one of these contests and still be able to set a tank that looks like it's been maintained in that spot for half of forever. Anyone here ever participate in these sorts of activities that would care to share some of the techniques? It seems that in the next four months or so there's a distinct possiblity that I'll have to, yet again, make at least one more move and I grow weary of constantly having to start anew and almost from "scratch" every time this happens. It's trouble enough to replace the substrates and wait for the environment to mature enough to not be worrisome without having to deal with everything else involved in a move...