Welcome to ScapeCrunch, @skittlepuke!
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?
We would love to get to know you. Please tell us about yourself. What tank do you have?
Welcome to ScapeCrunch
We are ScapeCrunch, the place where planted aquarium hobbyists come to build relationships and support each other. When you're tired of doom scrolling, you've found your home here.
Hello Welcome, skittlepuke
- Thread starter Art
- Start date
Thanks!
Hey everyone I’m Gabe from East TN. Gabe, skittles, SP, whatever I’ll respond lol.
Anyway I’m a huge nerd in many categories but things related to fish are probably the largest of them. I’ve been keeping fish for about 11 years now, breeding for about three, and while I’ve flirted with scaping seriously I’m hoping to now start really moving into it. On the fish side Medaka (and relatives) and North American natives are probably the two big things at the moment, but I’ve got all sorts of stuff. I’m also one of the people behind the Fundulid Working Group, a fairly young conservation organization focused on North American Native killifish.
Now on the scaping side of things I’ve been enamored with Takashi Amano’s work ever since I learned of him shortly after his passing. This spring I learned that Florestas Submersas, his largest and final work in Lisbon, Portugal was going to be taken down. For years this was basically the only thing I could immediately think of when asked for a “bucket list”, so my fiance and I made an emergency trip to go see it in person in June. While it was not a very financially responsible decision, it was one of the most important things I’ve experienced personally. I can get way more into that experience in another thread at some point, but I came away with a lot of inspiration and am finally making a slow push to start practicing more. I was expecting to leave that tank with technical notes but ended up with way more on the philosophical side of things than anything else. I have some photos I took to work with, and if I’ve taken them properly I should be able to stitch them together into complete images of each section of Florestas Submersas. The hope is to do some study with those, and if it works out and I end up with something viable I’ll make an effort to share them here.
Over my fish keeping history I’ve most of my scaping has been messing around at home, but I did do one competition scape at the Keystone Clash in 2025. It was a great experience and I came in 5th out of 15 if I’m remembering right. I was pretty happy with it but know there’s infinite improvement to be had. I’ve got a lot to learn on scaping, and also on the technical details of long term care for higher energy systems and some of the plants that come with them.
Now for how I ended up here, right now I’m gearing up to start farming some plants to help out a local LFS that’s going through a rough spell. I’d previously bought plants from Joe Harvey (who I think is @Burr740 ?) through a Facebook group. I came back to look at his sales sheet yesterday to see what I might want to pick up soon for this farming project and ended up actually looking around on the forum. After learning about the yugang reactor as well as the in tank co2 spray bar version of the same concept I’m very solidly down a rabbit hole and figured it made sense to join. I’m hoping to model and 3d print some low profile CSBs for a few of my tanks so I’ll be sure to try and document that. If I’m successful I’ll hopefully have a parametric file to share if anyone else wants to print one sized for their tank.
Anyway enough rambling, excited to have found the forum and these concepts! I’m sure I’ll be around here and there. Thanks for having me!
Hey everyone I’m Gabe from East TN. Gabe, skittles, SP, whatever I’ll respond lol.
Anyway I’m a huge nerd in many categories but things related to fish are probably the largest of them. I’ve been keeping fish for about 11 years now, breeding for about three, and while I’ve flirted with scaping seriously I’m hoping to now start really moving into it. On the fish side Medaka (and relatives) and North American natives are probably the two big things at the moment, but I’ve got all sorts of stuff. I’m also one of the people behind the Fundulid Working Group, a fairly young conservation organization focused on North American Native killifish.
Now on the scaping side of things I’ve been enamored with Takashi Amano’s work ever since I learned of him shortly after his passing. This spring I learned that Florestas Submersas, his largest and final work in Lisbon, Portugal was going to be taken down. For years this was basically the only thing I could immediately think of when asked for a “bucket list”, so my fiance and I made an emergency trip to go see it in person in June. While it was not a very financially responsible decision, it was one of the most important things I’ve experienced personally. I can get way more into that experience in another thread at some point, but I came away with a lot of inspiration and am finally making a slow push to start practicing more. I was expecting to leave that tank with technical notes but ended up with way more on the philosophical side of things than anything else. I have some photos I took to work with, and if I’ve taken them properly I should be able to stitch them together into complete images of each section of Florestas Submersas. The hope is to do some study with those, and if it works out and I end up with something viable I’ll make an effort to share them here.
Over my fish keeping history I’ve most of my scaping has been messing around at home, but I did do one competition scape at the Keystone Clash in 2025. It was a great experience and I came in 5th out of 15 if I’m remembering right. I was pretty happy with it but know there’s infinite improvement to be had. I’ve got a lot to learn on scaping, and also on the technical details of long term care for higher energy systems and some of the plants that come with them.
Now for how I ended up here, right now I’m gearing up to start farming some plants to help out a local LFS that’s going through a rough spell. I’d previously bought plants from Joe Harvey (who I think is @Burr740 ?) through a Facebook group. I came back to look at his sales sheet yesterday to see what I might want to pick up soon for this farming project and ended up actually looking around on the forum. After learning about the yugang reactor as well as the in tank co2 spray bar version of the same concept I’m very solidly down a rabbit hole and figured it made sense to join. I’m hoping to model and 3d print some low profile CSBs for a few of my tanks so I’ll be sure to try and document that. If I’m successful I’ll hopefully have a parametric file to share if anyone else wants to print one sized for their tank.
Anyway enough rambling, excited to have found the forum and these concepts! I’m sure I’ll be around here and there. Thanks for having me!
JayP
Valuable Member
Welcome! While we tend to be plant focused, we still love the fish and shrimp here, so would love to see some photos of your tanks. When you begin putting together those heavily planted tanks, consider creating journals here. Lot's a super knowledgeable folks here to also help out with advice and answers to questions, including Joe who is indeed @Burr740. Some of us are broke because of Joe. 
