Nathan Hill has been playing with a set of quality aquascaping tools...
These aren’t particularly cheap and at £40 or more for a pair of scissors you have to be pretty dedicated to your plants to consider buying them. Then again, quality aquatic plants aren’t cheap either…
What tools they are! I had a mix of three scissor types; the 350mm straight, 350mm curved, and 315mm nude. The latter style was easily my favourite, with angled handle and curved blades that get to the most inaccessible areas of the tank.
These will be a blessing to anyone who maintains low foreground plants.
All the tools are superbly crafted to a precision blade quality that’s sometimes hard to find on just curved scissors. Made of high grade stainless steel, they will last a lifetime with proper cleaning. Used underwater they made a cleaner cut on string and cotton than my own supposedly uber-sharp titanium desk scissors.
PlantedTanks.co.uk also submitted pinsettes, or forceps to the uninitiated, for appraisal. These offered superb control and, putting them to the test, they proved so easy to use while wet. Used in conjunction with the scissors they allowed for some exact cutting.
I was playing with both the straight pinsette, that gives 30cm of precision pinch, as well as the 300mm curved variety, and they didn’t do that annoying thing I’ve found with some curved forceps: namely failing to grab anywhere beyond the absolute tip.
The combination of curved pinsette and nude scissors impressed me most, offering the versatility of both reach and cutability that you would never replicate with bare hands and household scissors.
Fishkeepers with money to spend wouldn’t go far wrong with this brand. I’ve had many tongs over the years and these are by far the best I’ve used.
My only possible concern would be that the finger holes in the scissors are on the small side and users with large fingers may struggle. On the other hand, my biggest problem with other brands of scissor is that the holes are usually too large.
Prices: Nude scissors £39.98, Curved 300mm Pinsettes £30.64. Tools and scissors start at £14.06, up to £50.08.