The Japanese creator of the Nature Aquarium style has been interviewed by the largest newspaper in the United States.
In a fascinating insight into the man, his past, and his rapidly growing company, the Wall Street Journal not only managed to get some great quotes from Mr Amano, but also some facts, figures, and some clues as to the sums of money that are commanded these days if you want the man himself to travel over and aquascape your tank.
We can't confirm this, but according to the WSJ, for a 228 gal. aquarium designed and 'scaped by Mr Amano, and using all ADA high-end products of course, he charges a cool $42,600/£28,142 plus $600/£396 a month in essential maintenance.
Also that because of the logistics of foreign tank builds, and the fact that these days he can rightfully afford to be choosy, "he won't travel to the U.S. to design anything less than 13' wide."
Interesting though that Amano's is not a story of rags to riches, more one of doing quite well already through a former career in professional cycling, before becoming very good at pro photography and then turning his hand to making planted tanks look nice and creating a company which supply products that enable others to achieve aquascaping results like he does.
Quitting saltwater
Intriguing also that Amano admitted to recently quitting designing saltwater tanks, stating "no matter how hard you try, you can't beat nature," following with: "I don't do things when I can't win. I can win with freshwater".
These sentiments are no doubt echoed by many a seasoned multi-type fishkeeper, as although creating an authentic blackwater freshwater habitat is straight forward, even easy, you've only got to a take a dive on a coral reef and see all those things growing naturally, which we are still yet to truly understand and master, to realise that although we're getting better and better and marines, for many people, we're not quite there yet.
But before I para-phrase and plagiarise too much of the beautifully and cleverly written article, take a look at "The Sage of Aquariums" by Phred Dvorak, yourself.
And you'll get to find out how being an Aqua Design Amano team member could cause you nose bleeds!
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