How Accurate Is Enough?

[Shiells]

For certain biotopes, you can easily find driftwood from the appropriate area, and even add leaf litter from trees appropriate to the biotope that area you are trying to recreate. However, for Amazon biotopes, finding region-specific driftwood, rocks, leaves, and the like is difficult, if not basically impossible. So, I avoid the description "biotope" when talking about my tank, which features apistograma, tetra, and some South American plants. I avoid that description because my driftwood isn't Amazonian, not all of my plants are South American, and I don't think adding Indian leaf litter would help it's case. But, there aren't any official guidelines, and no apparent consensus on the issue. My standards might even be too high. So, what, in your mind, are the minimum requirements for calling your tank an Amazon biotope? How strict are you?

 

[Mike Wise]

When I judged the biotope class in fish shows in the past I just wanted the substrate, fish and the plants to be from the same general region. An 'Amazon biotope' can be so many different types, since the Amazon Basin covers half of a continent. Different parts have different substrates, fish, plants, etc. It would be easier to make it smaller, say biotope around Belem, Brazil for example.

 

[Siggi]

Hi, everyone.
Another issue that IMHO is just as important, maybe even more, is to assert if it's a blackwater-biotope, a whitewater-biotope, a hardwater-biotope...
The chemistry can be more differentiating than location. It's at least an area where accuracy is important.
Just a sidethought.

 

[mr. Uaupesi]

On a facebook page called Biotope aquaristics they divide it into these categories:

B1 A true biotope aquarium, a scape with fishes and plants that occur in the same body of water, where they share a specific habitat.

B2 A watersystem theme aquarium, fishes and plants occur in the same watersystem, but are not all (necessarily) found together.

B3 A habitat theme aquarium, fishes and plants are found in similar habitats from the same continent but are from different water systems.

Just thought it could be usefull
Getting wood/sand etc from a certain location should be really hard to do. I would just focus on trying to get the fish/plants from that specific place.