Info AquaScape

I got to visit the Aquarium Design Group (ADG) in Houston, TX recently where they have an incredible showroom featuring their custom designed planted, hardscape only, and saltwater aquariums. The Senske brothers have combined art, design, and architecture to make a collection of beautifully sophisticated aquatic installations. They also have a full retail aquarium store where you can purchase live corals and plants, fish, hardscape, aquascaping tools, and more. Here is a visual tour of some of the most impressive fish tanks I saw displayed during summer 2018: While I don’t have all the details of what each aquarium entails, here is some information I collected from ADG’s Instagram (certain aspects may have been altered): 90P Planted Aquarium: Blyxa “red” sp. in background (used by Amano), uses CO2, Twinstar 900E light with inline dimmer 90cm Tank with Lava Stone: Eleocharis acicularis “mini” (from Tropica tissue culture cup) as carpet, coral moss (Riccardia chamedryfolia) on the ...

Do you have an adorable two- or three-year-old who is simultaneously the love of your life and the bane of your existence? Yeah, got one of those, too. Keep reading to find out how we survived the terrible twos and threes. Now, my son is like me, super chill and compliant by nature, so we hardly experienced the terrible twos with him. My daughter, on the other hand, is like her father, a strong-willed force of nature who has to do everything herself. Her “terrible twos” started when she was 18 months old and lasted until now when she’s about to turn 4. That first year was intolerable because we could not figure out what made her tick! She didn’t seem to respond to any kind of correction or training. Corrective Methods We Tried First We tried positive reinforcement, but she didn’t care about our approval or rewards. She cared more about getting that lollipop into her mouth now! We tried swatting her on the hand or butt, and… it would only add fuel to the fire. Instead of instill...

Bucephalandra is such an easy and beautiful aquarium plant that’s perfect for low tech planted tanks and nano aquascapes, but is it worth the hefty price tag? Keep reading to find out more: What is Bucephalandra? Location: This beautiful plant is found along banks of fast-moving streams in Borneo, using its strong roots to attach to rocks. In the aquarium hobby, we usually grow them underwater as submsered, but because of their locale's wet and dry seasons, they can also be grown out of water as emersed plants. There are over 200 varieties but less than 10 named species last I heard. Size: The plant grows to about two to four (or more) inches in height, and even taller when grown emersed. The leaves are usually half an inch to four inches long, making buce a good plant to grow in the foreground, mid-ground, or attached to hardscape. Appearance: The most common varieties on the market are usually seen with oval-shaped leaves that have a wavy edge. However, many other...

Apparently your cory catfish have been, ahem, gettin’ busy, and there are white little eggs all over your glass. Babies! So what in the world do you do now? Keep reading to learn everything you need to know about raising corydoras fry. How to Breed Cory Catfish Okay, for most of you, breeding corydoras was probably an accident, but here’s what you can do to encourage it. For me, I had a 20 gallon tank with 6 adult-sized albino cory catfish (to increase my chances of having enough males and females). To get them in the mood, condition them by feeding lots of good food, and then do some water changes with fresh water a few degrees cooler than normal. Next thing you know, everyone’s gettin’ frisky, the males are chasing the females and doing the T-shaped mating position, and then the female lays sticky eggs on any ol’ flat surface around. Female albino cory catfish carrying newly fertilized eggs in her pelvic fins How to Collect Corydoras Eggs If you leave the eggs alone, ...

I've always been super conflict adverse as a kid and now an adult, carefully avoiding saying anything controversial to keep the peace. After all, doesn't the Bible say, "If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all." ( Romans 12:18 )? While that verse is certainly truth, I now know my heart has always been in the wrong place, had the wrong motivation. In reality, I have an unhealthy fear of man, instead of an appropriate fear of God. Being good at school will make me feel loved and respected, right? As a child, I was always the good little girl, eager to win my parents' and teachers' praise. If I did everything right, I was worthy, valuable, special, loved . In middle school, my natural introversion made it hard for me to make friends, which seeded great doubts and insecurities into my heart. As the song goes, "Nobody likes me, Everybody hates me, Guess I'll go eat worms." While I was fortunate to have a close-knit ...

So you wanna teach your kid another language, but you’re kinda intimidated because you don’t think you have the skills. Well, I’m no a right-brained linguist and English is definitely my native tongue, so keep reading to find out how I’m casually raising my kids to be bilingual. How I Heard About Bilingualism Okay, full disclosure: I learned Chinese from my parents growing up. But they were pretty lax about making me speak it, and once I started school, it wasn’t really a priority. Speaking Chinese to them was super slow and cumbersome, so I just used English with them. Fast-forward to adulthood: I’m married with no kids. I have a conference call with a coworker who happened to be working from home that day. Suddenly she says, “Hold on a second” and then proceeds to yell across the house at her children in rapid fire Spanish. What the… my coworker is a white, blonde woman and her Spanish has a definite, heavy American accent. Still, I’m impressed. What’s going on here? How to Tea...