Info AquaScape

If you’re getting into planted tanks, learning about lighting can be overwhelming. Keep reading to find out the 5 things I wish I’d known about lighting when starting my first planted tanks. If you want to play with live aquarium plants, lighting is one of the key building blocks that you have to learn about. The goal with lighting is to grow plants, enhance their coloration, and of course minimize algae. When your lighting is out of whack with the available nutrients , your plants can end up failing to thrive or being covered with so much algae that you can’t see them anymore. So let’s dive into my top five list for lighting: Tip #1 : Buy a planted tank LED light Yes, you can use the default light that came with your aquarium kit or get a really cheap light, but I find they’re usually not strong enough or don’t last very long. Some people build their own LED lights , especially if they have a giant fish room with multiple aquariums, because lighting can get really expensive. ...

So you want to try keeping stem plants, carpets, rosettes, bulbs, or other rooted plants in a planted tank, but after buying your first few, they ain’t looking too hot. Keep watching as I reveal the top 5 things I’ve learned so far about growing healthy roots for healthy plants! When I first started dipping my toe into the aquascaping world, I went with your beginner plants – java fern, anubias, bolbitis, and so on. What do all of these have in common? They’re rhizome plants that that you can pretty much glue to a rock and treat it like a piece of aquarium decor. Very hardy, don’t need much light, hard to kill. Eventually, I wanted to broaden my horizons and get into the world of rooted plants that actually need soil or substrate to live in. That totally opened up my options to stem plants, carpeting plants, crypts, bulbs, you name it! I mean, we’re talking level 2 stuff here, right? Hah! That also means I had to be prepared to face level 2 problems and outright failures. So, c...

Remember that beautiful planted tank I designed for my betta? Well, it ain’t paradise any more because we've got cyanobacteria, baby! Keep reading as I talk about what causes it, the natural versus chemical methods I used to treat it, and which one worked the best! All I want is a super easy, low tech, low maintenance aquarium to just sit back and enjoy when I’m stressed at work. Unfortunately, my office tank had a reoccurring issue with, well, multiple types of algae, and one of them was blue-green algae, or more accurately, cyanobacteria. No longer was I calm and relaxed when gazing at my betta fish Soundwave. Instead, his home was an eyesore and constant source of stress… (Why oh why don’t you look like the aquascapes on my Instagram feed?) Cyanobacteria outbreak while on vacation (source: Keudn from Reddit ) Causes of Cyanobacteria There have been lots of studies done on what causes cyanobacteria in aquariums, but nothing is concrete because the bacteria is so ge...

So you’re wanting to make the switch from fake to live aquarium plants, and you’ve already done a bunch of research on lighting, substrate, and so forth. I’m going to let you in on the 5 things I wish I knew about planted tanks that most beginner tutorials never cover. I'm not talking about basic level 1 knowledge like “Put your lights on a timer,” but more like level 2 stuff that you don’t figure out until way later when you happen hear a random comment in a 4-hour live stream. Now I really like the natural look for my aquariums, which I initially tried to imitate using fake plant decor. However, I eventually decided to try live plants because everyone was going on and on about how great it naturally improves water quality, and you know me, I’ll try anything that saves me time. Tip #1: New planted tanks will get algae The first thing I learned is that planted tanks don’t necessarily save time (at least at first). With my fake aquarium decor, I never turned on the ligh...

I’m just going to straight up say it: I don’t like snails. Pest snails, pet snails... they’re just not for me. So how do you prevent unexpected guests from hitching a ride on your aquarium plants? Like any good beginner hobbyist, I did a bunch of online research on plant dips to find out what methods will remove hitchhikers without killing my aquarium plants. And right from the start, there seemed to be a lot of differing opinions, especially on what will get rid of both snails and snail eggs. So I decided to run some scientific experiments to see for myself. Since my tanks are currently snail free, I reached out to Greg Sage from Select Aquatics, who has a long-running fish breeding business . Huge thanks to Greg for providing me three clumps of java fern, which he put in his most snail-infested tank for this experiment. (Pro tip: snails can be very useful for cleaning up excess food in fry tanks.) Don’t forget to check out his rare livebearers and green dragon plecos for sale a...

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 ...

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...

Welcome back to another episode of “Hack My Betta Tank”! This episode teaches you how to transform a 5 gallon aquarium into an easy planted tank for your betta (or other nano fish). The goal is to set up a low-maintenance, low tech tank that’s beginner friendly, so we’ll be using an LED light on a timer, all-in-one fertilizers, no CO2 injection, and slow-growing plants that don’t require a lot of pruning. Related Link: DIY Filter Upgrade for 5 Gallon Starter Aquarium Equipment List ▶ Petsmart Top Fin® 5 Gallon Glass Aquarium ▶ Carib Sea Eco-Complete planted aquarium substrate (black) ▶ Finnex Stingray LED clip-on light ▶ Mechanical timer for lights ▶ Aqueon Pro adjustable heater (50W) ▶ Digital thermometer with high/low temperature alarm ▶ Foam filter sponges ▶ Ceramic bio rings ▶ Filter insert bags ▶ Aquascaping tweezers Plants List ▶ Staurogyne repens ▶ Aquatic banana plant ▶ Bucephalandra Fertilizer List ▶ Easy Green all-in-one liquid fertilizer ▶ Easy ...