I was seven years old when I first fell in love with underwater worlds. Not the vast, unknowable ocean—though that would come later—but a perfect miniature mangrove ecosystem tucked away in a corner of the Florida Aquarium. While my classmates pressed their faces against the shark tank glass,…
Last week I woke up to find my prize Anubias flowering for the first time in three years. Just poking up above the water line, this tiny white bloom felt like a personal victory—not because I’d done anything special to encourage it, but because I’d finally learned to…
I still have a scar on my right palm from what my wife lovingly refers to as “The Great Dragon Stone Disaster of 2018.” Picture this: a meticulously arranged rock formation, standing proud in my 75-gallon tank for exactly three glorious days before catastrophically collapsing during a routine…
My first “real” aquascape looked like someone had dumped a bucket of rocks and plants into a glass box and then shaken it vigorously. I was twenty-two, fresh out of college, and convinced that my biology degree somehow qualified me to create underwater masterpieces right out of the…
I still remember the first time I saw an aquatic bonsai. God, it must’ve been…2016? 2017? One of those international aquascaping competitions in Singapore. I’d been wandering between displays all morning, and honestly, they were starting to blur together. You know how it gets after the fifteenth “mountain…
You know what they never show in those perfect aquascape photos online? The absolute chaos happening behind the scenes. Last month I was finishing this commissioned tank for a doctor’s office – supposed to be this serene 60-gallon slice of underwater zen – and if someone had photographed…
I once spent three hours in a river with my jeans rolled up to my knees, hunting for the perfect rock. Not just any rock – THE rock. The centerpiece for a competition aquascape I’d been planning for months. My friends had long since abandoned me, retreating to…
The first time I attempted a Dutch-style aquascape, I ended up with what can only be described as underwater chaos. Plants everywhere, no focal point, colors clashing like they were having an argument. It was the aquatic equivalent of throwing paint at a canvas and calling it art.…
I once spent three days arranging a single piece of driftwood. Not three consecutive days – that would be extreme even for me – but three days of picking it up, turning it around, placing it in the tank, filling the tank with water to see how it…
I’ve made a lot of mistakes in this hobby. There was the time I added a school of silver dollars to my meticulously planted tank, only to wake up to what looked like an underwater salad bar after a zombie apocalypse. Or the peaceful community tank that turned…
There’s something uniquely satisfying about watching a customer’s face when they realize what they’re seeing. Last year, I set up a Rio Negro blackwater tank in the waiting area of a high-end dental office. During my monthly maintenance visit, I overheard a conversation between the receptionist and a…
My garage looks like a crime scene for rocks. There’s a blue tarp spread across the floor, various chunks of stone scattered about, and tools that wouldn’t look out of place in a horror movie—hammers, chisels, and this weird serrated knife I bought from a sketchy vendor at…