Let me tell you about my most embarrassing moment as a professional aquascaper. I was giving a workshop at a local aquarium club, demonstrating some basic techniques for creating naturalistic aquascapes. During the Q&A, someone asked what I thought was a reasonable budget for a beginner looking to…
The first time I tried to incorporate mangrove roots into an aquascape, I flooded my apartment. Not a little “oops, grab a towel” spill, but a legitimate, call-the-downstairs-neighbor-to-apologize kind of flood. It happened because I’d failed to properly secure a massive piece of root system that decided—approximately three…
The first time I killed an entire tank of fish, it wasn’t because I didn’t care. I cared too much—so much that I overwhelmed a tiny 5-gallon tank with enough fish to stock something three times its size. I still remember standing in front of that cursed rectangle,…
It is mesmerizing how each aquascape is unique and intricately crafted. An aquascape tells the story of an entire ecosystem while simultaneously being a world unto itself, composed of nothing but water, plants and rocks. For years, I attempted to create tanks that contained all the elements, but…
I hadn’t slept in nineteen hours, and the only thing fueling me was a long-neglected cup of coffee and manic energy from binge-watching Japanese aquascaping videos at 3am. My then-girlfriend (now, just a friend who constantly reminds me of my worst choices) had gone away for the weekend,…
An aquascape’s background is like a painting’s canvas: it is often overlooked and underestimated, but it is absolutely pivotal to the overall effect. I learned this the hard way after spending three weeks perfecting a Dutch-style planted tank for an important client, only to step back on installation…
My first encounter with a rimless tank was at an international aquascaping competition in Singapore. After a twenty-hour flight, jet legged me, and dealing with the scrutiny of customs (bragging about a TSA’s playground plant scissors is a risky proposition), the icing on the cake was the astonishing…
The first time I encountered an underwater world was when I was seven years old. My interest was not piqued by the huge and mysterious ocean; that would happen later. Instead, my attention was captured by a perfect miniature mangrove ecosystem that was hidden in a corner of…
Only a week ago, I experienced the joy of seeing my prized Anubias bloom for the very first time in three years. The small, white blossom that was modestly jutting out from beneath the water surface felt like a win in and of itself, not because I had…
Every scar tells a story, I got one in my right palm from an incident my wife fondly calls, “The Great Dragon Stone Disaster of 2018.” Imagine a stunning rock formation I constructed sitting in my 75-gallon tank. It thrived in all its beauty for three glorious days,…
When I attempted my first “real” aquascaping project, it literally looked like a madman had taken a glass container filled with rocks and plants, then gave it a good shake. I was twenty-two, fresh out of college, and for some reason convinced that my biology degree entitled me…
I still remember the first time I saw an aquatic bonsai. Wow, it must’ve been…2016, or 2017? One of those international aquascaping competitions in Singapore. I had been wandering between displays all morning, and honestly, they were starting to blur together. “Mountainscape with carpet plants” for the fifteenth…