What do you think happens in the background while some aquascape is being set up? Well, I photographed the absolute chaos for you. An example is the work I did a month back for a doctor’s office which needed a relaxing 60-gallon aquarium tank. If captured, the photo…

Once, I devoted an entire afternoon to the seemingly mundane task of rock searching, submerging myself in a river while my friends mocked my sanity from the shore. That’s right; the rock I was searching for was not ‘any ol’ rock,’ instead the glorious centerpiece to an elaborate…

Have you ever found yourself daydreaming while watching your aquarium? This is about how my journey of constructing a water-based reef started. While doing a water change on my community tank, the 75 gallon one I own, I noticed driftwood pieces floating above the water and had an…

When I tried my hand at Dutch-style aquascaping, I ended up with an unmitigated disaster. Plant life was strewn across the aquarium with no attempt at organization, focal points did not exist, and the color combinations were not just dissimilar but almost hostile to one another. It was…

There was a time I spent three non-consecutive days arranging a single piece of driftwood. As absurd as this sounds, I picked it up and turned it, placed it in the tank, filled the tank with water, viewed how it looked submerged, drained it, and then started from…

I have made a plethora of mistakes throughout the years of this hobby. For instance, I added a school of silver dollars to my carefully curated tank and woke up to what looked like an apocalyptic salad bar. Or the tranquil community tank that morphed into a water…

I will never forget how, about a year ago, I set up a Rio Negro blackwater tank in the waiting area of an upscale dental office. In one of my monthly maintenance visits, I had the chance to listen to one of the receptionists talk to a patient…

My garage resembles a murder scene… for rocks. The blue tarp on the floor is the specific color of cobalt, chunks of stone lay everywhere, and tools imaginable in a horror film lie in sight: chisels, hammers, and a strange serrated knife that I was foolish enough to…

Let me shed some light on the Halloween tank catastrophe of 2019. Imagine this: I spent the all the way from September 30th to Halloween crafting what was supposedly show-stopping a “haunted shipwreck” aquarium themed setup. A food-grade resin pirate ship with custom features, arcs of purple and…

Knowing how to multiply a single plant into multiple plants makes designing an underwater forest easier. After aquascaping for years, going through multiple failures, I have recently come to view propagation, albeit reluctantly, as a form of moving meditation. Being able to watch small tree cuttings grow into…