Apr 02 2021
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aquarium
Aquascapes
beginner
guest blog
guide
high tech
layout/styles
shrimpery
tips
7 Tips to Make Your Aquascape Look Professional Written By: Chris (@shrimpery) Do you ever see a photograph of an aquascape that looks objectively great while still feeling a bit… off? The key elements (healthy plants, clear water, thoughtful hardscape) are all there, but something is undeniably amiss, preventing the scape from reaching the next level. Here are some simple aquascaping tricks that can have a surprisingly large impact in terms of making your scape appear higher quality. 1. Keep your substrate very shallow at the front of the tank An unnecessarily thick line of substrate abutting the front...
Mar 12 2021
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beginner
guest blog
guide
low tech
plants
tips
7 Best Aquarium Plants for Beginners Designing a beautiful aquascape can be difficult for beginners. Learning about the specific care needs of each aquatic plant is a start, but actually meeting those needs in practice is easier said than done. Fortunately, there are a number of beginner aquarium plants that are not only easy to care for, but will also make your planted tank look amazing from front to back! Best Foreground/Carpet Plants: Java Moss (Taxiphyllum barbieri) Originally from Vietnam, Java Moss has become a staple carpet plant in beginner aquarium setups. It is easy to propagate, and its tiny green leaves...
Mar 05 2021
2 Comments
anubias
beginner
fish
guide
plants
shrimp
tips
Top 5 Aquarium Plants for Your Breeding Tank Written by: Tammy (@aquarist_tl) When it comes to tanks set up specifically for breeding, they will look a lot different than the typical aquascaped display aquariums that many aquarists strive for. Some may even have nothing but the fish themselves! This is largely because one of the goals for the design of breedings tanks is to be as easy to maintain as possible. It is much easier to keep a bare-bottom, mostly empty aquarium clean because you can see all the detritus that needs to be removed. In a tank with substrate...
Feb 26 2021
3 Comments
aquarium
beginner
guide
layout/styles
maintenance
substrate
tips
Tips for Maintaining an Aquascape with Multiple Substrates Written by: Tammy (@aquarist_tl) Many classic nature aquascapes these days use multiple types of substrates in their layouts. The two most prominent ones are usually sand and soil. Sand is commonly used in the foreground of the scape to give it a nice clean look while aquarium soil is typically found in the middle and back areas of the tank to provide nutrients for the aquatic plants when they are added. There are even extravagant aquascapes that will use the sand to form paths or “rivers” within the aquarium. Although the use...
Feb 22 2021
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beginner
guest blog
guide
shrimp
tips
Berried Orange Rili Shrimp Guide: How to Breed Freshwater Shrimp Written by: Gracie Mandel There is nothing more exciting and satisfying than a thriving colony of beautiful shrimp that you bred yourself. This might seem like a daunting ordeal to take on, but I promise you that with my basic tips, your shrimp will want to breed for you! Before you know it, you may even end up with more shrimp than you ever thought you could. Of course there are the basic needs that must be met for shrimp to survive. Although, there are also some helpful tips...
Feb 02 2021
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aquarium
beginner
guide
shrimp
tips
A Guide for Keeping Freshwater Shrimp Written by: Tammy (@aquarist_tl) When most people think of aquariums, they expect to find fish living in them, but there is actually a vast amount of hobbyists that maintain shrimp-only tanks. There are also those that have tanks with both shrimp and fish cohabitating with one another. Freshwater dwarf shrimp are still a mystery for some people that are new to the aquarium hobby. These tiny invertebrates can make great additions to the right aquariums! If you’re thinking about setting up a shrimp tank or adding a freshwater shrimp species into a tank that’s already...
Jan 21 2021
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aquarium
beginner
guest blog
guide
shrimp
substrate
tips
PLANTED SHRIMP TANK: WHAT IS THE BEST SUBSTRATE? Written by: Gracie Mandel There are shrimp tanks, and there are planted tanks, right? It seems that most aquariums must adhere to one category or the other. However, with the vast and ever-improving products and knowledge, it is possible to have both in one. That said, there are different schools of thought when it comes to this. Can you really have an aesthetically-pleasing, heavily-planted aquascape, and still keep your shrimp’s health a priority? Let’s explore this idea. This article will cover the different varieties of aquatic substrates and the pros and cons...
Dec 22 2020
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aquarium
Aquascapes
beginner
guest blog
guide
layout/styles
shrimpery
tips
Top 5 Aquascaping Styles Written by: Chris (@shrimpery) What do aquascaping and painting have in common? Besides being quarantine-friendly hobbies, there are many styles to work with in each. A skilled painter can evoke just as much meaning and beauty from an abstracted, pointillist piece as they can from a hyper-realistic still-life. Likewise, aquascapers can make an equally beautiful beautiful biotope tank, Iwagumi scape, or traditional nature aquarium. Of course, some styles are more popular than others, but I thought it would be fun to rank my top 5 favorite styles for you to try. Biotope The most...
Dec 16 2020
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beginner
co2
DIY
guest blog
guide
tips
video
Using CO2 in a planted aquarium Written by: Team BP & Anne (expertaquarist) If you just recently established your planted aquarium then I’m sure you are thinking, “how do I get my aquatic plants to grow as fast & healthy as possible?” You need a CO2 setup to make it a reality. CO2 might be lethal for us humans but it is the key to life for plants. CO2 is the biggest benefactor of photosynthesis, which is the way of survival for plant life. You can grow your aquatic plants in your aquascape 5-10 times faster by supplementing CO2. This...
Dec 04 2020
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beginner
guest blog
guide
maintenance
plants
shrimpery
tips
The best way to plant different types of aquatic plants Written by: Chris (@shrimpery) For people who love to work with their hands, planting an aquarium is one of the most satisfying parts of setting up a new scape. While the mind typically jumps to an image of planting stem plants with stainless steel aquascaping pinsettes, that is only one of the methods involved in setting up a planted tank. Depending on the location of the plant in the layout (towards the back, at the very front, on driftwood), different techniques are more effective. Below is a quick overview...
