As you know (or maybe you don't!), I spent a good part of the last couple of decades in my hobby and business careers "embedded" in the reef aquarium world. Although I kept freshwater fish during that time, my main focus was everything "reef": Corals, inverts, fishes, systems, etc. I never took my feet out of the freshwater side, but it wasn't until I started Tannin in 2015 that I fell back in, full time, with my "first love"- freshwater! And, like many of you who have "crossover" experience and skills, I realized that the decades honed in the rapidly evolving reef world gave me the "tools" I needed to "play" in the area of specialized freshwater aquariums. And, as...
One of the interesting things about creating a botanical method aquarium is that it's really easy to get "into the weeds" about the ecology and the environmental aspects of the tank, almost at the exclusion of everything else. We tend to emphasize the function of the ecosystem that we are developing over almost all else. And sometimes, I admit, that can be a bit short-sided. Sometimes, it's important for me as a self-proclaimed "thought leader" in this space to delve into the more practical, everyday, or even mundane aspects of their management. Let's talk about a few of these things today, in no particular order... WATER CLARITY For all of the hobbyists who have simply come to expect that the...