The Tint

Oh, I’m thinking about reefs again…and I wanted to juts give a tiny bit of advice about my approach- might help a few of you who are thinking of jumping the salinity line!

We get a lot of questions about that “hazy”or slightly cloudy water that often accompanies the tint in botanical method aquariums. It’s often in the early days of the aquarium’s life; but it can happen any time. Let’s try to (metaphorically!) clear things up!

After many decades, I’ve finally gotten comfortable with the idea of changing up tanks more frequently to try new ideas. It was hard for me to make this switch from never touching a tank to rapidly iterating one. Here’s a little info on my rationale….

There is always a lot of confusion and misconceptions about the color of water in botanical method aquariums. And it’s easy to understand why- there is a sort of disconnect between the hobby perception of blackwater habitats and the ecological definition and characteristics of it. Let’s talk a little bit about some of the visual aspects of water in our tanks!

Those of you with talent in the “aquascaping game” amaze me. But I think that some of you could do more. Do better. Do “different.” I think it’s about taking inspiration from Nature, instead of last month’s “Tank of The Month.” Let’s discuss…

Every want a new tank… but you don’t have a new tank? What do you do? You change things up! That’s a tough thing for me to do sometimes- we’ll, it WAS- until I had a little epiphany.

With all of our talk about going beyond the conventional, people still ask us about contests..like, what our opinion is about them, and why we don’t have one. Let’s talk about this…

I’ve spent plenty of time over the years observing how other people enjoy their hobby. And, it’s often different than how I might enjoy my aquarium hobby experience… amd it’s pretty cool to reflect on this; to understand that we are all aquarists, despite how we choose to enjoy the hobby…

Over the years, I developed this strange analysis “paralysis” thing with the hobby…juts over thinking and over planning everything. It was a real pain. I’ve finally learned to overcome it. Maybe sharing my story will help you along?

I know who the best “designer is!” She’s been at it literally forever…and She’s sure come up with some cool stuff! Maybe we should follow this “designer’s” lead?