Aquascaping 101

Aquario Neo Flow lily pipe outflow

Lily Pipes and Flow: Why Water Movement Decides Where Algae Grows

Algae grows where your water stalls. How to find dead spots in your tank, build a circular flow pattern with a lily pipe, size pipes to your tubing, and keep them clean.
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Aquario Neo surface skimmer in a planted aquarium

How to Get Rid of the Oily Film on Your Aquarium Surface

Surface film blocks gas exchange and dulls your light. What causes it, the free fixes that work, when a surface skimmer is worth buying, and how skimming interacts with CO2.
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El Jefe aquascaping stone

Choosing Aquascaping Stone: Seiryu, Dragon Stone and the Iwagumi Rules

How to pick aquascaping stone by texture and by what it does to your water, how much to buy by weight, and the Iwagumi rules that make rocks read as a landscape.
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Tom Barr hand-collected manzanita driftwood branches

Manzanita Driftwood: How to Choose, Prepare and Position It

Why manzanita is the aquascaper's driftwood of choice, how to get it to sink, what to do about tannins, and how to arrange branches so they read as a single tree.
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ONF Flat Nano Plus stand LED light over a nano planted tank

Nano Tank Lighting: How Much Light a Small Planted Tank Actually Needs

How to set light on a small planted tank without a PAR meter: photoperiod first, mounting height second, and matching intensity to whether you inject CO2.
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UNS Controsand Bora decorative aquarium sand

Using Decorative Sand in an Aquascape: A Guide to UNS Controsand

A practical guide to UNS Controsand: what the five colourways suit, how to build a sand path or clearing, and how to keep sand and aquasoil from mixing.
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