Stillmist | Aquascaping

Aquarium Calculator Explainer 🐠🐟 stillmist.com/how-to-use-the… #AquariumCalculator #aquarium #motiongraphic

Good tankmates share more than a calm temperament. Match temperature, pH and swimming level, and keep known fin nippers away from long finned fish like bettas and angelfish. Add the most peaceful species first. stillmist.com/aquarium-fish-… #Aquascape

RO water is not clean water, it is blank water. Shrimp and fish need minerals added back before it touches the tank. Caridina want GH with zero KH, while cherry shrimp and community fish need both. Mixing those up is a slow, costly mistake. stillmist.com/remineralising… #CherryShrimp

A fish that stops eating is not always sick. New arrivals often skip food for a few days, and a tank that runs too cool slows digestion. Test ammonia, nitrite and nitrate first, then check the temperature with a thermometer. stillmist.com/aquarium-fish-… #Aquarium

A PAR number without a stated depth is a marketing figure, not a spec. Light falls off fast, so a fixture rated 150 at the surface might deliver about 60 at 12 inches and 30 at 18. What your plants actually feel is PAR at the substrate. stillmist.com/what-is-par-in… #PlantedTank

A fish floating at the top or stuck on the bottom has a swim bladder problem, but that is a symptom with four different causes. Fasting and a pea only fix constipation. Lethargic, clamped fins and no appetite? Think infection instead. stillmist.com/swim-bladder-d… #Aquarium

New to stem plants? Start with bacopa and ludwigia, not rotala. Both survive a missed dosing week and tell you clearly when something is off. Shop plants are grown emersed, so judge them by the growth they put out in week three. stillmist.com/bacopa-and-lud… #PlantedTank

The one inch per gallon rule fails in both directions. A four inch goldfish makes far more waste than four one inch tetras, and a long shallow tank holds more fish than a tall narrow one. Stock in stages, a few fish every two to three weeks. stillmist.com/how-many-fish-… #Aquascape

GH and KH measure different things. GH is calcium and magnesium, which shrimp and snails need for clean molts and solid shells. KH is your buffer, the thing that keeps pH from crashing overnight. Test both and fix only the one that is low. stillmist.com/gh-and-kh-expl… #PlantedTank

pH is a symptom, not a setting. In a planted tank it rises in the light and drops at night, so a daily swing of 0.3 to 0.5 is normal. Test at the same time every day, and let tap water stand overnight before you trust the reading. stillmist.com/aquarium-ph-ex… #PlantedTank

Root tabs or liquid fertilizer? Your plants decide. Swords and crypts feed through their roots, stem plants feed from the water, and anubias or Java fern get nothing from a buried tab. Old aquasoil tank with stalled swords? Try tabs first. stillmist.com/root-tabs-vs-l… #PlantedTank

Trimming is not tidying. Pinch the tip off a stem plant and the buds below wake up, so one stem turns into two or three. Swords and crypts are the opposite. Never cut across a leaf, remove the whole leaf at the base. stillmist.com/how-to-trim-aq… #PlantedTank

Love the tea colored blackwater look? Botanicals tint the water either way, but they only lower pH when your KH is already low. At 8 dKH, catappa leaves change the color and nothing else. Sort the water first, then add leaves slowly. stillmist.com/tannins-and-bl… #Aquascape

A closed terrarium is built from the bottom up. Start with a drainage layer, add a thin barrier, then substrate, plants, and a little moss. Mist lightly, close the lid, and let it settle into its own rhythm. stillmist.com/how-to-make-a-… #Terrarium

That monthly filter cartridge throws out a big part of your bacteria colony every few weeks. Keep the biological media, rinse sponges in old tank water, and only replace the floss. Stack mechanical media coarse to fine so it never clogs early. stillmist.com/aquarium-filte… #Aquascape

Hornwort has no roots. Bury the stem and it rots within a couple of weeks, so let it float or weight it behind hardscape instead. Treat it as a tool, not a resident. It soaks up nitrate during cycling and algae outbreaks, then comes out. stillmist.com/hornwort-and-e… #PlantedTank

A Walstad tank runs on garden soil, dense plants and patience. Keep the soil to about an inch (2.5 cm) under the gravel, skip the CO2 and fertilizer, and expect a rough first two months before it settles. stillmist.com/walstad-method… #PlantedTank

Brown dust in a six week old tank is almost always diatoms, and it usually clears up on its own. Wipe the glass at water changes, siphon the sand, and keep your lights normal. Cutting the photoperiod helps diatoms more than your plants. stillmist.com/diatoms-and-br… #PlantedTank

Pea puffers barely reach an inch, but they are not an easy nano fish. They want frozen or live food at every meal, a snail supply grown on purpose, and dense plants to break up sightlines. Get that right and few fish feel this curious. stillmist.com/pea-puffer-car… #Aquarium

Dutch aquascapes skip most hardscape and let the plants do the talking. Rows of stem plants in contrasting colors, stepped in height, with open paths called streets leading your eye back. Steady trimming, but nothing looks as lush. stillmist.com/dutch-aquascap… #Aquascape

A bioactive terrarium mostly cleans itself. Springtails and isopods eat mold, waste and dead leaves, and live plants take up what they leave behind. Less upkeep, healthier soil, and a tiny ecosystem you can actually watch. stillmist.com/what-is-a-bioa… #Terrarium