Dustin's Blog — Aquarium Maintenance

A Huge Guide to Freshwater Aquarium pH, Dissolved Oxygen, Nitrites/Nitrates/Ammonia, Water Hardness, and All the Molecules Bouncing Around Between Your Fish - without Feeling Lost or Like You Want to Fall Asleep in Class "This 8 oz bottle will prevent and cure all fish diseases, fix all your water, grow a tank-wide bacteria colony in 7.2 minutes, and bring your childhood goldfish back from the dead for $42.99! Ignore the other 600 8oz bottles that say the exact same thing!" is what it feels like walking down an aquarium aisle these days.  Before you go into debt buying products that may or may...

Welcome to part two of all you ever wanted to know about working with used fish tanks! In part one, we told you how to find them, buy them, and clean them. In this part, we'll show you what to do if you either buy a used tank with damage or an existing setup gets damaged.  How to Prevent Damage in the First Place The easiest way to keep your aquarium from getting damaged is to put it on the right stand, especially if you have a top-heavy vertical tank. Keeping the tank level, all the bottom edges supported on a surface...

So, you've found a crusty, old fish tank and have no idea if it, or your plans for a new tank, will hold water. It's easy to see a grimy tank on the curb and think, "Well, that thing's never coming into my house." But it could be a diamond in the rough. Here are tips and tricks for finding and buying secondhand fishtanks, cleaning them up, and getting them in shape for new fish and aquarium plants. For a more detailed post on fixing up cracked/broken aquariums, check this blog post out! Biggest tip we can give you: be...

7 Tips and Tricks for Keeping an Aquarium with a Cat The only cat rival as iconic as the mouse is the fish.  Can you keep a fish tank with a cat? Absolutely. You just have to outsmart the cat first (sometimes easier said than done) and understand a little bit about cat behavior.  Cats are obligate carnivores: they have to have meat and protein to thrive. Though hunting instincts differ from cat to cat, they all share a relatively strong prey drive that causes them to chase and track down food (even if they already have food in their bowls). This can look...

How to Convert from Plastic Plants to Live Plants in an Aquarium Welcome to the second part of your guide to setting up an epic planted tank! Part 1 gave you the low down on starting a planted tank from scratch. This post will be for folks who realized how awesome aquariums were before they knew planted ones were a thing. We'll give you all the tips and tricks you need to convert an existing, non-planted setup to a tank with plants so nice you'll throw your plastic ones out.  It's easier than you think. Getting a tank cycled and...