Dustin's Blog — Plants

It's funny Anubias (an amazingly easy aquarium plant genus) is named for the Egyptian god of funerals, graves, and the afterlife, Anubis - because these things are borderline unkillable. I like to think, somewhere, there's a jackal-headed death god trying to preserve dead plants named after him and getting annoyed he has to wait because they just won't die.  However, if our friend Anubis wanted to hurry them along to the underworld, there are a few ways he could do it. Here's your guide on how to grow (and how to kill) Anubias aquarium plants.  Anubias Species and Varieites The Anubias genus is packed with...

Freshwater aquatic plant anatomy and physiology, and how you can make easy botany work for your planted tank Welcome back to another installment of the Aquarium Science Series! Got some epic aquarium plants growing, but wondering how they work and why that matters? This post will give you an overview of some botany basics, with more specific posts on root physiology/Mycorrhizae, plant genetics,  leaf physiology and photosynthesis/respiration, etc. to follow later when we really dig into it. Aquarium Plant Classifications Scientific Names/Taxonomy Want to get to know someone? Start with a name. Aquarium plants are no different. A lot of...

Aquarium plants for cold water, crazy pH, giant tanks and nano tanks, evil fish, too little or too much light, and any other extreme you can throw at them Overall Tips for "EXTREME" Aquarium Plants (AKA the biggest piece of advice for planted tanks) The single most helpful tip we can give you on growing these plants, and any plants, really, is to study and imitate nature. If you're not sure if you can keep a plant in a certain tank environment (we're pretty awesome, but we can't list out every plant, here) look up where the plants are native and...

Plant Placement 101 Figured out you want to grow some live aquarium plants, taken the plunge and ordered some, and staring at a fistful of plants you don't know what to do with? Been there. Fortunately, most aquatic plants can be broken down into four categories of where to place them: foreground, midground, background, and floating plants. Some plants overlap into more than one category depending on how you want to grow and trim them, but generally, you can gauge where to put something based on how a species falls into these. If you ever hear these terms thrown around...

In light of the history and traditions that come with the holiday season, welcome to the first part of our Aquarium History Series!  Folks from all backgrounds have been enthralled with fish for centuries. Here's a snapshot of the first fish tank people and the journey that got all of us aquarium addicts where we are now. First Fishkeepers These guys had very different fishkeeping goals than we do (I assume - maybe you're into cichlid fish sandwiches; I dont know). While we agonize over whether we actually want duckweed or where to put the infamous Spongebob pineapple decoration, most...