Last Tuesday, around midnight, a message pinged on my phone. It was from a client I’d helped set up a massive 200-gallon planted discus tank the year before—a dentist with more money than free time who’d wanted an impressive aquascape but lacked the hours to maintain it properly. (I’d been back to his house four times since the initial setup, each visit increasingly resembling aquatic resuscitation rather than routine maintenance.) “I’m downsizing,” his message read.…

The first time I tried to incorporate mangrove roots into an aquascape, I flooded my apartment. Not a little “oops, grab a towel” spill, but a legitimate, call-the-downstairs-neighbor-to-apologize kind of flood. It happened because I’d failed to properly secure a massive piece of root system that decided—approximately three hours after I’d left for dinner—to shift position, knocking the glass lid into the water and displacing about fifteen gallons onto my hardwood floors. My downstairs neighbor…

It is mesmerizing how each aquascape is unique and intricately crafted. An aquascape tells the story of an entire ecosystem while simultaneously being a world unto itself, composed of nothing but water, plants and rocks. For years, I attempted to create tanks that contained all the elements, but they were somehow lacking the depth of character which aquascapes capture so effortlessly. I quickly realised that I had overlooked the fundamental principles of design. My collection…

My first encounter with a rimless tank was at an international aquascaping competition in Singapore. After a twenty-hour flight, jet legged me, and dealing with the scrutiny of customs (bragging about a TSA’s playground plant scissors is a risky proposition), the icing on the cake was the astonishing stone-cut tank with pristine water perfectly encompassing nature’s beauty. The tank’s pristine water surface, with no hindrances on view induced by plastic edges or borders, touched my…

Knowing how to multiply a single plant into multiple plants makes designing an underwater forest easier. After aquascaping for years, going through multiple failures, I have recently come to view propagation, albeit reluctantly, as a form of moving meditation. Being able to watch small tree cuttings grow into little forests able to enhance the charm of an aquarium is something simply magical. Prior to this I had attempted different ways of self sustaining plant propagation,…