Everything we know about keeping freshwater fish and building planted tanks, written by people who do it every day across two San Diego stores. Start wherever your problem is.
Starting a planted tank
- Beginner's Guide to Setting Up Your First Planted Aquarium — start here if this is your first one.
- How to Set Up an Aquascape: A Step-by-Step Guide — the build sequence, start to finish.
- The Ultimate Dirted Tank Guide — the soil-substrate method, done properly.
Plants
- Aquarium Plants 101: The Pet Zone SD Guide — our most complete plant guide: choosing, lighting, planting, troubleshooting.
- Aquarium Plants 101 Series — the video series.
- Shop aquatic plants — tissue culture, potted and bunched, restocked most weeks.
- Fertilizers and dosing — what plants run out of, and how to read the symptoms.
- Lighting — intensity, spectrum and photoperiod.
- CO2 — whether you need it, and how to dial it in safely.
Hardscape and technique
- Hardscape 101: Aquascaping Rocks — the stone we carry and how each behaves in water.
- Aquascaping supplies — why stone choice changes your water chemistry, and soil versus sand.
- Drop-In & Aquascape — come scape one with us.
- Hakkai Aquascape Gallery — finished builds, layout ideas and hands-on workshops at our Convoy store.
Bringing fish home
- How to Acclimate Tropical Fish to Your Aquarium
- Drip Acclimating New Fish — the slower method, and when it matters.
- Acclimation Upon Arrival — for shipped livestock.
- Live Arrival Guarantee and shipping schedule.
- Where to Buy Live Freshwater Fish Online — what to look for in a shipper.
Species care
- Freshwater shrimp — Neocaridina versus Caridina, and why shrimp die in week two.
- Bettas — tank size, fin type, and telling fin rot from fin biting. More at Betta Believe.
- Flowerhorn cichlids — strains, kok development, housing. More at Flowerhorn.Co.
- Arowana — tank size, drop eye, feeding. More at Arowana.Co.
- Puffer Central — freshwater pufferfish care.
Come ask us
Nothing here replaces putting the question to someone who has kept the fish. Both stores will test your water for free, and we would rather talk through a setup before you buy than troubleshoot it after. Find us at Convoy or Mid-City.