Build logs, measurements, and the tanks we tore down. We publish the failures because they are more useful than the wins.
Day one the slope was too aggressive and the front glass had no breathing room. By day nine there were diatoms on every stone. Here is the full log — substrate depths, PAR readings at three heights, the dosing changes on day 12 and day 26, and the trim that finally tipped it toward stable.
Ohko stone is full of fine clay that will haze your water column for a week. A four-day soak with a stiff brush on days one and three removes almost all of it. We weighed the sediment that came off eight kilos of stone to see how much difference the brushing actually makes.
We logged bubble counts hourly across four regulators for thirty days in a room that swings twelve degrees. Two held. One drifted 18% by late afternoon. The cheapest unit changed output every time the compressor in the next room cycled.
Everyone says it needs injection. It does not; it needs patience and light discipline. Eleven weeks of photos from a low-tech 10 gallon, plus the two mistakes that cost us a month.
Temperature shock, ammonia in the bag, and a courier that let the box sit on a tarmac. Two of those are ours to solve. Here is how we changed our packing after a bad July.
Water change, glass, filter intake, dosing, trim check, and a two-minute look at the drop checker. Do it Sunday morning and the tank never becomes a project.
Green dust algae won. We document the whole thing — what we did wrong with the photoperiod, why the flow pattern starved the back corner, and what we would change.
Texture, fracture lines, and the flat face nobody thinks about until they try to bury it. Photos of forty pieces sorted into keep, maybe, and gravel.
Archive of 112 entries · 2014–2026