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So we're coming up on a year since we've actively marketed our aquatic botanicals to the aquatic community, and we're starting to get good information on experiences from our long-term users. Every day, it seems like we're seeing pics of cool new tanks and ideas that our fellow "tinters" are...

It hit me one day: I kind of favor small, grey-brown fishes. Why do I like these small , grey fishes? Why do I covet fishes that most people find rather uninteresting? I mean, lately, I'm really obsessed with Elachocharax pulcher, which is really kind of a brown and grey "cammo" colored fish...

Do you tend to try lots of different things in your hobby adventures? In other words, you might be a cichlid girl at heart, but you can't resist the urge to try a cool pair of Bettas. Or, maybe you're a hardcore Rainbowfish lover, but you have this desire to play with breeding Loaches. You...

Do you have one of those "perfect ides" for a tank floating around in your head? Seems like I'm always coming up with "perfect ideas" for crazy displays- you know, like biotopes, specialized systems for particular fishes...but I never seem to get to all of them. I don't think I'm at all...

If you've ever kept killies- and a lot of you have- you're bound to realize that you've probably seen and maintained far more killifish from Africa than you ever have from South America. I found this a bit interesting, myself, because although Africa offers tons of cool killie species, South...

Obviously, you know I'm a bit partial to the environmental niches, species, and diversity of the Amazon region. The number of cool aquarium species found in this region alone could keep the most ardent fish geek busy for several lifetimes, and the remarkable diversity of biotopes found in the...

I remember growing up (and not all that long ago, as well, actually), there were things that would happen in my aquariums- or things I'd find in them- would kind of freak me out...or at the very least, "throw me off my game" a bit, so to speak. Okay- wait a minute. These things can still freak...

Super true! I would love to see some cool pics of a Parasphromenus in blackwater!

We've talked a lot about what exactly "blackwater" is, and many of you probably have better-than-average working knowledge of the stuff by now, right? We've talked about many of the chemical parameters, husbandry requirements, potential downsides, challenges, and precautions for maintaining...

If you've been in the aquarium game long enough, you start thinking about stuff like just "why things happen the way they do" in our aquariums. And sometimes, there seem to be no answers...at least on the surface. We saw this a lot in the reef aquarium world: An aquarist would send months and...

As more and more people get into the idea of utilizing botanicals materials, like leaves, seed pods, etc. in their aquariums, we're seeing more and more creative applications. We're also seeing a lot of people go from tentatively adding a few things to their tanks, to starting them out with...

At Tannin, a healthy obsession with this vibe of wood, leaves, and botanicals has powered what we only half-jokingly refer to as the "New Botanical" movement in aquarium keeping. "New", because, even though materials like these have been used by aquarists for decades, it was more for a...

Have you ever had that tank where the plants kind of grew out of control a bit, covering a lot of space in a "jungle like" canopy of green? You hear that term "jungle" tossed around in fish circles quite a bit to describe a tank that, for whatever reason, got "out of control", with rampant plant...

I love water exchange days. There is something...I dunno- visceral about doing something that you know is beneficial for your animals. It's not only a "feel good thing", it helps foster a sense of connection between man and nature. Or at the very least, it makes your tanks sparkle! I...

With this obsession we have for blackwater, botanical-influenced aquariums burning in us for years, and with (apparently) an equally obsessive interest in many of you, the topic of long-term maintenance of these types of aquariums comes up more frequently. No longer a "side show" sort of...

Awesome points, Matt. And I think it is exciting to see some of those oddities slip through into the market now more than ever. It's that "hmm, what's that?" in the "any fish in this tank $3.00" tank at my LFS that keeps me looking!

As a lifelong hobbyist, I've spent a lot of time reading about, researching, observing, and collecting tropical fishes- just like most of you. And, in all of those years of researching, I couldn't help but wonder about some of "those" fishes- you know, the ones that are found in scientific...

You are probably either fed up with our obsession about leaf litter biotopes, or equally as geeked-out as we are about 'em, right? Yeah, kinda figured! We make it a point to scour scientific papers and scholarly research articles for topics relevant to our obsession. The other day, I...

I totally understand your orientation and concern here. And I'm sorry if you interpreted this as an admonition to run things in a clinical fashion, or took it in an insulting manner, inciting necessary paranoia. That was absolutely not the point. And, no, I have not conducted any rigorous...

Earlier this week, a member of our community on Facebook asked a great question. In an entirely non-confrontational way, he wanted to know what we felt makes Tannin's botanicals "superior" to those offered by other vendors, or collected by the hobbyist his/herself. A really great question...