To kick things off Hock presented a slide show of his various trips to Malaysia and Japan and Portugal and the planted tank and aquarium shops he found there:
L to R: Jerry, Samual, Khanh, Victor, Carl. Erik and Kristen – with Hock on the far right at the projector.
Then we toured Carl’s fish room…
This is his 75 gal with recent additions of 10+ Diamond Tetras which are stunning in this set up.
The tank has CO2 and a Chihiros LED light (quite bright). Carl does 60% water changes 1x/week. The substrate has a thin layer of Red Art Clay as the base with inert gravel and decorative sand on the top. He doses Seachem Flourish after each water change – just once per week. This is such a beautiful tank, and I am amazed at his plants success given his regime – very little fertilization and thin layers of mostly inert substrate! He’s doing something very right because it’s hard to argue the results.
Carl demonstrating how he spot doses Hydrogen Peroxide using a long syringe to kill off algae on plants and hardscape.a 40 gal breeder tank with the absolute happiest and healthy Cryptocorynes you’ll ever see!
Emperor Tetras ; denizens of the Happy Crypt Tank.
Carl is using Peat Granules in one of his tank’s HOB filter to lower the PH, but also to combat some troublesome algae which he hopes will be negatively affected by the more acidic water. Time will tell! Here’s his RO/Di water filtration system ( https://aquaticlife.com/collections/best-sellers/products/50-gpd-4-stage-ro-buddie-reverse-osmosis-deionization-system) . He uses a simple garden hose timer to set the duration of RO water being produced so as not to overfill his reservoir
One of his tiny nano tanks with Blue Dream Neocaridena Shrimp. That small Oase FiltoSmart 60 canister filter is for another tank
Carl’s latest invention in development – a handheld UltraViolet Irradiating Algae Killer that he plans to bring to market soon using a kickstarter campaign that has already raised $670,000. This is a game changer, get in on the ground floor now!
…JK. It’s a flashlight.
The famous, and always a crowd pleaser, FREE PLANTS SWAP!Hock brought Carl some BEAUTIFUL Endlers from his personal stable. These aren’t just any old Endler’s but the original strain (wish I knew the name and more of their history) that our esteemed member Andrew has carefully cultivated for the club. Just a nice Red Cherry shrimp chowing down some filamentous algae. Always cool. The shrimp not the algae.More auxiliary tanks – notice the LED Pendent hanging from the ceiling. Noting that it’s not a specialty item specifically made for planted tanks, Carl picked it up very very cheap and says it does a great job. He’s planning on getting a 2nd one soon for the right hand side Carl’s basement fish room in Princeton, NJ March 8, 2026. It. Is. so. Clean!
Thanks for the wonderful meeting report. Carl’s UV algae killer has great potential!