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TLDR: Wood buy from Belinda again

I was on the hunt for a very large piece of driftwood for my 120p. I knew I wanted something that would have branches that stuck out of the water. Everything local to me, including Aquarium Co-Op, was on the smaller side (the piece in my 75p was about the biggest they had). I didn't want to combine pieces and was really looking for a singular piece of large driftwood. I had seen some local posts on marketplace with larger pieces, but nothing really caught my attention.

@JayP had made a post about Belinda's Driftwood on Facebook and I started casually browsing her posts until I saw a piece that really spoke to me.

Belinda responded to my DMs surprisingly quick, including some back and forth to figure out if it would fit in the tank. She estimated shipping would be $100 and asked if she should remove the longer branches to save on shipping, estimating it would save roughly $30, which I declined. I started messaging her on a Wednesday morning and had tracking Friday afternoon. All in, $160 for the wood + $113* for shipping = $273. For comparison, I spent $40 on the wood for my 75p, which is a fraction of the size. While $113 for shipping seems high, it seemed reasonable to me given the size (oversized shipping) and recent USPS temporary increases due to oil prices. Not to mention, Belinda didn't charge anything for packaging, which there was no shortage of. USPS took about 2 weeks to get the wood to me, but thanks to the packaging, it arrived undamaged!
*This was shipped with retail pricing and Belinda is now using PirateShip (based on FB posts), so I'd expect shipping costs to be lower given the commercial pricing via PirateShip.

Without further ado, this thread is worthless without pics

Here's the initial screenshot she sent me since I had messaged before the piece was posted. She essentially does a photo dump of pieces that she's posting soon and I messaged her that I was interested in one.



As delivered by USPS. This thing was packaged like a tank!


Humans for scale


Unwrapping the packaging

Each individual branch was padded with support and had cardboard on it. The carboard in the top right corner of this picture was shockingly thick.

45 minutes later, I had it free


In the tank (It's almost a perfect fit as is!)


Soaking (now).

I’m often out and about working in the field and stumble upon breathtaking examples of often overlooked and under appreciated slices of nature that Florida has to offer.

My neck of the woods is filled with marsh/wetlands ripe with both native and invasive wildlife of all flavors; I want to start a thread where I can document and share.

I’ll update this thread whenever I capture something noteworthy. Much of what catches my eye is aquatic flora, but I try and document anything captivating. I hope you find this as beautiful and fascinating as I do.

Tank: Waterbox 20 AIO
Return pump: AI Axis 40
Lighting: (2) AI Blade Fresh 12”
Dosing pump: Ecotech Marine
CO2 injected

The purpose of this tank is to maintain a healthy planted tank for at least 1 year. There is a stipulation that I must be able to do this using my tap water for water changes.

I've just spotted these latest Hygger luminaire lights.

All the bumf seems to claim that they only have RGB LEDs (all 5054 type). Very reasonable prices. Is this a complete bargain for a genuine RGB light ? Or is there a catch ?? THis is way off my areas of expertise.

Does anyone know how a chiller should be connected? Do I need to buy a separate external pump, or can it be connected directly to a canister filter?

Hey folks, this marks the first time I've had more than one journal at a time, but I'm beginning work on a new 120x60 low-iron, rimless aquascape. I've been inspired by Hendy8888 and @Naturescapes_Rocco to try to make a really high quality stand. I have tried making a stand before, but it was a 2x4 stand with reclaimed wood facing, and it ended up looking pretty amateur. I'm trying to go high-end on this one in part because I want to be able to build cabinets for various projects around the house, and my wife will be less upset if I botch a fish tank stand than if I botch a new kitchen build.

I love seeing these stand builds, but they've always seemed somewhat under-documented to me. So this is starting from the very beginning - the design.

Under the influence of Rocco I did some 3d modeling for the tank. The pictures are a front view, one without the top sheet one, and one without the doors on. I used Shapr3d, which is free for one project. Let me know what you think of the design, and if there is anything I could work on!

THE official "what did you do to your tank(s) today" thread!​

Let's keep it real by sharing our daily routine. Post daily if you want. It's nice to check in with fellow aquatic gardeners.

I’m looking for a dual-stage CO₂ regulator compatible with M10x1 disposable CO₂ cylinders. Does anyone know a model that can deliver more than 2 bar of working pressure, preferably 3 bar or higher?

Started a new tank with the idea of show casing Lagenandra meeboldii which I have not showcased before. Wanted to feature Hygrophila lower Hlaingbwe, but I removed it later as I think it would be too large for this tank.

New substrate, new filter, squeezed filter mulm from the other matured tank, then ran the tank one week day before planting. 100% water change after planting, then 100% water change every other day since then. Dosing 1ml APT3 after water change day, and remineralizing to 5dGH using APT Sky. Trying out the low water column dosing approach for the initial period.

Filter: Oase 250
Lights: Week aqua a430 80%
Substrate: APT Feast

Was going to Journal about startup issues, however, it seems like the tank has already stabilized, skipping diatoms and green dust phase.

Freshly planted for a couple of days:
13/2/2026


Replanted the tops for Myriophyllum roraima, Cut and replanted Rotala blood red to begin building up the bush form. Trimmed old leaves
Foreground seems a bit blocky for now, so I think I'lll move stuff round again. Probably when the BV grows out some more.
Pic on 23/2/2026

Readings at this stage:
Potassium: 2.3ppm
Ammonia: 0.1ppm

reduce water changes to 2 times a week.

Several members of this forum have greatly contributed to testing the concept of Horizontal CO2 Reactor , and I am so happy that collectively we have succeeded to push some true innovation. @Unexpected successfully pioneered the first horizontal reactor on his bigger tank, was kind enough to call it ‘Yugang reactor’ and inspired several followers with that. Also to mention @RickyV who took CO2 injection to a new level with a 1000-gallon system, achieving a 1.0 pH drop in just 38 minutes. Thank you to all who have contributed, and I believe hobbyist will find most answers in the Horizontal CO2 Reactor thread on this forum and hopefully feel that CO2 is easier than it used to be with bubble reactors.

My journey started about 2 years ago, when I was doing some measurements and calculations on my bubble reactor and got to the idea of the CO2 Spray Bar. I built probably 10 versions / prototypes of CO2 Spray Bar, spent many days measuring pH profiles, so that I could share my insights with the community on UKAPS. The horizontal reactor is based on the physics principles of the CO2 Spray Bar, and test results are applicable to both. I was at the time so happy with my CO2 Spray Bar that I gave no priority to building the horizontal reactor and thanks again to @Unexpected for his initiative and courage. I am currently also using the horizontal reactor, but my love and in certain situations preference for CO2 Spray Bar remains.

I discovered this morning that both threads on CO2 Spray Bar and Horizontal CO2 reactor have now been removed by the UKAPS admins. This may have happened in the past few weeks, not sure as I am not a regular UKAPS visitor anymore. These threads represent probably several hundred hours work, aiming to be a lasting and valuable contribution to the hobby, lots of measurement data, comparisons and calculations, and many pages of posts from fellow hobbyists. Even posts in several journals featuring the CO2 Spray Bar or Horizontal Reactor have been deleted or edited by admins. Thumbs up to forum rules, but very few will disagree that these all stand or fall with forum governance and integrity to individual members as well as the community.

While having the Horizontal CO2 Reactor now well documented on this forum, I believe it is a loss for the hobby if we would lose the insights on CO2 Spray Bar. It offers the same performance as the Horizontal CO2 Reactor, can be made for perhaps 5-10 USD and one hour DIY work. When I have more time I may create a new thread on this forum, with similar detail as what was deleted in UKAPS, with various prototypes and measurements. For now I hope it is useful if I just post a quick summary.

The first prototype CO2 Spray Bar, as I was testing late 2021 / early 2022.









The CO2 Spray Bar in the front of the tank, was in my tank barely visible. In my 200 liter tank I used a transparent half pipe, and achieved 1.5 pH drop with very good stability. It is from the experiments with the Spray Bar that I took the 17.7 ratio for the calculation of Horizontal Reactor dimension.

Some forum members pushed back on the idea having anything in the front, so I started experimenting with CO2 Spray Bar in the back of the tank.





I hope the above pictures help to understand the CO2 Spray Bar, and perhaps inspire fellow hobbyists to try it in their tanks. Having a simple half-pipe in a tank is easier than building an inline horizontal CO2 reactor, and may be especially attractive for small tanks.

For any further questions or help, please post below or send me an PM. I may start a more detailed thread when I have a bit more time and/or see there is interest from fellow hobbyists.

Thank you for reading, and thank you to ScapeCrunch for giving us a good home for our hobby.