Mark Valderrama

Mark is the founder of Aquarium Store Depot. He started in the aquarium hobby at the age of 11 and along the way worked at local fish stores. He has kept freshwater tanks, ponds, and reef tanks for over 25 years. His site was created to share his knowledge and unique teaching style on a larger scale. He has worked on making aquarium and pond keeping approachable. Mark has been featured in two books about aquarium keeping - both best sellers on Amazon. Each year, he continues to help his readers and clients with knowledge, professional builds, and troubleshooting. He maintains the content of this site with a strong Editorial Process and provides a practical and real-life review process on all products reviewed and tested.
Honest Blogging about Aquarium Keeping.
Best Aquarium Plant Fertilizer

The 8 Best Aquarium Plant Fertilizers Of 2024 [Tested And Reviewed]

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Fertilizers for aquarium plants can get overly complex with all the products out there and lot of information about all the plant requirements. My hope today is to simplify and educate then provide several products that will help you along the way. 

Aquarium fertilizers play an important part in aquarium plant health. It’s all about balance your marco and micro levels and find the right mix of supplementation based on your tank size and bioload. Let’s start with explanations first then recommendation fertilizers.

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Best Substrate For Planted Tank

The 7 Best Substrate for Planted Tanks For 2024 [Tested And Reviewed]

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As we mentioned in our Best Low Light Aquarium Plants article. There are some plants that require rich substrates to thrive and others that are column feeders. Today’s post we are going to concentrate on selecting the best substrate for your planted tank. There are many factors that go into selecting the best substrate and there are a ton of questions aquarists want answered before they they start planting. I will go through as much as I can in this post to provide you the best information possible and then suggest several great substrates that should work for your planted aquarium. 

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Best Low Light Aquarium Plants

The 21+ Best Low Light Aquarium Plants – [Reviewed and Tested]

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Many of us who want a planted tank want to have an easy to maintain tank that that doesn’t really take a ton of effort to keep up. Today’s post is all about that. The list we will make today will help you find plants that are easy to maintain and grow fast to provide a great aquascape for your planted tank. These plants are low light aquarium plants, which means they will not require sizable investments in powerful lights to keep. Many of them will thrive without CO2 supplementation, which will also save you money in the long-run. 

All these plants are readily available as well. They are relevantly cheap and easy to find available. With that, let’s go ahead and get started!

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Best Solar Powered Pond Pump

Best Solar Powered Pond Pump – 2024 (Reviewed & Compared) 🏅

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A common question I get asked when it comes to pond keeping is can you keep a pond with a solar powered pond pump. The concept of having a completely green solution sounds very appealing for many people, but the are several factors you will need to consider before choosing a solar powered pump. Let’s first start out with the main benefits of owning one.

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Best Koi Pond Kits

The 7 Best Koi Pond Kits Of 2024 [Tested & Reviewed]

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In this post, I’m going to go over everything today then I’m going to simplify everything so you can build a reasonable Koi pond with the best koi pond kits available on the market. Sure, you can spend several thousand with a professional and have a wonderful cement based bottom drain Koi pond, but I imagine if you are here that isn’t your idea of how much you want to spend for a Koi pond. I’ll go through the concepts of why so many professionals focus on big installs and then get you into the contractor’s mindset so you can build a wonderful Koi pond for less and be satisfied with what you create. Let’s first talk about what makes an ideal Koi pond.

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The Ultimate DIY Garden Pond Guide – 4 Types and how to build, & maintain

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Ponds or waterscapes add a lot of serenity and visual appeal to your landscaping. Just stepping out of home to view your own backyard paradise is a great way to reduce stress, relax, and enjoy your home. The pleasant sound of water and the added wildlife that comes with the pond turns your home into an oasis, adds home value, and visual appeal for you and your guest.

Ponds and waterscapes can be a really intimating to first to think about. Most of us think of massive Koi Ponds we see at restaurants and garden magazines. While they are great inspirational works of water art, they are unrealistic for most of us. There is also the discussion of costs and maintenance. You will find out in this article that there are a variety of garden ponds and some of them can be done for low costs and some of them are relatively maintenance free. So let’s talk about it.

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Best Aquarium Chiller Reviews

The 5 Best Aquarium Chillers of 2024 [Tested & Reviewed]

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Summer of 69 could be the best days of Bryan Adam’s life but not for general people like us. Summer, in general, is a hard time to pass if you live in South-Asian countries like India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. And if you think of those fish, aquatic plant and coral living in high-temperature water the whole day, you will realize that summer is actually a nightmare with a poker face.

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Best Reef Salt

The 7 Best Reef Salt Mixes of 2024 – Reviewed And Tested

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Discussing the best reef salt mixes is always a passionate discussion among reefers and saltwater aquarists. Some people swear by one brand of salt mix while others will go out of their way to talk about why this salt mix brand is way better than others. The purpose of this post today is to just lay out the facts and finding what salt mix will work for you and your budget. I want to get around all the marketing fluff and just tell you what works for your tank and needs. So let’s get started.

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Best Aquarium UV Sterilizer

The Best Aquarium UV Sterilizer (2024 Reviews) – Find What Works And What Is Affordable

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The UV Sterilizer is one of the most praised and most critiqued piece of equipment in both freshwater and saltwater aquariums. It’s easy to see what because the quality of the sterilizer differs greatly and many people do not know the difference. It’s easy to just purchase a cheap UV sterilizer and expect it to work wonders for disease and algae management. I was a little hesitant to write this article at first , but there is a lot of misinformation out there with these products so I feel it’s best to write a comprehensive article educating people on how they work so you have reasonable expectations of what you will get out of them.

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Bubble Tip Anemone Care Guide (Have Success with BTAs)

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Many of us got interested in saltwater fish by seeing clownfish and anemones. It is a very common desire to eventually want to pair your clown with an anemone. While a captive raised clownfish is a easy to care for fish, an anemone is considered a more difficult to keep invertebrate. They require stability, a high amount of light, and good flow. I’m writing this guide because I get asked a lot from clients how they can keep an anemone. I’m going to focus today on the easiest to keep anemone that a clownfish will host – the bubble tip anemone.

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