Kelvin Ratings and How Your Tank Looks
Colour temperature is the setting nobody adjusts and everybody blames, and it costs nothing to get right.
All Guides
Every guide on TankMend, newest first. Filter by topic, or search for the part that is giving you trouble.
Signs Your Aquarium Heater Is About to Fail
Heaters rarely die without warning, and the earliest warning is a swing that widens while the average temperature still looks fine.
How Often to Clean Aquarium Filter Media
Mechanical media needs attention every few weeks, biological media every few months, and neither should ever meet a running tap.
Finding a Leak in a Canister Filter
Water in the cabinet tells you almost nothing about where it came from, so the job is to make the filter show...
How to Silence a Noisy Air Pump
Most air pump noise comes from the cabinet rather than the pump, which is why replacing the pump so often changes nothing.
How to Set Your CO2 Bubble Count Safely
A three week ramp built around a measured pH drop, with the daily checks that catch trouble before fish start breathing at...
PAR Explained for Planted Tanks
The one intensity figure that predicts growth, where it has to be measured, and why hanging height beats every spec on the...
How to Calibrate a Heater That Reads Wrong
Before you move the dial, prove the error is real, measure it across a full cycle, then correct by the offset.
Sponge Filters: When They Beat Everything Else
For fry, shrimp, hospital and quarantine tanks a $10 sponge outperforms filters costing twenty times more, and the reason is flow velocity.
Equipment Humming: Diagnosing by Sound
A hum, a rattle, a grind and a whine each come from a different part, and telling them apart takes about three...
Air Pump Sizing by Tank Depth
Water depth, not tank volume, decides whether an air pump keeps bubbling, and the number that matters is rarely printed on the...
Drop Checker Colours and What They Mean
How the sealed air gap works, why the fluid must be 4 dKH, and why the colour is always slightly out of...
Weekly guide
Get the next one by email
One equipment guide a week. Sizing, setup, and the failure modes worth knowing before they happen.
No spam, no sponsored placements. Unsubscribe in one click.