About AquaFrenzy

AquaFrenzy started with one fish in a 10-gallon tank. I was about 8 years old, living in Mexico City in the early 2000s, and only freshwater fish were available there, so I made do with what I had.

I had no good filtration and I didn’t know what cycling or ammonia were. When that fish died I was sad, but I was also excited to find out what I had done wrong. That curiosity never went away. It’s been more than 18 years, I’ve had aquariums the whole time, and I have never stopped learning.

Meet the team

John Tidball

Huntsville, Alabama

We have kept aquariums for more than 18 years and breed many of the invertebrates and corals we sell. Every shrimp, crab, snail and coral frag we sell gets the same care as the animals in our own tanks.

The goal: a tank that looks after itself

Since the beginning I’ve wanted an aquarium that doesn’t need water changes and doesn’t need much maintenance. I’m close, but I’m not there yet.

To get closer I’m building my own control system: custom microcontrollers paired with a Raspberry Pi, with the wiring and soldering done by hand and tied into pumps and other equipment. It lets me check water parameters remotely, turn water flows on and off, and watch the tank on a camera to make sure everything is going well.

Where the animals live

Everything is kept at home. Our main saltwater display is a 150-gallon tank with an 80-gallon sump. Alongside it is the coral frag tank, another 80-gallon with a sump of its own. On top of that there are a lot of breeding aquariums, from 10 to 40 gallons depending on what is being bred.

The freshwater side starts with an 80-gallon planted tank as the main display, plus more tanks that are mostly for breeding.

The setups are custom built. The tanks themselves and some of the pumps and equipment were bought, but the stands, the PVC plumbing and the electrical work were all built by hand.

Quarantine comes first

You learn early that everything new needs to be quarantined for at least 30 days. Everything that comes in goes through it, including rescues from pet stores.

Quarantine isn’t just a waiting room. New arrivals get a lot of care, dark places to hide, and not much around them to get infected. If they’re still doing well after that, they move into the main tank, and most recover just fine.

It matters for more than the fish. Things like bristle worms and aiptasia can hitch a ride on almost anything, including the water from the bag, and quarantine helps keep them out of the main tank. I’m happy to quarantine animals for other hobbyists too.

How long we hold animals

There is no single answer, because it depends on the animal. Some of what we sell has been bred and propagated here for years, so it is well settled and used to tank life. Other things, like peppermint shrimp, go quickly and don’t need to spend long in a tank before they’re ready to go.

If an animal is live-bred, we’ll say so in its description. If we’re running low on something we haven’t been breeding, we’ll tell you and you can decide from there.

What makes us different

This shop exists because the community asked for it. It began as a side gig, going to people’s homes to help clean their tanks. I never did it for the money, but people paid anyway, and eventually everyone told me to open a shop. It’s also a way to get back something we lost somewhere around COVID: talking with other hobbyists and trading tips.

What you read online is secondary. It’s always somebody’s opinion, so I check what I find against what I have done myself. Everyone’s tank is different, and I’ve tried a lot of different things over the years, usually while trying to save money. I don’t only go by the book. The book is fine, but it isn’t much fun.

Before you order

Planning a tank? The species guide has plain-English care guides for fish, corals and inverts, and our shipping page explains how orders are packed and sent. Near Huntsville or Madison? You can pick up your order instead.

Browse the tanks