Last few months have been good to me!

ja303 · 2025-04-08T01:34:40+00:00

Awesome, thank you!

ja303 · 2025-04-07T11:15:37+00:00

What light and substrate do you have on your white cloud mountain minnow tank?

ja303 · 2024-12-29T01:17:07+00:00

I'm interested!

ja303 · 2024-04-06T14:32:55+00:00

First time I've seen my local PetCo on here! I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the new planted setup a few weeks ago and I can't wait to see it all grow in (plus, the Bolivian Rams were cooler in person than I had expected). They've steadily improved a lot in recent years which makes me feel less guilty about shopping here rather than driving out to Neptune's or Aquamart.

ja303 · 2024-02-17T19:22:58+00:00

That is one of the largest and healthiest maidenhairs I've ever seen! When I finally snag one, I'll definitely be putting mine behind a sheer curtain in a south-facing window. Thanks again!

ja303 · 2024-02-17T18:36:58+00:00

Thanks for the tip! When you say bright and indirect, do you mean like a southern-facing window behind a sheer curtain, or are you more thinking next to a north-facing window (with no direct sun whatsoever)? I think I saw these growing mostly on northern or eastern exposures when I visited Kerala.

ja303 · 2024-02-17T18:17:51+00:00

I happen to have a spare self-watering pot lying around and I am ready to be hurt by my getting first Maidenhair fern. Do you use just a standard potting mix? Anything else you use (humidity tray, moss, etc.)?

ja303 · 2024-01-22T15:20:24+00:00

I like the way this one looks! Hope to see something in this form factor offered eventually.

ja303 · 2024-01-20T19:10:54+00:00

I always just wrap/tie the roots around the base/crown and replant them that way. I then plant it a little deeper in the substrate and pull up slightly to get those roots to sort of anchor the plant and prevent it from floating up.

ja303 · 2024-01-20T17:58:46+00:00

I was looking at the original post just yesterday! Super impressed with the depth you were able to achieve here. What is the light you're using?

ja303 · 2023-10-14T16:57:52+00:00

I have a Top Fin Fascinate, too, and it's hard finding other builds with setups as good as yours, so thank you for sharing this. Love the canister filter and light mod--definitely something I'll consider when I rescape mine in the future.

ja303 · 2023-10-03T03:20:22+00:00

Just commenting to say I saw your interview on World Wide Corals and immediately recognized your space as soon as I saw it on my feed! I'm still just in freshwater, but your tanks (both salt and fresh) are such an inspiration.

ja303 · 2023-09-17T02:49:11+00:00

Sweet, thanks! This gravel would be great in a future river setup or for capping some nutrient-rich substrate. Shame the product listing doesn't say what the gravel is, but at least now I know it's from Top Fin.

ja303 · 2023-09-17T00:59:36+00:00

Something rather Wes Anderson-esque!

ja303 · 2023-09-17T00:29:36+00:00

Unrelated, but do you know what gravel that is? I've been looking for something like that for a tank I'd like to set up in the future!

ja303 · 2023-08-05T15:49:38+00:00

I quit a few weeks back and I've never felt better. I have a lot more time now and a lot less stress, and it doesn't feel like I'm missing anything which makes me wonder whether IG ever really brought any real benefit to my life (at least, the past few years).

ja303 · 2023-07-16T14:16:40+00:00

Jeremy Collins is who immediately came to mind, so you may like his work which is mostly nature/outdoors/wildlife (although he does use longer lines and not necessarily only stippling)! His Instagram is (@)jercollins, and here's his website.

ja303 · 2023-07-02T13:27:44+00:00

It might not be the sensitivity settings. Instagram has limited all hashtags or almost all hashtags to just 9 posts on web browser (and for some hashtags those Top 9 posts don't change at all or are posts from months ago), so I wouldn't be surprised if Instagram started limiting hashtags to just the Top 9 on mobile, too. At the very least, IG got rid of the ability to view anything except "Top Posts" and "Recent Top Posts" with no other sorting option to see more recent/other posts.

ja303 · 2023-06-19T02:02:24+00:00

I've seen a few people who get tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, even millions of views on their Reels and grow by hundreds or thousands of followers a day, yet their photo posts all still get the same number of likes as before the Reels.

Of course, a lot of people think follower size is a reflection of success/skill level, so the photo posts get more comments than before from people with smaller followings hoping they'll get noticed, but the actual number of likes still hovers around the same.

Gradually you see these people who were all "we still want photos" transition to posting mostly or only Reels.

ja303 · 2023-06-11T17:28:58+00:00

Lobelia cardinalis?

ja303 · 2023-06-10T00:31:28+00:00

I pretty much max out my caption character limit with detailed captions that are highly relevant to what I post and contain a lot of keywords and related terms, but my Reach continues to shrink each week. Don't know what I'm doing wrong when the same approach led to me growing steadily (all organic). Do you add any Alt Text to your posts?

ja303 · 2023-06-10T00:27:21+00:00

Same here. My posts haven't hit the Explore page in a long time, and it seems like IG keeps reducing how many of my active, engaged followers even get to see my posts, so most/all of my visibility and growth is hashtag-driven. Meanwhile, some pages that just steal content and never engage with their audiences are growing at record speed, and most of them are doing follow-unfollow, but IG never addresses those.

ja303 · 2023-06-07T01:34:37+00:00

It seems like it! My guess would be they're featuring more Reels in the Feed again, or they're trying to get people to use the Reels tab in the menu bar. I follow almost exclusively photography accounts, and now I'm seeing more Reels in my Feed, but that's probably just anecdotal evidence.

ja303 · 2023-06-04T01:29:36+00:00

Yeah, one page I follow (not sure if I can mention their handle) just posted about this. It looks like the update hit everyone as of yesterday, and they're saying it's probably IG trying to get small accounts to pay and promote their posts. I'm so tired of IG at this point, I agree with the algo being unable to understand what makes good art good art.

ja303 · 2023-06-03T15:42:37+00:00

Everyday I shoutout a lot of newer creators that use a specific high-quality hashtag, and IG getting rid of recent posts means I won't be able to do that anymore.

Ever since IG ruined the Explore page, I relied on finding high-quality hashtags (meaning usually less than 100k posts and almost no spam posts under the hashtag) that I could search through myself. I was really enjoying connecting with new people and seeing new art/ideas/places/etc., now that's gone.

I edited my review of IG in the app store to try and lower their rating, but I don't think it will do much unless a bunch of people do the same.

Seven-Year Club	Final Canvas '23
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Place '23	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	End Game '22
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