My name is Eli Gentle. I have been keeping freshwater fish aquariums since I was ten years old in the late 1990s. My first aquarium was a family 10-gallon tank on our kitchen counter in rural Namibia where my parents worked at the time. It had a beautiful cream-colored betta as the centerpiece, surrounded by a handful of various live bearers: guppies, mollies and swordtails.

Throughout high school, I maintained a 55-gallon cichlid tank in my bedroom, as well as the waiting room aquarium at a local doctor’s office. After an 18-year hiatus, I returned to the hobby in 2024 after a car accident left me with a broken collarbone and limited mobility for two months. My roommate and brother helped me restore a 20-gallon long tank, which had been left by a neighbor in the lobby of our building.

Since I only had the use of one arm following the accident, my roommate and brother did all the heavy lifting required to take it from an empty terrarium to a flourishing CO2-injected, planted community tank.

The process got both of them into the hobby. My brother wound up having a knack for breeding Neocaridina shrimp and my roommate - who already had a green thumb - skillfully combined terrestrial plants like orchids with planted nano tanks.

Helping others get into the hobby and discovering what they love has been as fulfilling as getting back into it myself. I look forward to helping you unlock your full potential as an aquarist by helping you design, build and maintain the underwater world of your dreams.