🌿 Aquashella Los Angeles 2025 — Nature, Design & Inspiration with Hakkai

by Roger Ma October 30, 2025

Aquashella Los Angeles 2025 was an unforgettable weekend celebrating the beauty of aquatic art.
From planted tanks and shrimp colonies to immersive live scaping demos, Hakkai joined forces with Pet Zone SD to share a little piece of San Diego’s aquascape culture with the SoCal community.

Thousands of aquarists, artists, and enthusiasts filled the Pomona Fairplex for two vibrant days dedicated to the craft of aquascaping — and we were honored to be part of it.

🌾 Showcasing Nature-Inspired Aquascapes

Our booth centered around what we love most — creating miniature ecosystems that tell a story.
Visitors experienced a mix of traditional nature-style layouts and modern shallow setups featuring:

Lush aquatic plant bundles designed for both high- and low-tech environments
Pond-inspired scapes blending submerged and emersed growth
Textured hardscape compositions highlighting Seiryu stone and driftwood form
Displays of nano fish and shrimp species that bring balance and motion to planted tanks

The goal wasn’t just to showcase plants — it was to inspire. To help aquarists see how natural design and flow can transform even the smallest glass box into living art.

💧 Live Aquascaping Demos: Pond Style & Walstad Nature

Our two live aquascape builds drew constant crowds and sparked countless questions about technique, balance, and design philosophy.

Saturday: We built a Pond-Style Aquascape, demonstrating how open-top, shallow tanks can recreate the tranquility of garden ponds — ideal for emersed plants and floaters.
Sunday: We explored a Walstad Nature-Style setup, using soil and plant mass to build a thriving, self-sustaining ecosystem without the need for CO₂ or complex filtration.

Both tanks embodied the essence of Hakkai’s approach — minimal equipment, maximum connection to nature.

📸 The Community That Keeps Growing

Aquashella always reminds us that aquascaping isn’t just a hobby — it’s a community.
We met incredible aquascapers, plant growers, and creative minds from all across the country, each with their own interpretation of what “nature in glass” can mean.

For us, these conversations — about plant balance, hardscape texture, and creative expression — are what truly keep the art form evolving.

If you captured our builds or stopped by to chat, tag @hakkaisd and share your perspective. We love seeing how our work inspires yours.

🌿 Back Home at Hakkai

We’ve brought that Aquashella energy home. Expect to see new workshop ideas, aquascape demos, and design collaborations inspired by what we experienced in LA.

If you’re in San Diego, visit our creative studio at Hakkai inside Pet Zone SD (Convoy District) — where every tank is an evolving canvas.

For updates, event announcements, and aquascaping inspiration, follow us on Instagram at @hakkaisd and explore more builds at Hakkai.com.

🌱 Until Next Time

Thank you to everyone who joined us at Aquashella Los Angeles 2025 — for the conversations, the shared passion, and the love of all things planted.
Events like these continue to connect artists, hobbyists, and dreamers — all driven by the same goal: to bring nature closer to home.

See you at the next one. 🌿

— Team Hakkai