Dennison Seeto of Mary-Anne's Aquariums

13/05/2025

Personal Back Story Post 😊(Long post but worth the read... I hope! 😬)

Driving to drop our eldest Daughter to school. I noticed this sign! A Sign I hadn't seen for a long time. This sign held great significance in our Seeto Family in regards to our Fish History / Journey in Australia! The sign belongs to Cooper Plains Aquarium, owned by Rod and Shirley, and later on Tyrone (Or as Mum affectionately nicknamed him Mr T).

Damien (Dad) being of PNG Heritage, had always kept the beautiful fish (Rainbow etc) found in the local creeks since he was a small child. When He, Marianne (Mum) and the Seeto Daughters/Sisters immigrated to Australia in 1975. Damien always wanted to get back into fish, and they noticed this store down from the Big Apple Produce store. Mum said OK to a 2ft tank and stand, with some Guppies. When the guppies bred, Mum and Dad brought them back in to Rod and traded them for another small tank, and some Platies, unbeknownst to them this was the start of everything, soon with the combination of Marianne's determination, drive, and passion for knowledge... Damien's OCD, work ethic, and completionism amassed a decent collection of Aquariums, and had bred every fish in the store.

Rod was also kind enough to introduce us to other store owners, wholesalers and suppliers for equipment. This allowed us to balloon our set up to the dizzying size of 450 glass aquariums (over two fish rooms, and through out our house), and 60 3,000L+ grow out ponds housed in our 150ft x 30ft green house.

We have been lucky to be able to breed most of the fish that were available at the time (the only fish that eluded us were Frontosa, Tropheus, Plecostomus and Giant Gourami), and even at one point we had 6000 Angel fish ready to sell at any time. :-)

At this point it was why it was an easy choice (but still scary) to open our own store. Rod helped us with this also introducing us to most of the dry goods suppliers so we could kit out our store. Tyrone closed the store in the mid 2000s, but it's pretty cool the sign peaked its head out again recently!

I will always be grateful and thankful for this Store, and to Rod one of the kindest people I have met in the industry! ❤️

Dennison 😊

Another fun fact is in Chinese Heritage, a new born baby should go straight home and not visit anyone for 100 Days... My Mum made an exception and stopped by to show me off to Rod and Shirley on the way home from the hospital. 😊

26/04/2025

Check out what an awesome job Brendan and the team at Australian Aquarium Cleaning are doing at Heathwood Smiles.

We did this install a few years ago, and it's awesome to see its being looked after so well many years later!

24/04/2025

Just an update from the Office

Our newest employee has been keen to help Dad ( making it harder )in the workshop and Mum in the office. This has made it very hard to respond to emails and messages in a timely manner. Please accept my apologies as I ( Leila ) try and work through his separation anxiety around me going to the office while he is awake.

School holidays are also a very challenging time too, with all 4 kids home, it's almost impossible to sit down without someone calling "Mum".

I am slowing working through messages and emails, your patience is very much appreciated and I am working hard to try and catch up over the next week.

Thank you so much for your support

Leila 🙂

21/04/2025

Something special is coming soon for our very good customer Janath from award winning Singh from JagAquatics

Cant wait to see how it turns out! 😬

Feel blessed and love to be back in Brisbane again for aquascaping this 10 ft blank canvas for our awesome client. Thanks to our client for sending this beautiful shot of the tank all ready to be scaped. Lights will eventually get covered with cabinet too. Already looking super sleek and can’t wait to work on this beauty. Using Chihiros Aquatic Studio WRGB 2 lights from Ravi Oz, 2 x OASE 850 Thermo from OASE Indoor Aquatics Australia, custom 10ft tank by Dennison Seeto of Mary-Anne's Aquariums, heaps of Master Soil, JagAquatics style crazy mystic scape pack using best hardscape material from Aura Aquarium. This will be planted scape so after detailed hardscape we will be planting it too. Stay tuned for the final result …keep Scaping

13/03/2025

Updated build for George

Recently we delivered this Aquarium to George, he was very keen to get things progressing and we are so excited to see progress here.

Aquarium size is 10ft L x 3ft W x 2.5ft H with internal weir and acrylic surround, Paired with Black vinyl to match the weir. Sump fits perfectly under the 860mm H stand, housing a 6ft L x 2ft W x 18in H, custom plumbing was also included in this build.

Like, share and Comment below!!!

Thank you for everyone's patience and support during the recent Cyclone, so glad everyone is getting back to normal and we are all safe.

Leila & Dennison :)

11/03/2025

Thank you so much for your patience as we get back on track with everything. Power was restored yesterday afternoon to the relief of the whole family, thank you so much to the hard workers at the energy providers! We are packing away the mountains of bricks and boards that protected our work shed and storage area from flooding. Trees are cut up to be disposed of and water has thankfully gone.

We will be back into things from tomorrow as we finish the packing away all the stuff we stowed away inside the workshop, getting ready to get back into tank building tomorrow. Our glass suppliers have opened today, so we may have a delay with deliveries until they are caught up. The cabinetry supplier is from the Gold Coast, fingers crossed the cyclone has not done any damage to their production as we await pickup for cabinetry orders also.

Thank you for your patience and we look forward to being up and running tomorrow as normal.

Thank you once again,

Leila and Dennison :)

10/03/2025

Cyclone Alfred certainly threw some punches, we are currently battling fallen trees, no power, internet or reception and minor flooding on our property.

We are okay but our work schedule has come to a Holt until without proper lighting and time. Once we have a safe workspace to get things back on track, we will let you know. We are so sorry for these delays but it's out of our control sadly.

We hope everyone is okay and didn't sustain too much damage to their homes or aquariums. Our kids have been spending the last 2 days creating oxygen in our tanks every hour during the day that don't have filters, to ensure every one stays alive and well.

Wishing everyone a speedy recovery with the clean up and repair of power, and we look forward to getting the next round of builds out in the coming weeks.

Thank you once again for your patience and support.

Leila 🙂

04/03/2025

Hey Fellow Hobbyists!

I just wanted to share some tips and tricks just in case with imminent Cyclone threat we have, and possible power outages.

- Get battery operated air pumps or even Cordless tool to mains power inverters, and charge as many batteries as possible. Obviously Generator is the best in this situation.

- Get a good quality Neutraliser (like Prime or Safe) which can help bind ammonia and nitrite.

- Have some water stowed away, this will be good for small water changes or emergency isolation of fish/ inhabitants.

- If you are using power inverters or battery back up solutions, run the absolute lowest wattage item you can get like a single out let air pump, or a very low wattage wave maker. This will make your battery last the longest amount of time.

- Surface agitation is to most effective way to introduce oxygen! When we had our 450 breeding aquariums, we went through and scooped containers of water and poured them back in every 30-45 minutes to introduce oxygen, this keep most of our fish alive when we lost power for close to 2 days.

- Every 24 hours either using emergency storage of water, change 10% every 24 hours to limit ammonia, and nitrite build ups. OR use the Neutralizer to bind ammonia and nitrite.

- If the tank is getting warm, you can place pvc pipes across your tank, and put clean cloths up and over and fan the cloths, it's not as good as a chiller/ice but will drop the tank 1-2 degrees and hopefully might be enough.🤞

- Pure hydrogen peroxide is miracle worker, adding 2 drops of 10% hydrogen peroxide per 50L of water will introduce safe usable oxygen in for your fish. You can do this every 2 hours as well.

MOST IMPORTANT - If the power has been off for 6-8 hours or more, disconnect and remove ANY CANISTER Filter or reactors, and give them a full clean and leave off the tank. The good aerobic bacteria will have gone rancid and will start breaking down and release sulphur dioxide (rotten egg gas smell). If the power comes back on and it's connected, this will go into your system and be extremely toxic. (We had this happen to our display in our old shop).

Edit - Other hobbyist suggestions 🙂 (Thank you!)

- I forgot this one... Limit the amount of food whilst there is a power outage, this will limit the amount of fish waste.

- Putting some bunch plants in will help oxygen levels as well. The best would be bunches of Elodea. But take them out after 5 days, as with low light they may start to degrade.

I hope these tips help, and please share with your fellow fish keeping friends,

Thanks again, and stay safe everyone!

Dennison (and Leila) :-)

22/02/2025

Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary Update

Michael has spent the last few years working around the clock to assist with the population of the very cute and extremely small Kroombit Tinkerfrog, which was found to be critically endangered.

Last year Michael had ordered another set of enclosures and stand to fill out his breeding facility, the success of his program has done so well he needed more enclosures to continue to program.

Well Done to Michael and the amazing Team at Currumbin Wildlife, this is fantastic news.

Thank you for your ongoing support!!

Look forward to supporting you as they grow and be released back into the wild.

Leila 🙂

21/02/2025

What a sight at Westfield Carindale, we are so proud to collaborate with the team at Gallery Aquatica to produce this eye catching aquarium.

Walking towards this Aquarium always makes me smile :)

Have you checked this tank out yet? We have had a few people send photos at the Aquarium, Drop us your photos here!!!

Thank you so much for your support. We are grateful as always

Leila 🙂

31/01/2025

Share time !!

I would love to share some builds in real time, if you have a Dennison built Aquarium that you would love to share with our Page, PM your Video and I will create a Reel for you.

30sec videos would be ideal please, we can't wait to see our fishy friends exploring their homes and see what you have created for them.

Thank you so much for all your support
Leila :)

06/01/2025

Dennison Seeto of Mary-Anne's Aquariums Happy new year to our wonderful and supportive customers. May we have another year of making beautiful aquariums for you and receiving updates on your builds. Without your support Dennison could not continue his passion in Aquarium builds, so thank you.

There is still time to get your charity calendar too, we have 7 left and would love to finalize this donation for RSPCA.

Calendars are $23.95 and we are donating $11.45 (100% profit)from each sale, we can also post for $5, so if you're keen to grab yours, send a message and I will be in contact.

Thank you again for everyone's support, truly means the world to us, to be able to work alongside each other building aquariums and creating new designs or products to share with you.

Thank you once again
Leila & Dennison