Workshops
Aquascaping is much faster to learn with your hands in the substrate than off a screen. Our workshops are a single hands-on hour where you build a complete nano planted tank from empty glass to finished scape — and take it home with you at the end.
What happens in the session
You start with an empty nano tank, around one to one and a half gallons, and work through the whole build in order: laying and sloping the substrate, setting the hardscape, deciding on a focal point, then planting. A member of the Pet Zone team works alongside you the entire time, so the corrections happen while the layout is still wet and movable rather than three weeks later when you are looking at a scape you have stopped liking.
Most of what people take away is not the tank. It is the handful of things that are almost impossible to pick up from a video — how much stone actually disappears once it is buried, why a slope reads as depth, how thin to spread moss, and how differently a layout looks once water goes in.
What is included
Everything. The tank, the soil and substrate, the hardscape stone or wood, the plants, and the hour of instruction are all covered by the ticket price. You bring nothing and leave with a finished, planted nano aquarium.
Who it is for
All skill levels, and genuinely so. Complete beginners who have never kept a tank do fine, because the whole thing is guided. Experienced keepers come for the layout side — composition, stone selection, planting technique — which is the part most self-taught aquarists never get direct feedback on.
Open to the public. No prior booking history, no club membership, no equipment of your own required.
Where we run them
Workshops run at our Convoy store, home of the Hakkai aquascape gallery since 2023, and off-site at partner venues around San Diego — Citizen Brewers in Mission Valley is a recurring host, which makes for a considerably more relaxed evening than a classroom.
Booking
Seats are limited by how many tanks we can set up, and sessions do sell out. Book through the listing for the date you want. If the session you wanted is full, tell us — we schedule new dates based on who is asking.
Buying seats for a group, a birthday, a team event or a class? Get in touch and we will put a private session together.
Taking it home
Your tank comes home planted and ready. The first few weeks are the ones that matter — we will cover what to do about them during the session, and you can always bring a water sample into either store afterwards for free testing and a second opinion on how it is settling in.
If you want to read ahead, start with our step-by-step aquascape guide and Hardscape 101. For finished builds and gallery work, see Hakkai.