Gary Haughton
Founder, AquaBuddyAI
Mbuna cichlid keeper · Manchester
Built by a Hobbyist.
For Hobbyists.
If you had told me a year ago that I would build a category-leading AI fishkeeping app, I would have laughed. Before I started this journey, I hadn't touched or operated a computer since 1998.
Then, life threw a massive curveball. I faced a serious health scare that forced me to slow down physically, but my mind needed a challenge. I decided to dive headfirst into the deep end of modern software engineering. I taught myself the terminal, mastered database architecture, and learned how to build with cutting-edge artificial intelligence.
Six months of intense, obsessive coding later, AquaBuddyAI was born.
Why I Built It: I didn't want to build another lazy AI chatbot or a generic prompt wrapper. Hobbyists don't need a robot that just googles things for them — they need real, undeniable utility. In fishkeeping, credibility is life or death for our livestock. If an app misreads an ammonia spike due to room glare, a tank crashes.
So I built AquaBuddyAI to be better than the human eye. Instead of guessing liquid kit gradients, AquaBuddyAI turns your iPhone camera into a digital colorimeter — measuring colour shifts with a precision the naked eye can't match.
When you ask for help, the app doesn't just fire back a generic answer. It weighs up what it sees, what it knows about your tank and its history, and checks its own work — to deliver genuinely reliable, tank-specific guidance.
I am playing the long game. I want AquaBuddyAI to be a daily tool you can rely on forever, which is why water parameter testing is free for life. You only tap into the heavy cloud tools when you face an emergency and need a full pathology report to save your tank.
Now we are tackling the final frontier with the AquaBuddyAI LabDock™ — a custom-manufactured precision water testing dock with calibrated LED lighting that locks in 98%+ testing accuracy.
Welcome to AquaBuddyAI. Let's change fishkeeping together.
