Aquarium Aquascaping

Wikipedia defines aquascaping as “an art form practiced by aquarium enthusiasts that entails arranging aquatic plants, as well as rocks, stones, cavework, or driftwood in an aesthetically pleasing manner within an aquarium.” This is really just a fancy way of saying that aquascaping is decorating your aquarium to make it look nice.  Aquascaping allows you to use your own creativity to set up a pleasing environment for your fish.

Aquascaping

When you are ready to aquascape your aquarium, the first thing you should do is research the fish that you want to keep and determine what their environment is like in the wild.  Making your aquarium as close to the natural environment as possible will help your fish live long, healthy and happy lives.  Infomation on most common fish is readily available on the internet.

After learning about the fish you intend to keep, I strongly suggest that you get some graph paper and draw some pictures of what you want the aquarium to look like.  Draw one picture as viewed from the front, and one as viewed from the top.  A little bit of planning up front will drastically improve your results.

When aquascaping, the look of the aquarium and the materials used are completely up to you.  I do advise against using common items such as marbles, construction sand and glass chips.  Sand and glass can have sharp edges that are dangerous to your fish.  Marbles tend to have large spaces between them allowing uneaten food and fish waste to become trapped and foul the water.  Be sure that the edges of all decorations are smooth so your fish are not injured by them.