How do you decide on your tank decor?

[CACAdmin]

I for one am a lazy aquascaper and so my tank decor is pretty much a haphazard combination of rocks, gravel, wood and plants in what ends up looking somewhat natural (in a jungle-like fashion).

I was wondering how people decide the decor of their tanks. Do you try to recreate a natural environment, or create your own version using natural items like rocks, wood, and plants? Or do you try to create a theme of some sort? Or do you like to to use pots, etc. to create an underwater garden look? Or do you like to add various items (including ordinary household items) to create your own unique look? Or do you try to duplicate aquascaping you have seen?

[pdl1251]

I always had minimal light and decorated mainly for the fish, to give them places to hide and explore and had only fake plants with driftwood, clay pots and rocks.

I'm just getting into planted tanks, albeit low tech, and have decided to have completely natural looking tanks, with no man-made decorations at all anymore.

It's very gratifying to see how much the fish love lush, real plantings. There's been some trial and error on my part, but things are coming along quite nicely.

I"ve been looking (and drooling) at pictures of planted tanks on the net. Although I could never get to that level, it does give me inspiration as to arrangements, plant types etc.

Aquascaping is fun.:smile:

[blainep]

I use very specific methods for aquascaping !


I look at the ornaments/plants/rocks that I have laying around, grab a few and toss them in !:laugh:

[Melody]

Other - I decorate for practical purposes to accomodate breeding fish. There's very little other purpose to it.

[KnaveTO]

I like 'natural' aquariums. That is real wood, rock and the substrate. Right now I am in the process of rescaping my tanks (yet again... lol) and find that natural to me just seems right.

[Katalyst]

I don't know you can call them decorated, they are all created with their inhabitants in mind. River tanks, sandy substrate, lots of wood and hiding places for several of my plecos, soft silk plants and places to hide with little to no current for my betta tank, lots of plants and things to hide under with soft substrate for barbels etc.

My tanks will probally never win a best decorated/aquascaped contest but as long as it keeps the inhabitants safe and happy that's okay with me.

That being said plenty of ugly/beyond tacky ornaments can be found around here as well. Their ugly and unappealing so they go on sale and I snap em up. Who said hidey holes have to be pretty? :laugh:

[exv152]

I prefer natural aquariums, but not symmetric or contrived set-ups. If I can see it being part of an aquascape in nature then it's beautiful to me. I see it like living art, splashing colours and textures (from the greens, reds and browns in the plants to the contrasts in the rocks, sand and fish). I'm a huge fan of Takashi Amano. But, I have also seen some amazing african cichlid tanks with only sand and rocks, and some really cool blue lighting. I appreciate a wide range of "natural aquarium" styles.

[GaryofMontreal]

I have a lot of tanks and I'm really cheap, so that determines a lot of my decor. I'm always on the lookout for coarse sand at the hardware stores, and every (non-romantic) walk on the beach is scouting for rocks. I have an old plastic tub (covered to keep mosquitoes out) behind the shed in my suburban yard. I soak interesting pieces of wood in it, to prepare them for my tanks.
Then I look at my fish. Filter placement is important, depending on their behavior. I just set up a tank yesterday for my Heterandria bimaculatus, the only fish I have I caught myself. They were in a fastwater stream with few plants underwater. I created a series of crevices and rock jumbles along the back, and put the filter on the narrow end of the forty gallon long. This morning, for the first time since I caught them as fry, I got to see them behave exactly as the adults in their home stream behaved, hovering in a group facing the current, close to the shelter of the rocks in case I turned into a bird or a large cichlid. That, to me, is a successful tank.

My Geophagus have open sandy bottoms for 'geophaging', but with geographically wrong African plants attached to driftwood to give the tanks some green. I try to look at the needs and behavior of the fishes combined with what I can learn about its natural habitat. Then I look at what I have - chemically inert rocks for the rainforest fish, mineral rich rocks for the Central American livebearers, cheap rinsed sand, low light plants, and off I go. I've never bought a rock or a piece of driftwood.

What I have been slowly stocking up on is powerheads and filters rated a little too large for their tanks. I'm increasingly convinced that a key to success with mildly aggressive and territorial fishes from rivers is current. I had some open spawning Geophagus that were no fun to keep because of their scrapping, but as soon as I gave them fast water, the attacks became displays, everyone healed their minor wounds and the group remained active as ever, but are reasonably peaceful. In the wild, they come from the margins of rapids, so with a little rock arrangement and water flow, I got more natural behavior. I'm looking forward to trying this with swordtails.

So to me. aquascaping is to have a pretty tank, but since I'm a "try to see what fish in nature are like" purist, part of the beauty of a tank is using natural materials to try to get fish to act fairly naturally.

[Pamelajo]

On my planted tanks I try to use mostly natural items except each tank has a commercially bought center piece such as in my 75 g the cottage with the water wheel.
On my bare bottom tanks I usually don't give much thought to decor, just the needs of the fish: driftwood for plecos and caves. Usually try to use stuff from around the house.