Aquarium Decorations

Decorating your Freshwater Aquarium

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Decorating your new Freshwater Fish Tank
As we mentioned earlier decorating your freshwater aquarium is a matter of personal preferences. Let's review some of the items that can be used to decorate your aquarium. We'll assume that your new tank has an undergravel (UGF) filter.

Substrate
Substrate is nothing more than the gravel that is placed in the bottom of the tank, but on top of the under gravel filter. It is one of the most important elements in your aquarium. With out substrate... beneficial bacteria will have little area to colonize.

Aquarium gravel is available in nearly every color of the rainbow as well as several grain sizes. What ever substrate you choose... be sure that its large enough that it doesn't fill the slots in the UGF.

You'll want to add about 2" of aquarium gravel to the bottom of the tank. A general rule of thumb is 1 pound of gravel per gallon of water.

Decorative Aquarium Stones
Back in my early days of fish keeping I used to buy a lot of rocks for my aquariums. Then I decided I was nuts buying rocks... most people pay to get rid of them. From then on I started collecting rocks for my aquariums.

Here's a list of aquarium safe rocks that I collect: Natural Lava Rock, Natural Slate, Natural Quartz, Natural River Rock, and Petrified Wood. Be sure to boil collected rocks for an hour before placing them in the aquarium.

One of my favorite aquarium rocks is Lace Rock. Unfortunately I have to buy it. When used in the aquarium this natural looking rock... with its many crevasses and craters really gives your tank a 3D appearance. The only problem with Lace Rock is that its a bit sharp, and if algae grows on it... you can't get it off.

Here's some other aquarium rocks that your local pet store may have on hand. Glass and Ice Rock, Black River Pebbles, Pagoda Rock, Zebra Rock, Honey Onyx, Rainbow Rock, and Red Desert Rock.

Driftwood
Natural Driftwood is another decoration that I use in my aquariums. I either catch it on the bottom of the lake while fishing or I find it along rivers and streams. I've never had a problem using natural driftwood in my tanks... but they say when it starts to decompose it will rob oxygen from the aquarium. When this happens I just throw it out and find a new piece.
Be sure to boil driftwood for an hour before using it in the aquarium.

Your local aquarium shop will have several types of exotic imported driftwood available. Some of these exotic woods can release substances that will "stain" your water... but it don't hurt the fish.

Top Fin produces some very nice artificial pieces of driftwood, and caves. I intermingle artificial driftwood with natural driftwood.

Artificial Plants
I've done the live plant thing... now I just use artificial plants in my tanks. It makes my life much simpler, and the fish don't care if there real or fake. Don't get me wrong, nothing beats a tank of live plants.

Plantastics, Second Nature, and Penn Plax are some of the major artificial plant manufacturers.

When selecting artificial plants choose plants of varying heights, leaf shapes, and colors. Use tall plants to hide lift tubes, and heaters. Place a couple of medium height plants in the middle of the tank, and and use the short ones for accenting rocks and driftwood.

There is a newer type of artificial plant that I'm quite fond of. Their called Image Background Plants. Image background plants clip to the top of your tank and cascade downward. I usually use Image background plants in conjunction with terraces... burying the bottom of the plant in the top of the terrace.

Ceramics
I don't use any of the colorful ceramics in my tanks so I won't spend any time on them. Your local aquarium shop will have a large selection of these items.

Cleaning your Tank Decorations
Eventually you'll need to remove all of your decorations to clean them. Over time brown or green algae may grow on your aquarium decorations. Fine leaved artificial plants seem to be a "catch all" for left over food particles and debris.

I clean all of my tank decorations in the kitchen sink. First I give them a pre-wash under running water. Then I fill the other side of the sink with very hot water and let them soak for a while. The hot water seems to dislodge a lot of the gunk. Then I give them a second wash with warm water and they look almost new again. I never use any type of soap when cleaning my aquarium decorations.

Cleaning aquarium gunk off of the leaves of artificial plants is no easy chore. It just takes some time an patience to clean them one leaf at a time.