I’m a hobbyist aquarist and used to maintain and curate fish bowls many years back. In the first fish bowls, I started with plastic accessories and pebbles. Over time, I started to move on to planted setups. Nowadays I personally prefer natural components in the aquarium system. Below is a photograph from 2014. This is one of the first planted fish bowls I had built from scratch right from the sand to the plants and nice little goldfish in there.
When I used to do it in the past, I didn’t use to read or watch extensively on this art and used to have trial and error ways of building things up. I didn’t for example, had nutrients added to the sand base and didn’t read or care much about the environments required for certain types of plants.
I would like to thank MD Fishtanks for re-kindling the curiosity and inquisitiveness back in me for planted aquariums and explore aquascaping. The way he has done videos elucidating simple concepts and just the sheer art of doing it really impressed me. Ideas fueled desire and it further triggered actions and here we are with a new tank setup.
The below tank is what we have now. I did not build it. It was built by a different person and I would like to try and learn aquascaping with this setup. The fish in there is a half-moon betta. It’s a variant of a siamese fighter fish. They normally stay alone and is not compatible with other big fishes around as it might attack them. The set up has mechanical water filters (non-chemical) and some natural wood and some rocks for plant growth.
As I write this, some plants have started to have black patches on their leaves and are probably rotting. I need to find out the reasons and explore remedial measures. It’s a pretty long learning process and I would like to try to post some updates in the future.
As of now, the primary focus is to have the below:
– Understand chlorine removal from tap water and identify good less obtrusive chemicals for the same with least effect to flora and fauna.
– Understanding the importance of feeding CO2 for plants externally, preferably using a cylinder or any other external source.
– Have wood and stones re-arranged and reconfigured to have more room for fishes.
– Explore the option of putting in some guppy fishes or some neon tetra fishes.
God bless! Have you tried aquascaping techniques? Feel free to share your thoughts.
