AQUASCAPING Vs. DECORATING AQUARIUM Vs. PLANT KEEPING

The world of fish keeping rose to a new height in the early 90’s when the book NATURE AQUARIUM WORLD by Takashi Amano hit the bookstores. At that time we as fish keeper hobbyist realized that the aquarium we have isn’t merely a glass cage for keeping the fishes we have. It is now 2009 and of course we still fascinated by the look of finely decorated aquarium.

In this article I would like to discuss, or furthermore, differentiate the terms of aquascape. At first, we, of course, own an aquarium. What will we do with the aquarium is the next question. A fish enthusiast will of course provide the needs of his/her beloved fish into the aquarium. However, not all us aquarium hobbyist are into fish exclusively. Some of us are really more into plants. Aquatic plants to be exact. Regardless what comes first into our minds, what we really want is a good looking aquarium stand in our living room, so we can proudly show the piece of art to our visitors.

Aquacaping is the act of how we scape the aquarium. Just like a garden designer turns the yard in our house into garden. The designer is land-scaping our garden. When aquascaping our aquarium, we should consider many things, such as how we want the aquarium looks like in the end. Do we really want its look like a habitat from where our fish originated? Or do we want it to look like a lush, underwater garden like those shown in the book? Or we just want to have our fish look happy while the aquarium does not look to bare? Regardless what will you do, in my opinion, aquascaping is the pinnacle of aquarium hobby.

Decorating the aquarium, is the more simple term than aquascaping. You can simply put decoration into your aquarium so it will look more nicely than a bare aquarium. You can put many ornament into the tank, such as driftwood, rocks, artificial plant, or, to the non-purist aquarium, sunken ship or else.

Plant keeping is the more complex subject than decorating the aquarium. If the aquascape focus on how we decorate our aquarium so it will look as natural as possible, plant keeping simply turn the aquarium into underwater forest. Modern hobbyist, however, have learn, that simple plant keeping will not look very nice without the touch of design here and there. In the past, aquarium hobbyist tend to ingnore the basic rule of design so in the end their aquarium look to be a jungle. Not a jungle design aquarium, but an actual jungle. We can barely see the fish or whatever in the tank because the plant grow so big it block our view. If we focus on plant keeping, we must concentrate our subject on technical matters, such as CO2, fertilizers and lighting. All of those can be learn, albeit it takes quite sometimes.

So, in the end, one question remains. What is the best option to have a nice, decorated aquarium? Is it aquascaping? Is plain decorated aquarium? Or is plant keeping? The choice is yours exclusively. If you focus on the fish, I recommend decorating your aquarium accordingly to your fishes’ requirement. If you want a more complex system, then the term aquascaping comes to mind. It balances your options between keeping fish and plant. And if you really, really like aquatic plants, then go for it. Turn your aquarium into aquatic jungle.