Why I think Aquascping and lots o' fish looks good, BUT only in other peoples tanks.

[Chrisplosion]

For me its part necessary and part laziness. For instance two of my tanks are setup as flowerhorn. Flowerhorn do best in bare situations: no plants, rocks, driftwood, etc. So a straight blue background with colorful gravel makes their colors pop more. On the other hand my CA community tank is fine with those things but when they get moved to my larger tank I might set it up with straight black bg with black gravel. That kind of situation would make my Parrots color pop much more.

 

[Mike4155]

When I first stared keeping fish I had all sorts of "stuff" in my tanks but as I progressed over the last year and a half I've come to the realization that for me my tank should be about fish inside it not all the other caca. I guess its just a matter of personal preference. My new oscar tank is going to be only black sand, black background, and a large piece of of DW.

 

[RD.]

Pretty sure the fish don't care if it is a natural rock cave or made of a flower pot or PVC pipe, but...

But what?

While I have always appreciated the overall aesthetics of a well aquascaped tank (such as Jose's discus tank) which IMO truly is a living piece of art - I think that it's a bit naive to use terms such as natural environment to describe domestic strains of fish kept in a glass box. Especially when one forces a m/f pair of large aggressive fish to remain together in the same glass box, for life. There is nothing natural about that, yet I see many tanks like this on MFK, especially in the CA/SA section. Beautifully aquascaped tanks, but realistically nothing truly natural about them.

IMHO when it comes to certain species, especially the larger more aggro CA/SA species, short of having a 30ft tank with numerous line of sight barriers, escape routes, caves, etc, it's far more natural to keep a single "wet pet", than it is to force some of these species into a situation that they would never experience in the wild.

Numerous species of fish (especially among the cichlid genus) fly solo 90+% of the year, and are only seen in groups when they are sexually immature, or seen in pairs during the spawning season.

Depending on the species, in many cases being kept alone as a single specimen in a tank is far more natural, than being forced together 24/7 with other fish.

 

[Camaronator]

Id say im more of a wet pet guy, but i do like to fill in the blank spots.

For example, right now i have a ten gallon with a baby leapord ctenopoma in it. Hes the only really noticable fish in the tank, and he is very intelligent and personable. When i walk to the tank he usually greets me, flares out a bit and then does this odd curled up drifting kinda thing twords the container i keep live brine shrimp in next to his tank. He seems to do that drift thing around bits of worm i drop in there too, i read its too make them look more leaf like. Ive always wanted a puffer and i feel like he is one of the more "puffer-like" fish out there, though obviously not completely similar.

However in his tank he has a piece of driftwood to lurk in, some overgrown floating plants, and some oto cats to clean up after him. It is similar to an ecosystem in that its not an open tank with one fish in it, but at the same time it is pretty much dedicated to him, and i feel like he is much happier than he would be with an open tank, all fish are different though.

 

[JoyfulDez]

I'm hamstrung by my home life. My husband and I have three daughters and a 4-bedroom home. I've managed to convince each daughter to have a tank in her room, but I only get one in the living area. So my one 55g tall must be decorative enough for public consumption. I might get evicted if I set up another tank.

So I definitely try to make my "pretty" for guests. Yes, it's a drag. But it's better than no tank at all. And one day I'll have a basement for tanks.

 

[pacu mom]

I guess i'm alone in my pursuit. I'm happy with that.

You are not alone. For us it's about enjoying the fish, not spending hours a day maintaining their tank. If I liked maintaining tanks, I'd go into business maintaining other peoples tanks. Of necessity, the tank is undecorated--but our fish still manage to scrape themselves on the tank lids. What my fish really need is a padded cell. As far as "natural" decor, every day I look out and see one of the most beautiful rivers in the world.

But when you get in the river, it's full of ugly dark rocks. My husband is adamant that he does not want a rocky background in our new tank. We have no desire to try to duplicate a murky, muddy dark river scene which would be their environment in the wild.

All this said, we have rethought everything, and we will go with a modified substrateless, undecorated tank in our big set up. No substrate, but not bare floor either--going with a low profile rocky background on the floor. We have 1/4" black lamination on the back inside the tank. After much searching I found 1.5" black PVC for the eleven pipes that compose my mechanical filtration. The black on black would hardly be visible. After rethinking everything, we are going to disguise the pipes as trees, and make a low profile 3D background for an underwater forest in an endless lake look. So our plumbing will actually be "decoration" of sorts. We will still have our bare floor, undecorated tank, but with a twist.

We have a long ways to go before this poop sucker pipe resembles a 4" tree

My uptake and return pipes will all be different sized trees with knots at the Ts. (BTW the connectors in the Ts are just to keep paint off the threads) The rim of the T is the only place that white could possibly show, so I applied several coats of Krylon Fusion to the rims.

Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference. We love our fish, but hate maintenance. We must have a system that is maintenance-free as possible. Our fish will either scrape themselves or eat/destroy any decoration placed in their tank. Bare undecorated is our only option.

 

[Redearsunfish]

But what?

While I have always appreciated the overall aesthetics of a well aquascaped tank (such as Jose's discus tank) which IMO truly is a living piece of art - I think that it's a bit naive to use terms such as natural environment to describe domestic strains of fish kept in a glass box. Especially when one forces a m/f pair of large aggressive fish to remain together in the same glass box, for life. There is nothing natural about that, yet I see many tanks like this on MFK, especially in the CA/SA section. Beautifully aquascaped tanks, but realistically nothing truly natural about them.

IMHO when it comes to certain species, especially the larger more aggro CA/SA species, short of having a 30ft tank with numerous line of sight barriers, escape routes, caves, etc, it's far more natural to keep a single "wet pet", than it is to force some of these species into a situation that they would never experience in the wild.

Numerous species of fish (especially among the cichlid genus) fly solo 90+% of the year, and are only seen in groups when they are sexually immature, or seen in pairs during the spawning season.

Depending on the species, in many cases being kept alone as a single specimen in a tank is far more natural, than being forced together 24/7 with other fish.

I agree with this!

 

[Redearsunfish]

You are not alone. For us it's about enjoying the fish, not spending hours a day maintaining their tank. If I liked maintaining tanks, I'd go into business maintaining other peoples tanks. Of necessity, the tank is undecorated--but our fish still manage to scrape themselves on the tank lids. What my fish really need is a padded cell. As far as "natural" decor, every day I look out and see one of the most beautiful rivers in the world.

But when you get in the river, it's full of ugly dark rocks. My husband is adamant that he does not want a rocky background in our new tank. We have no desire to try to duplicate a murky, muddy dark river scene which would be their environment in the wild.

All this said, we have rethought everything, and we will go with a modified substrateless, undecorated tank in our big set up. No substrate, but not bare floor either--going with a low profile rocky background on the floor. We have 1/4" black lamination on the back inside the tank. After much searching I found 1.5" black PVC for the eleven pipes that compose my mechanical filtration. The black on black would hardly be visible. After rethinking everything, we are going to disguise the pipes as trees, and make a low profile 3D background for an underwater forest in an endless lake look. So our plumbing will actually be "decoration" of sorts. We will still have our bare floor, undecorated tank, but with a twist.

We have a long ways to go before this poop sucker pipe resembles a 4" tree

My uptake and return pipes will all be different sized trees with knots at the Ts. (BTW the connectors in the Ts are just to keep paint off the threads) The rim of the T is the only place that white could possibly show, so I applied several coats of Krylon Fusion to the rims.

Ultimately, it comes down to personal preference. We love our fish, but hate maintenance. We must have a system that is maintenance-free as possible. Our fish will either scrape themselves or eat/destroy any decoration placed in their tank. Bare undecorated is our only option.

Thanks! By the wait, fantastic design!!

 

[Dan F]

I have both - about half my tanks are aquascaped while the other half are undecorated. I like them both and don't really have a desire to 'scape the bare tanks.

 

[Redearsunfish]

This is interesting then. Sometimes we are moved to decorate, while other times we are not.

In my case, where 95 percent of my collection is goldfish, necessity calls for gravel, a single rounded stone and that's it...

Though I must admit my 20 gallon tall has the appearances of aqua scaping, though I use Atlas Mason jars for hiding spots so that I may continue to see my loaches and barbs.