Aquascaping vs. Fish-Only: Where do you draw the line?

[henrycarter]

I’ve been seeing some incredible planted tanks lately, but sometimes I feel like the fish get lost in the greenery. On the other hand, a bare-bottom tank is so much easier to keep clean for larger species. How do you guys strike a balance between a beautiful aesthetic and a practical environment for your fish? Curious to hear your thoughts on form vs. function.

 

[A201]

Simply put, don't emphasize plants.

Construct a hardscape of rock & wood that affords the clear viewing you want, and still provides a beautiful, natural look.

I really don't like the unnatural look of bare bottom tanks. I tried that years ago with Discus. I quickly grew tired of the daily removal of detritus and fish crap.

 

[tiger15]

I don't need to strike a balance. I keep both plants and big cichlid in my aquascaped tanks, just select the right fish, plants and strategy to make it work. No bare bottom tank, just a thin layer of gravel to cover the bottom reflecting, most plants are epiphites, some potted, and all have tough texture to resist abuse.

 

[danotaylor]

Im the one who has to look at my tanks, so I really don’t care what others think of how I set up them up. Compliments about the scape are nice but don’t float my boat. In the same way criticism doesn’t sink it.

When I see a tank with bright pink & blue substrate I have zero urge to comment.

Simply put, each to his own

 

[Fishburner]

Personally, it starts as a nicely aquascaped tank, but trimming becomes too much of a chore and after a few months, I just let it grow. I've also seen people trim stem plants and pull out the rooted stem and replant the top as they say the stem doesn't grow back as thick and it can become too bushy after awhile. It still looks nice, but it no longer looks curated as before. Best solution is to just focus on hardscape if you just want to focus on fish. Plants are always beneficial so easily low maintenance plants like Anubias and Java Fern works great to add some greenery. Also, it's good to decide what you want to focus on. Do you want to focus on the aquascape as the main conversation piece or do you want the fish to be the focus? With big fish, I would want the focus to be on the fish, so it was be in a hard scape aquarium with a few easy to maintain plants, like mentioned before. If the aquascape was going to be the main focal point, a small community tank of tetras, live bearers, bottom feeders, algae controllers, and snail controllers would be added.

 

[Omrit]

Most large fish either eat or dig up plants so I don't bother. Although Tiger15's set-up does look very cool.

For my smaller tanks(with plant safe species) I like to heavily plant parts of it but leave open spaces in others. I'm not a huge fan of full plant jungle looking tanks, and those tend to require a lot of upkeep.

 

[Snoke FIsh]

Most large fish either eat or dig up plants so I don't bother. Although Tiger15's set-up does look very cool.

For my smaller tanks(with plant safe species) I like to heavily plant parts of it but leave open spaces in others. I'm not a huge fan of full plant jungle looking tanks, and those tend to require a lot of upkeep.

Marginal plants like Alocasia water yam help add greenery to a tank especially in one's with large up rooters, due to their generally heft. I had some with my oscar in an pond and it did splendid while the oscar was in there.

 

[Reese11]

A planted tank can definitely be rewarding to look at but you do have to base the scape off of what type of fish you want to keep. As some others have mentioned, bigger fish tend to beat up the plants but if you choose the right plants that are more sturdy and scape it well enough, so the fish have plenty of space, they may leave the plants alone and be fine. The plants can help keep nitrates down but they do produce some waste of their own as they grow and die off. You may want some extra sediment filtering for taking care of some extra debris from the plants