Many years ago, I kept a rather over ambitious aquarium. I only ever kept cold water fish then. I have since matured in my knowledge of the hobby and now keep a few smaller tropical aquariums. As any hobbyist in this field will know, there is more that goes into keeping such pets than meets the eye.
It is so therapeutic to watch your livestock, particularly when you have got the right balance of tank mates that can cohabit well with each other but, also we watch our tank develop.
Wait, just one moment! Don’t tell me you have just put multicoloured gravel in your tank, a plastic plant or two and a hideous sunken battle ship or treasure chest connected to an airline?
Yep, we have all been there and I am ashamed to say I have done exactly that but it does not need to be like that. How about rather than an aquarium, we take a step back and create an ecosystem.
I have extensively looked through many a YouTube video, webpage and also sought some advice from independent fish suppliers. The common ground is a planted aquascape, plants, fish and invertebrates coexist to meet each others needs and feeds, whilst maintaining a balanced habitat of beneficial bacteria and water parameters.
So, after taking the leap and deciding to go for a planted tank, the next thing was to decide on a theme; was it going to be a balanced Iwagumi Japanese scape? Dutch style? African tropical rainforest or a small meadow stream? The choices were endless.
I opted for a simple looking Cornish cobbled stream with a raised focal point, slowly sloping the length of the tank. The trick to this, without using heaps of substrate, was to build an underground platform with plastic egg crates and link them together with cable ties to stop anything from moving once covered under the substrate.
Next step were the plants, and I thought that a planted tank would be to buy them and then just put them straight into the tank and let nature do the work. I didn’t realise that I would need to prepare the plants before putting them into the tank.
Each plant had to be meticulously cleaned of any transporting materials, separated into their own group structures and then sorted into the order they would be planted. I started off with a lush grass bed and planting over a hundred minuscule clumps of grass with a pair of tweezers, and that was just the start of it.
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