1.5. Aquarium Options

There are about as many “correct” ways to keep fish thriving in an aquarium as there are aquarium keepers. It is not an exact demarcation. And Mother Nature is extremely flexible. But the aquarium options can be divided into six very broad options. Here are three “fish-only” aquarium options:

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Easily 80% of the aquariums in the hobby are the lightly stocked “fish-only” type aquariums. Most of this website is dedicated to keeping this type of aquarium.

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And here are three planted aquarium options:

All six of these types of aquariums are “correct” and have an infinite number of variations. We go into each of these several types of specialized planted aquariums in these links:

15.8. Walstad Aquarium

15.9. High-Tech Planted Aquarium

15.10. Hybrid Planted Aquariums

15.11. Many Fish Many Plants

15.13. Hau Aquariums

15.14. Low Tech Planted Aquariums

Note that each method has it’s YouTube “champion” who vociferously says that this method or that method is the only one which works well. Ignore the “champions”, they don’t understand that an aquarium is Mother Nature at her finest and Mother Nature is both very flexible and very forgiving.

Tolerance is in very short supply in today’s world. This intolerance extends to keeping aquariums. If you read the forums and groups on the internet there is a constant barrage of “no, you can’t” rather than “you will have challenges but have at it”.  So if you have an idea for an aquarium, go for it!

Now I will go ahead and do exactly what I hate, namely try to caution one against one type of aquarium. Unfortunately, many newcomers to the hobby buy both a moderate amount of decent sized fish and a moderate amount of plants to start their hobby. This is one of the most difficult aquariums to keep. Generally, the plants die and in rare cases, the fish die, and the newcomer gives up the hobby.

Newcomers should skip the plants and start with a lightly stocked “fish only” aquarium with several small fish and plastic plants till they get to understand the hobby better. But if you like a challenge go ahead and try it. Much more on the challenge this aquarium type gives can be found at this article

15.11. Many Fish Many Plants

If one wants plants with their fish some plants are the exception and simply can’t be killed and which seem to live under any conditions. While they will get some algae on their leaves the leaves are resistant to being smothered by algae. And they seem to live in all substrates under all conditions with no fertilizer at all. They even live in very low light conditions.

The plants that seem to fit this description are Anubias (just don’t put the bulbs INTO the substrate), Amazon Sword (Echinodorus amazonicus), Java Fern (Leptochilus pteropus, synonym Microsorum pteropus), and Java Moss (Taxiphyllum barbieri). Java fern and Java moss are both “epiphytes” and need to be either attached to a surface like a piece of wood or they need a very open substrate like aquarium gravel. If you bury the crown on Java fern in sand it will die.

In the aquarium below note a large number of fish and a large number of plants. Also, note the cloudiness of the water and the scum on the water’s surface. I would predict these fish and these plants will not live long. But I could well be completely wrong!

To see photos of many types of Aquariums one can load the following link (note the file is large and takes a long time to load)

1.5.1. Aquarium Examples

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Aquarium Science Website

The chapters shown below or on the right side in maroon lead to close to 400 articles on all aspects of keeping a freshwater aquarium. These articles have NO links to profit-making sites and are thus unbiased in their recommendations, unlike all the for-profit sites you will find with Google. Bookmark and browse!

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