What Decorations Should I Put in My Fish Tank?

When it comes to decorations the choice is completely up to you. With freshwater decorations you will want to place substrate in the bottom of the tank first. You can then purchase fake plants and other decorations. You will want to provide your fish with as many hiding places as possible. You can purchase ships which have many different hiding places. Plants also work very well to provide your fish with cover. You can purchase driftwood on blocks for your aquarium, but these will only get sharp after time and cut your fish as they swim by.

When purchasing decorations for your tank you will want make sure that there are no sharp corners that the fish could get cut on. Flip the decoration over and look inside of it to make sure there isn't anything that could harm your fish. You wont want to get really sharp plants that will slice open your fish when they swim past. Fish will often times chase each other and one fish could end up with a cut. Once fish start to get stressed out and sick they will often times get all of your fish sick in the entire fish tank.

The rule with decorations is that you want to leave at least 50% of your fish tank open for the fish to swim around and roam for food. This doesn't mean that you can only place decorations in one half or the other. You can spread out the decorations about three inches apart to leave room for the fish to swim around. You can also put the decorations towards the back or front of the aquarium so that the fish have a straight line to swim around.

Decorations can get somewhat expensive if you have a large fish tank. Plants are a good decoration to purchase because they look natural, form some type of protection for the fish and they are also very inexpensive. You can purchase a plant for $1.00 if you want to. I would purchase many plants and spread them around in your tank. You can then fill in the gaps with more expensive decorations. If you want the decorations to look nice you will need to scrub them with a toothbrush once you clean your fish tank. Leave the decoration in the fish tank so that you don't kill the beneficial bacteria when you remove them from the tank.

Often times with saltwater fish people choose to use live rock. Live rock is perhaps the best thing that you can buy but it is somewhat expensive at about $6 per pound at most pet stores. This live rock is actually not living but there are living creatures on and inside of your live rock which is why it's called live rock. You will purchase this rock and see little bugs (copepods) and small crabs crawling out of the rock. The rock helps to establish your fish tank.

You can also purchase fake decor for your saltwater tank such as fake anemones. The choice is completely up to you. If you want to save money you can go with fake decorations. You can even purchase fake live rock and place anemones on pegs in the holes on the fake live rock. If you look hard enough you can find the fake live rock online, but it's more expensive than real live rock would be once your place all the fake invertebrates and coral on it.