DIY Aquarium Planter

I decided to create my own aquarium planter. This is basically a simple 2Liter bottle that sits on top of the aquarium as a planter. The plant receives water and nutrients from the established aquarium and gets its light and such from above the aquarium.

What you'll need...

Scissors
1, 2Liter Plastic Bottle with Cap (you can add more if you want)
Drill
1inch thick piece of Wood/Glass/Hard Plastic (this will act as your aquarium lid)
Plant/s
Aquarium Silicon (or adhesive of your choosing)
Aquarium filled with water (and other living inhabitants)

Step 1: Cut your 2Liter bottle in half or at an angle (like the above image). You can choose to discard the base at this time or keep it to support the top half of the bottle until the unit is complete.
Step 2: Using a thick piece of Wood/Glass/Plastic (your choice as long as it can sit on top your tank), drill a hole that will fit your bottle cap. You'll also want to drill a small hole in the top of your bottle cap (this will allow the roots to be pulled through the base later).
Step 3: Apply the Aquarium Silicon (or adhesive of your choice) inside the drilled hole in your Wood/Glass/Plastic. With the cap screwed tightly onto the top half of your bottle you'll than push it into your drilled hole with the adhesive in the Wood/Glass/Plastic. Be sure to position the top half of the bottle the way you want your planter to be displayed later once the adhesive has dried completely.
Step 4: Once the adhesive is dry you can than choose to unscrew the bottle from your Wood/Glass/Plastic and the cap should stay securely inside the Wood/Glass/Plastic hole. This will help if you ever want to clean out your planter later on.
Step 5: You can then add your plant into the top of the 2Liter bottle, make sure it is screwed securely back in place on your Wood/Glass/Plastic. Be sure the roots have been pulled through your unit and can reach the water in the aquarium.

Note: You don't need the tank lid to be as wide as the tank so long as it can rest safely on top the tank length wise. You could also make a hinged door that can be lifted up to feed your fish if you do decide to cover the entire top of the aquarium. Or even create a box type hood where you could attach lighting underneath for an all around planted or lighted aquarium.

Natural Aquarium

In this day and age who would've ever heard of a planted tank that runs perfectly without the use of high end fertilizers and chemicals (or any for that matter), and without power filters and co2 injections?! Okay, so perhaps that's how it works in fresh water lakes and ponds, but it can also work for you at home! A great site I recently came across is Natural Aquariums. At N.A. they have been creating natural aquariums since the 80's and have broken down their aquarium setups for everyone else out there that is interested in doing something like this.

Here's how a basic setup of theirs works and what you'll need to get started.

-10 Gallon Aquarium (or larger, your choice really)
-Two 40Watt Bulbs, cool-white/day-light fluorescent shop lights (of you can use 2 aquarium grow lights)
-Plenty of aquarium type plants (they have a list on their site), they recommend Amazon Swords, Cryptocorynes, Anubias, Java Moss, Ferns, Hornwort, Najas Guadalupensis and Rotala Indiva.
-Air Pump *Optional*
-Occasional/Frequent Water Changes (Gravel Vacuum & Bucket will help during this time) as well as trimming plants.
-Aquarium Heater (for those who live in cold conditions) *Optional*
-Small Fish (preferably ones that work well with your tap water and don't devour plants) and of course fish food.
-Aquarium Chlorine Remover (Depending on your tap water quality), you could possibly need other chemicals depending on your water as well but they keep things pretty chemical free. An RO Filter would also work great if you're really trying to be chemical free.
-Gravel Substrate (the typical pea sized gravel kind, avoid sand substrates)
-Peat and Wood (these can help to naturally lower pH) *Optional*
-Invertebrates such as Malayan Live-bearing Snails (these will help to clean your gravel)

According to N.A. it's all about finding the right combination of fish, plants, lighting and invertebrates that will work best in your tank setup and your water conditions while trying to avoid filtration systems, chemicals and all that fancy overpriced stuff in between.

DIY Hairgrass Tutorial

Click to Enlarge

I haven't done this yet but I got the idea that hairgrass looks much like string up-close and thus thought this would be a neat idea after seeing the photo's of live hairgrass in the above aquarium.

What you'll need...

Flat Slate

Cotton or Nylon Sewing String (preferably 2 different shades of grassy green)

Aquarium Silicone

Scissors

Click to Enlarge

Step 1: Hold your slate in one hand.

Step 2: Wrap your string tightly around your slate, the more string you wrap around the fuller your faux hairgrass will look when you're done.
Step 3: Lay your slate on a flat surface with the bottom side up. Using aquarium silicone spread it over-top all the string, this will keep it all in place later. Let the silicone dry, this can take 24-48hrs.
Step 4: Once your silicone has dried you'll then flip your slate over. Take your scissors and cut the string apart down the center.
Step 5: Spread the string open off of the slate.
Step 6: To make your faux hairgrass look more realistic trim the string at different lengths. Rinse thoroughly once complete and place into your aquarium.

Fish Vs. Filter Intake

For whatever reason Mr. Moto (my blue veil-tail Betta) likes curling his tail around the filter intake and having his tail sucked up into the tube. He always does this intentionally, it's not like he doesn't realize it isn't happening, he even falls asleep and is perfectly content. However, in him doing this odd ritual his fins seem to be looking a bit rugged to say the least. Here's my quick fix to keep this from happening...

Cut the toe off a nylon pantyhose (you can usually get these for free at lady shoe stores), make sure it's clean of course. You'll want the piece to be long enough just to cover the intake on the filter tube. Once covered, keep in place with a rubber-band and problem solved.

Click to Enlarge

This method is also good if you have small fry that you don't want to get sucked up into your filtration. The downside is that this doesn't allow big pieces of debris to get filtered out.

Maturing Guppy Fry

As it's nearing the beginning of May, my guppy fry will then be reaching three months of age, they're currently around half the size of their mother (nearly one inch in length) and I am sure they're going to start growing more rapidly at this stage as they're taking on more food now. I have decided to finally clean out my other 10 gallon aquarium this coming weekend in order to have it setup before the males mature and begin chasing my females around (as I don't want to go overboard on the breeding ordeal right now). It appears about half my fry are male/female this time around. They all look very similar to their mother (showing a tuxedo body) which is slightly disappointing because I was hoping they would show different characteristics in order to better identify what their father looked like (perhaps he was similar to the mother in this case) but this could change in the males as they begin to mature more.

Cat Cubus

Sometimes you can find inspiration in the oddest of items and today I found myself feeling inspired by a Japanese soap pump. I thought "how cute if this was a fish tank" (as it's really hard to find a kawaii looking aquarium on the net). So, I decided to re-create Mr. Moto's Marina Cubus into something kawaii/cute.

kawaii soap pump

What you'll need to achieve my design below is ...

Mr. Moto and Marimo

Paper (I printed out the online image I used)
Scissors
Clear Tape
Glue
Fun-Foam Board (I used white and pink)
Double-Sided Velcro Tape
Marina Cubus tank or similar (if you don't already have one)

The Background
I found the face image online and edited it to fit my aquarium however, you could always design your own or take a sheet of paper and draw your own by hand. Cut out the image to fit the backside of your aquarium, place it on the outside of the tank and adhere it with some clear tape. If you can't laminate your paper background then be careful not to get it wet.

The Foreground
I thought it'd be cute to create and cut out animal ears with some white fun-foam board that matched my background. I then cut out two pink triangles and glued them inside the ear cutout. I then adhered the ears to the tank using some double-sided velcro tape at the top of the tank and the bottom backside of my ear cutouts.

I love how the Cubus light looks like it's the cats tail. I think this came out looking really cute and I hope you enjoy it to! BTW, aquarium filter and gravel is optional but I personally prefer it.