Most of the tanks were painted with a latex-based paint. All of the tanks in the freshwater section of our retail store are painted. In our aquariums and systems, we often paint the backgrounds directly onto our aquariums. Paint can effective if used properly but can also badly pollute the water if used improperly so I couldn’t write another entry without talking about it again. Paints and Enamelsīy far, the most frequent questions we received were about one topic…Paint. Unfortunately, in this case, the logo got a bit lost instead of highlighted but I kept it here just to show you the possibilities any glass, vase or bottle can be filled in a similar way in an aquarium to add some color and texture. Since the design on the glass was plain, I also decided to fill the glass with another colored gravel, blue in this case, instead of leaving it empty like the Hershey Bears bowl. Like with the previous tank, I would laminate this if it was more permanent or use a coordinating vinyl or adhesive aquarium background. ![]() For the background, I printed and cut out the smiling fish from our main logo and mounted it on a blue cardstock background. The substrate was a plain white gravel and I used a small orange plant as well. Since the design wasn’t colored, I used our company colors of blue, orange and white elsewhere in the tank. ![]() For this design, I used a pint glass with one of our company logos frosted onto the front. This approach makes a smaller aquarium for a desk, office or waiting room easy and memorable. While not all businesses have room or budget for a big, elaborate aquarium, many companies do have mugs or glasses with their logo and they are easy to have custom-made relatively inexpensively. I think that this DIY approach is perfect for businesses. As always, be sure to test anything you are thinking about using in the aquarium and check it regularly to make sure the design or glaze isn’t changing or becoming delicate over time in the aquarium. I would avoid using any mugs, plates or bowls that aren’t dishwasher safe since this usually means they have a less-durable decorative finish and might not be able to withstand being constantly submerged in your aquarium either. As a general rule of thumb, if the mug (or plate or bowl) is dishwasher safe, it is probably safe for the aquarium. Since coffee mugs are made to be used with hot drinks, most of them can be used in an aquarium like this. There are lots of websites online that have silhouette designs in everything from elegant chandeliers and damasks to Disney princesses or other cartoon characters. The colored gravel came from an old display tank at our store but I think any color that matched the room it was going into would look good with the simple black-and-white silhouettes. If this was going to be a more permanent aquarium, I would have laminated this background so it would last longer or painted it on instead (more on that later). For an aquarium based on this mug, I found a similar silhouette clipart image online and printed it onto paper that I could cut out to the size of my aquarium. I’m a fan of the silhouette trend and style and have quite a few of them around my home. While browsing through my cabinets, I also came across this mug that I picked up at a craft store for a couple dollars awhile back. You can also fill the glass, but we’ll get to that in another example. This is something to consider if you use this type of design since as the water evaporates, the betta could become trapped in the glass or might not be able to swim over it. If I was setting up this bowl permanently for a fish (which I might actually do because I rather liked the way it turned out), I would use a smaller glass like a shot glass or a taller bowl since the top of the pint glass is very close to the water level. The glass is sitting on the bottom of the bowl itself and I added the substrate around it to keep it in place. Since the logo on the glass is pretty solid, I left the glass empty except for some substrate in the bottom. ![]() For this one, I kept it pretty simple and used a glass pint glass I had for our local AHL team and my personal favorite, the Hershey Bears, as well as some plant substrate in different shades of brown. I’m personally a huge hockey fan and have done an NHL Philadelphia Flyers-themed betta in the past using gravel and a plant in their colors. I created a few different looks after raiding my kitchen cabinets for inspiration using a 2-gallon glass aquarium and a 1-gallon glass bowl but you can adapt the same ideas to aquariums of any size. This time, we’re going to get more specific based on some of the most common questions from your fellow hobbyists. In the first blog, we covered some general ideas for how to look at different objects as possible aquarium decorations. ![]() Our first blog on Do-It-Yourself aquarium decoration ideas seemed to get so many creative juices flowing that we’re back with some more ideas, tips and examples.
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