Aquariums that feature plants more than fish - The Dallas Morning News

Luis Navarro, lives in Houston, created a lush composition of Java fern from Southeast Asia, broad-leaf anubias and driftwood.

Only a corner of Drinda Jacobson's 95-gallon all-glass tank in her Joshua home is visible in the photo. At least 70 species of rare aquatics are included.

A view of Drinda Jacobson's 95-gallon tank showing its "mood lighting," meant to simulate moonlight.

Michael Parkey's 20-gallon aquarium, his first try at a planted tank.

The author's 40-gallon aquarium uses Texas limestone and easy-care plants. The silver-tip tetras are an active small schooling fish.

Java fern, cryptocorynes and pygmy chain sword plant populate Nicolai Kraltchev's planted aquarium. He lives in McKinney.

Drinda Jacobson of Joshua also keeps a 65-gallon rimless tank, in addition to her 95-gallon version. The fish are Congo tetras.

When I was a kid in the '60s, I had an aquarium. You might remember them: heavy steel frame with a slate bottom, air pump and filter that buzzed and gurgled constantly and a metal light fixture that got hot enough to fry eggs — or fingers.

Like most 12-year-olds, I was first fascinated by fish and had some success keeping them. But even then, my taste was for naturalistic underwater scenes, with subdued gravel, rocks and plants; no plastic treasure chests periodically opening to burp a bubble for me.

In a library aquarium book there was a photograph of a so-called Dutch aquarium filled with lush, colorful plants. That's what I wanted. But try as I might, plants never lived long. There was no one to tell me that the conditions in my aquarium would never allow plants to live, much less flourish.

I kept fish off and on until my early twenties, then gradually lost interest. I was never successful with plants and briefly was seduced by the Dark Side: plastic foliage.

Fast-forward 30 years to 2008. Talking with my Dallas friend Bill Larson (architect, Japanese-flute player and Renaissance man), somehow the subject of aquariums came up. Bill spoke of the work of the Japanese nature photographer and aquarist Takashi Amano.

An online search brought transfixing images of beauty and refinement. Some of Amano's aquariums are exceptional underwater scenes of lush plants, driftwood, stones and colorful (but definitely secondary) fish. Others were more surprising, showing miniature submerged landscapes with mountains, canyons, forests and meadows. Over these landscapes swam schools of small fish, looking like flocks of birds flying low over distant hills.

Shaped by his keen photographer's eye, Amano had united the aesthetic of Japanese gardens with new technology and methods for growing plants underwater.

Beginning in the early '80s, he created a new style called the nature aquarium, which became known all over the world through his books of exquisite photography. He made his techniques and technology available through his company, Aqua Design Amano.

Learning all I could on how this beauty was created, I found a bewildering variety of exotic equipment. Amano is coy when describing the technical side of his method in his books and internet publications, preferring to sell complete systems at premium prices.

Turning to other sources, I read about at least six lighting technologies, sophisticated filtration systems sometimes using five different filter media, automatic fertilization devices and how to provide extra carbon to the plants by pumping pressurized carbon dioxide into the water.

I was still hooked, yet completely overwhelmed by the high-tech tank. Planted aquaria seemed much too expensive and complicated a hobby for someone on a budget, and I resolved to forget about it. But Amano's images had created an itch I could not scratch. I continued to troll the internet, daydreaming about the beautiful planted tanks I saw there.

Behold, 'El Natural'

During one such fishing expedition, I found a method developed by Diana Walstad, an American microbiologist with a special interest in freshwater ecology. It is called by various names: natural planted tank, low-tech planted aquarium, even El Natural. Actually, it sounded a lot like the "balanced aquarium" theory popular in the early part of the 20th century that I had read about as a child. But Walstad applied current scientific knowledge about freshwater ecosystems to develop a simple method for growing plants (and fish) in home aquaria. And better still, she had written a tell-all book available to anyone for a modest price: Ecology of the Planted Aquarium. I ordered a copy.

The Walstad method is simple in execution but very sophisticated in its use of complex biological processes in the aquarium environment. At its core is a soil substrate — common topsoil or potting soil with a cap of gravel to prevent a muddy mess. This was the secret of the Dutch aquarium I so admired in the old book. Soil provides the usual macro-nutrients that plants need; nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and many micro-nutrients. In an aquatic environment, it also supplies another essential nutrient: carbon, in the form of carbon dioxide produced by the decay of organic matter in the soil.

Terrestrial plants can get all the carbon dioxide they need from the air. But carbon is in short supply underwater and is often the limiting factor in aquatic plant growth, hence the pressurized carbon dioxide systems in high-tech aquariums.

So a Walstad tank starts off with soil providing nutrients for the plants. But what happens when these nutrients run out? Here is where the fish make their essential contributions: fish waste and carbon dioxide. By feeding the fish (and other animals such as snails and shrimp), you put nutrients back into the system. Walstad did chemical analysis to demonstrate that all the nutrients necessary for plant growth are contained in fish food. Instead of worrying about extra fish food fouling the water (a bane of novice fish keepers), she feeds the fish generously, knowing that plants will use the excess. And plants return the favor by producing oxygen and by absorbing toxic nitrogen compounds from the water before they can harm the fish.

I am simplifying greatly. But doesn't this all sound a little familiar to you organic gardeners? Walstad is managing the nitrogen cycle in the aquarium for the benefit of both plants and animals. All successful aquarists do this in one way or another, but in a Walstad aquarium it is accomplished with natural processes rather than high-tech filtration and frequent water changes.

My thought: I can do this!

Diana Walstad even has provided a low-budget, low-commitment way of trying her method. In the online article "Small Planted Tanks for Pet Shrimp," she shows how to create a "nano tank" in a simple fish bowl, using a few cups of potting soil, sand, plants and the colorful freshwater shrimp popular in the aquarium hobby.

I set up two of them in my office window. They worked; the plants lived and grew, the shrimp lived and reproduced. I studied Ecology of the Planted Aquarium. I joined an excellent online forum, Aquatic Plant Central, which had good discussions of the Walstad method in their "El Natural" section.

I scoured Craigslist for a budget aquarium and turned up a rough-looking 20-gallon model with a filter and decent fluorescent light. I gathered my supplies, worked out a driftwood design and was almost ready to set it up. Then came another great discovery: the Dallas-Fort Worth Aquatic Plant Club. The club has its own section at Aquatic Plant Central, and a meeting was coming up at a member's home.

Unknown to me, one of the events at every meeting is a trade session where members bring extra plants to swap or give away (sales among members are not permitted). I came home with more than enough pass-along plants for my aquarium.

Horror stories about new tanks led me to expect a series of problems and setbacks, but they did not develop. Soon the fish were fat, the plants beautiful, and I had extras to give away at club meetings. The success of my first aquarium gave me the confidence to explore some of the high-tech methods that seemed too complex at the start.

At the age of 58, finally I had the lush, planted aquarium I wanted when I was 12.

Michael Parkey is a Dallas landscape architect and gardener.

garden@dallasnews.com

Resources

Japanese nature photographer Takashi Amano, www.amanotakashi.net

Ecology of the Planted Aquarium: A Practical Manual and Scientific Treatise for the Home Aquarist by Diana L. Walstad (Echinodorus Publishing, 2003; $34.95).

Dallas-Fort Worth Aquatic Plant Club (www.aquatic-plants.org) has monthly meetings open to all.

Aquatic Plant Central (www.aquaticplantcentral.com; click on Forum) is an international Internet site with sections devoted to the Walstad method, DFWAPC and many other topics.

DFWfishbox (www.dfwfishbox.com) is a local aquarium forum with a planted-tank section.

Where to buy aquatic plants

The Fish Gallery, Dallas

Dallas North Aquarium, Carrollton

True Percula, Arlington

Rift 2 Reef Aquatics, Flower Mound

See more landscapes under water.

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