I’ve always thought that creating an aquascape is a bit like painting, except the canvas breathes and grows and sometimes decides to completely ignore what you had in mind. That’s part of the magic though, isn’t it? You’re not just making something pretty—you’re building a living system that evolves with or without your permission.
Last month, I was working with a client who kept changing her mind about what theme she wanted. First it was an Iwagumi layout (all minimalist with rocks and simple carpeting plants), then suddenly she was showing me pictures of Dutch aquascapes bursting with colorful stem plants, and finally she settled on wanting an “underwater jungle” but “not too messy.” I spent three hours at her house, drinking too much coffee and sketching different layouts while her cat repeatedly tried to knock my pencils off the table. By the end of it, I realized I’d basically given her a crash course in thematic aquascaping approaches.
So I figured, why not share some of what I’ve learned about creating different aquascape themes after fifteen years of wet arms and occasional mild electrical shocks? Fair warning though—I’m not going to pretend there’s only one “right” way to create any of these styles. The aquascaping police aren’t going to break down your door if you put the wrong stone in your Iwagumi.
Trust me, I’ve broken plenty of “rules” and somehow lived to tell the tale. Let’s start with Nature Aquariums, the style that Takashi Amano pioneered and that honestly changed my whole perspective when I first discovered his work. I’d been creating tanks for years before I saw one of his books, and it was like someone had suddenly shown me that my stick figure drawings could be transformed into Renaissance art.
The basic principle here is recreating natural landscapes underwater—mountains, valleys, forests—using stones, driftwood, and plants that create a sense of scale and perspective. The trick with Nature Aquariums that took me FOREVER to figure out (seriously, like three years of frustration) is that they’re built on contrast. You need to vary textures dramatically—fine-leaved plants against broad leaves, smooth stones against rough wood, dense planting against open spaces.
My first attempts were total failures because I tried to make everything look “nice” together. Turns out, nice is boring. You need those jarring differences to create visual interest.
Water flow is another thing that makes or breaks a Nature Aquarium. I once created what I thought was a masterpiece for a gallery showing, only to realize two days before the event that I’d set up the filter output to blast directly into my carefully arranged hairgrass, creating this bizarre bald patch right in the middle of my underwater “meadow.” Spent a panicked night reconfiguring the entire hardscape to hide the damage. Lesson learned: plan your equipment placement BEFORE you get all artistic with the plants.
Moving on to Dutch aquascapes—the style that takes “high maintenance” to new and exciting levels of obsession. These tanks are all about the plants. Lots and lots of plants.
Specifically, stem plants arranged in groups (or “streets”) with careful attention to color, height, and leaf shape. It’s like creating a perfectly manicured garden where everything has its place. Here’s something nobody tells you about Dutch tanks: they’re basically a part-time job.
The amount of pruning required to keep everything in its proper place is insane. I set one up in my living room last year because I apparently hate having free time. Every Wednesday night is now dedicated to trimming, replanting tops, removing lower stems, and generally fussing over it like it’s a bonsai on steroids.
My partner has started scheduling “date night” specifically around my tank maintenance schedule, which is both supportive and slightly concerning. The lighting demands for Dutch styles are also intense. You need serious PAR values to get those red plants actually staying red instead of turning that sad green color that makes you question all your life choices.
I’ve literally installed light fixtures that made my apartment look like a UFO was landing whenever I turned them on. Had to start doing maintenance wearing sunglasses like some kind of aquarium celebrity. Biotope aquascapes are a whole different animal—literally.
The goal here is accuracy to a specific natural habitat, which means researching exactly what plants and hardscape materials would be found together in nature. No mixing Amazon swords with Asian crypts, no matter how pretty they might look together. It’s all about geographic authenticity.
My favorite biotope I ever created was a Rio Negro blackwater setup, complete with seed pods, botanical litter, and tannin-stained water the color of strong tea. The client who commissioned it was horrified when I unveiled it. “Where are the plants?
Why is the water BROWN?” It took an hour-long lecture on the ecological conditions of blackwater rivers and the specific adaptations of the fish he wanted to keep before he reluctantly agreed to give it a chance. Three months later, he called to tell me it was his favorite tank ever and he was now collecting botanical specimens to add to it. Converting someone to the beauty of tannic water felt like winning an Olympic medal.
For Iwagumi layouts—the minimalist rock gardens of the aquascaping world—the main technique is, paradoxically, restraint. Everything about an Iwagumi should feel deliberate and essential. The hardscape follows ancient Japanese art principles about stone placement, with each rock playing a specific role in the composition.
Master stone, secondary stones, tertiary stones—it’s like casting actors for very specific parts in a play. I’ll admit something embarrassing: the first time I tried to create an Iwagumi, I spent six hours arranging three rocks. SIX HOURS.
My roommate at the time thought I’d lost my mind. He kept walking past me as I sat on the floor, moving stones a centimeter this way or that, muttering to myself like a madman. “They’re just rocks, dude,” he said around hour four.
But they weren’t just rocks—they were the entire structural and emotional foundation of the aquascape. The plants in an Iwagumi are supporting actors; the stones tell the main story. Speaking of plants, carpet plants are the backbone of most Iwagumi layouts.
Growing a perfect carpet is an art form that’s reduced me to tears on more than one occasion. The key technique is patience (not my strong suit) and aggressive trimming from the start (more my style). You have to trim early and often to encourage horizontal growth instead of vertical.
I once tried to take a shortcut by planting a pre-grown carpet from one tank into a new Iwagumi. Looked perfect for exactly two days before the whole thing detached from the substrate and floated to the surface like some kind of bizarre green iceberg. No shortcuts in this hobby, apparently.
Jungle styles are my guilty pleasure because they break so many compositional “rules” while still creating something magical. A proper jungle tank is deliberately overgrown, with plants allowed to reach for the surface, wood disappearing beneath moss and epiphytes, and a sense of wild abandon. The technique here is controlled chaos—you’re still making deliberate choices about placement, but you’re planning for how things will grow in and over each other.
The biggest mistake I see with jungle tanks is impatience. People want that overgrown look from day one, so they cram the tank full of plants from the start. Three months later, everything’s a tangled mess with poor circulation, dead spots, and algae issues.
A good jungle tank needs to grow into its density. Start with maybe 60% of the planting you think you want, and let things fill in naturally. Your filter will thank you.
Finally, there’s the landscape style (or diorama aquascape) that tries to recreate specific terrestrial scenes underwater. Mountains, deserts, forests, even urban settings—I’ve seen incredible underwater versions of all these. The technique here is all about creating forced perspective and illusions of scale.
You might use smaller-leaved plants in the background to suggest distance, or position hardscape to create the impression of a much larger scene. I attempted a mountain landscape tank last year using seiryu stone and dwarf hairgrass to create the impression of an Alpine meadow with rocky peaks. Looked fantastic in photos.
What the photos don’t show is that one of the “mountains” collapsed during filling, crushing half the plants and sending mud clouds throughout the tank. I had to drain it completely, replant, and try again. Sometimes I think this hobby exists specifically to teach me humility.
Whichever theme speaks to you, remember that techniques can be learned, but the most important ingredient is time. Not just the hours spent arranging hardscape or planting stems, but the weeks and months of growth, adjustment, and evolution that follow. An aquascape is never really “finished”—it’s just at different stages of becoming whatever it’s going to be.
And honestly, that’s what keeps me coming back to my tanks night after night, scissors in hand, peering into these little worlds I’ve had the audacity to create.
