Aquascaping a 7-gallon tank may sound simple, but it’s as creative and satisfying as constructing an underwater landscape for a larger aquarium. After years of working with both big and small tanks, I’ve come to see small constricting my creativity. Rigorous planning and intentional selection of miniature plants and fish have turned 7-gallons into a surprisingly immersive and rewarding experience. In this book, we translate that experience into a shared narration. Whether your canvas is a standard 7-gallon setup or even smaller nano tanks, small aquascapes can still belt out a symphony of satisfaction.
Reflecting on my initial forays into successful aquascaping transports me to the time and place of my first construction of a 7-gallon tank. Before that moment, I had no real knowledge or experience to speak of. What I had was a desire to create something, with no apprehension of getting it exactly “right” because, at the time, I figured “any tank that doesn’t look like a ‘fish bowl’ is doing well design-wise.” What kind of “design principles” led me, mostly by accident and with a good bit of serendipity, to that first successful creation?
The most striking aspect of a 7-gallon aquascape, to me, is its scale balance. Though larger tanks allow for grand, pan-like designs and bigger plants, as well as some serious arrangement potential with driftwood, a tank of this size demands feature selection and placement that has a deliberate quality to it. Whether it’s a few clusters of Monte Carlo carpeting that you can spy behind the glass or a big rock in an Iwagumi setup, there’s really no room here to hide with a feature that just sorta hangs around.
For me, crafting a small tank aquascape is akin to creating a miniature art piece—the composition must be understood and considered at every level for a final appearance that’s coherent and harmonious. Even more than with larger setups, each decision magnifies itself in a small space. One of my favorite 7-gallon setups is a minimalist Iwagumi arrangement featuring just three impressive Seiryu stones, a medium that’s rare in this country, and a simple dwarf baby tears carpet—two types of aquascape plants. At first, this setup looks simple, but it actually employs some rather skilled optics and excellent knowledge of plant light needs.
Of course, creating a balanced aquarium is not just about plants and hardscape. It is really about knowing what equipment to use and understanding how it should function in your tank’s ecosystem. You don’t need a monster filter to keep a 7-gallon tank healthy, but some filtration is absolutely necessary if you want the water to be of a consistent quality, which is necessary to keep all of the life in the system happy. In my own 7-gallon tanks, I have always found success with small, reliable sponge filters or mini external canister-like filters that deliver decent water movement but do not disturb the system’s nice calm waters.
Conversely, I have used a filter that was just too strong for my 7-gallon setup. Even at the lowest setting, it made more than enough current to ruffle my plants and disturb the visual aspect of what I was trying to maintain.
An aquascape of 7 gallons can be effortless yet beautiful. Any arrangement of rocks, driftwood, or so-called “hardscape” components can serve as a foundation or backbone for an aquascape. These structural elements do not serve as true habitats for the animals that live in the tanks. For the ecosystems in these glass boxes of beauty to thrive, the plants also have to serve a purpose beyond appearance. In an arrangement of plants in the home tank, function should precede form. Whether plants grow on aquarium rocks, in soil, or in a true hydroponic arrangement, those plants must perform essential life processes for the ecosystems to thrive.
I usually begin with the basis of the design, which is the hardscape. In a small aquarium, every choice counts, and I am biased toward using natural materials that have character. Seiryu stone and Dragon stone are the kind of materials I like to use. I ensure that my hardscape makes sense for the aquarium’s proportions. In a 7-gallon tank, fewer hardscape elements have proven to be a winning design strategy for me. I think the reason is that there’s more space for the eye to travel between the distinct focal points of the hardscape.
At one point, I tried to cram too much into a 7-gallon tank. My gaze was unfocused, pulled in several directions, and the whole thing screamed chaos. I learned that a piece of driftwood placed to eye-catching perfection or a trio of rocks arranged with just the right touch of randomness was far more “natural” in appearance and more “aesthetic” in any number of traditional categories. These days, when I construct the insides of my tanks, I often find my inspiration in Japanese rock gardens.
Yet another test of creativity and decision-making has been thrown my way in the form of selecting appropriate plants for a 7-gallon aquarium. Choosing the right plants, while maintaining the necessary perimeters for a gorgeous aquascape, is a fun challenge. I see it as a low-stakes problem that could yield a serious wow factor and a beautiful piece of living art if I can succeed. The plants’ main potential trouble afflicting factors—light and carbon dioxide—are my main problems to solve if I hope to coax any of these beauties into plant growth and plant life above the minimum necessary.
The plants have to tolerate what I have for sunlight and sunlight substitutes while being the kinds of plants that top any list of candidates for an “aquascape” that “looks good.” Most of the plants I might use are beginner plants with comfort zones that cover the parameters of my poor lighting and plant availability.
One cherished plant story is about my first attempt—unsuccessful, it must be said—at raising the more high-maintenance Rotala wallichii in one of my early 7-gallon tanks. The Rotala, despite my ineptitude, grew to a tall, slender state that, um, shamed my hardscape into looking like an adequate but not very attractive scape. The light level, almost certainly, was too low to allow for the kind of visuals one wants from an aquascape (and the number of times I tried to keep the tank looking clean and presentable might actually indicate that I had too much light, accounting for how much was emphasized in my failed attempts to right the ship), so the Rotala was really too delicate a plant for the situation I had put it in.
Anubias nana petite and Java fern would have been much better choices for plants, given the kind of fun and (un)problems I managed to (mis)solve with that tank.
In a 7-gallon tank, having livestock that can really put on a show is optimal, but the reverse is also true: We want anything in the tank to be able to school or otherwise visually enchant us while maintaining the tank’s stability. While we have used the term “nano,” which is often applied to aquascapes in small tanks, we have not yet defined for ourselves the technical parameters that make up a nano aquascape. However, it is safe to say that what makes up a nano tank—small in both footprint and volume, yet home to a stable and appealing aquatic landscape—is what we want our trees in a 7-gallon to achieve for us.
Bear in mind that water quality can alter rapidly in a 7-gallon tank, so you must keep the water and change it regularly. I keep a watchful eye on the parameters that reflect the tank’s overall health, like ammonia and nitrate concentrations. Too many unhealthy organisms, failing life-support systems, or too much excess food can lead to levels of these compounds that are murder on plants and fish. Lighting is often the most hotly debated topic among aquascapers. (There aren’t too many topics more ripe for vigorous debate, in my opinion.) I usually tend to use ‘medium’ lighting. For me, this is lighting that, conversely, isn’t so strong that it’s guaranteed to grow algae faster than I can keep up.
In many of my seven-gallon aquascapes, I prefer an approach that does not use pressurized carbon dioxide. An unpressurized, low-tech setup is by far the most accessible option for aquarists who don’t want to invest in all the equipment that a more elaborate tank demands. It also keeps simple maintenance simple and lets me have a little control over things without the need for constant vigilance. Riverine plants like Elodea, Anubias, and Cryptocoryne thrive in my setups. But if my goal were a dendritic carpet of dwarf baby tears or a Monte Carlo, I think a pressurized CO2 system would be a necessity.
A couple of setups ago, I experimented with a nano CO2 kit designed for smaller tanks. It worked well but required a kind of attention that I was unsure I wanted to give.
I’ve learned patience from aquascaping, particularly in smaller tanks. You might think that setting up a 7-gallon aquascape would be as straightforward as filling a 7-gallon bag with sand. But the successful setting-up of such a small-scale arrangement hinges on the careful and kind of close-up observation of changes over time that you might make to a larger setup—and, like those larger setups, ores also have a kind of patience that might be musical to some kinds of ears. Indeed, my first few small tanks have looked more like beginner’s clay pots (in artistic terms) than any of the woodwind or string ensembles you’ve seen on social media.
I remember waging a battle against bright green algae for the first month of a 7-gallon tank project. I had an ambitious layout of plants—several of which were newcomers to my repertoire—and I was experimenting with a new kind of timer to control the light. When it came to our little tank, I suspect that I created the perfect conditions for algae to thrive. Initially, I contemplated starting over, but I resisted that urge and applied a light-handed approach instead, using some Amano shrimp as my main new tank residents and letting time do the rest. After a few more weeks, I was pleasantly surprised: the algae started to disappear on their own.
A great reminder that, even in a “small” project, time is a necessary ingredient for achieving “equilibrium.”
It’s just as important to recognize the development of your aquarium over time. A thoughtfully constructed 7-gallon aquascape will evolve in surprising and sometimes dramatic ways. Plants will grow and look different, hardscape will shift, and in some ways, the overall layout might seem to come apart at the seams as the layout grows into something much more organic and, in my opinion, much more impressive. What might look clear and well-defined can take on a new aspect when it becomes unfurling and free-flowing—a much more natural state.
If you seek any reasonable opportunity of achieving a long-term perfect aquatic environment in an aquarium for the fish you have, it is absolutely essential to carry out regular maintenance of the tank. Maintenance will prevent one species from taking over a part of the tank habitat. It will keep the algae in check and prevent any shoreline war with a rising tide of sea greens. It will keep the water in a reasonable state such that the fish are not swimming in anything even approaching half-drunk conditions.
In conclusion, a beautiful 7-gallon aquarium is something that can be both attempted and accomplished by a couple of clear means and abilities—us. My husband and I don’t lack the clear means and abilities necessary to tackle the project, so we decided on the attempt and came close to achieving the successful result we sought. Our aquarium is, if nothing else, a piece of wall art that has yet—considering its youth—to offer us anything close to “endless” happiness; however, it has given us countless in-the-moment smiles. And whether you go for the minimalist Iwagumi look or a verdant jungle, the key to small-aquarium success is “balance.”
