For the last few weeks, I’ve been planning to set up an aquascape on my desk at work. An aquascape is just a live plant and rock set up in a tank or bowl intended to mimic the wild. I’m also adding driftwood to mine. I’ll talk about the wood in Part 2.

I have an extremely large fishbowl that I’ve had for about 20 plus years. I don’t even know where I got it, and honestly, I don’t remember ever keeping anything in it before. When I lived at home, I became a tropical fish hobbyist at an early age and at one time had up to 17 tanks. The hobby fizzled out when I had to move away to college. I left one twenty-gallon tank back home which my mom still tends to today. But the kid in me still likes to browse the live fish tanks in the pet store every time I go there!

Several years ago I came across the bowl in Mom’s storage closet and brought it home with me. I stowed it away and forgot about it, but after setting up the tanks in my basement back in August to bring my white cloud minnows inside this year, the fish bug bit me and I’ve been obsessed with following other aquascape enthusiasts on Instagram. So, I am finally putting this bowl to good use.

I’d probably have 17 tanks again if I had space and my partner was more willing to let me do it! The bowl had some white marks on it which was just calcium build-up from hard water. Those were easy to remove by washing the bowl with some vinegar.

I’ve spent weeks just browsing online and learning about set up which is half the fun! First up, choosing gravel for the bottom to anchor plants. I bought this 5 lb bag of river pebbles on Chewy.com for just $3.98. I’ve always preferred a natural look in my tanks and that’s definitely the look I’m going for being an aquascape. I washed the pebbles yesterday to remove dust and added them to the bowl.

Next up is the driftwood and live plants. More about that later.