My Attempt At A Botanical Method Aquarium

Aquariums come in all different shapes, sizes, forms, etc. We all have seen them, sterile glass boxes turned into ecosystems.

When done right, an aquarium in my opinion are super rewarding. You can make low maintenance, high maintenance, etc.

Personally, I enjoy aquariums that closely replicate what the inhabitants of it live in nature. Like a biotope type thing.

I have definitely tried different styles aswell, but I really enjoy the ones that are low maintenance and look closer to how the inhabitants naturally live in the wild.

On the 24th June of this year I decided that I wanted to make a botanical method aquarium. Its pretty much like a blackwater setup (true blackwater generally uses RO water and really low hardness and pH). My tap water luckily is pretty soft and acidic. It has a low kH, gH, and standard pH which is good for these setups.

My tap water could easily go down to a pH of probably about 6.2 just with botanicals and aquasoil.

This is how I set it up:

I started with a 7 gallon tank that I picked up from a local fish store. It has a lid on it so any risk of jumping is eliminated.

I got ready some aquasoil, sand to cap it (inert), a small low flow sponge filter, and botanicals.

I started by making the hardscape, and in my mind I wanted sort of a peat swamp look. Dim lighting, deeply tannin stained waters, and lots of driftwood and sticks.

This is the hardscape I was happy with. It looks kind of funny right now but once it's all filled up and dark it should look fine.

I also sprinkled a bit of gravel on the brown sand to give it a bit of texture, although at the end it's barely visible so it's kind of useless honestly 😅

I went on to boil some assorted botanicals. These include assorted twigs, casuarina cones, bark, catappa leaves, jackfruit leaves, and mango leaves. They make a nice blend of botanicals that you would generally find in a Southeast Asian peat swamp.

I did this for multiple reasons:

1. Getting rid of any hitchhikers or pathogens on the botanicals

2. Getting the botanicals to sink

3. Making a sort of botanical tea that I can add to the tank for some extra tannins.

In a botanical method aquarium, the botanicals play a key part in the ecosystem.

Not only do they look insanely cool in my opinion, but they form the living ecosystem's physical foundation, pretty much driving the natural biological processes, chemistry, and food web rather than just serving as decoration.

Every surface of a leaf, twig, pod, etc. provides a home for beneficial bacteria, fungi, biofilm, and microbes. These organisms handle biological filtration naturally.

As botanicals slowly decompose, they release beneficial organic acids and tannins into the water, lowering the pH and slightly lowering hardness (in a tank like this the hardness is mostly lowered by aquasoil.)

Lucky enough, my tap water has a fairly low kH so the there is very little buffering to resist pH lowering. I think it is about 1-3 kH, 3-6 dGh, so pretty soft water.

Anyways, I laid the botanicals in and filled it up with water, and I realized how murky the sand was.

Not too big of a problem though, the filter will handle it and a lot of it is going to sink down to the bottom in no time.

I put in a few cups of the "botanical tea" that came from the boiled botanicals into the tank.

Naturally in these low light conditions, plants are sparse due to less light of course. So I went with less planting and only picked low light plant species that are naturally found in these conditions.

I went with:

- Cryptocoryne wendtii "green"

- Cryptocoryne sp. "Ponte Difolia"

- Java fern

- Java moss

- Red tiger lotus (unfortunately melted and never came back)

- Bucephalandra

- Water sprite

- Giant duckweed

- Salvinia minima

- Dwarf water lettuce

These were all planted sparsely and not in large numbers.

It ended up looking like this. Personally quite happy with how it ended up.

Eventually the floating plants will be the ones that do the best, as they have much more access to light and atmospheric CO2 in the air.

All I had to do now was sit and wait for it to mature.

I let it sit for about 5 weeks, and this is how it came out.

I absolutely love the way it turned out. It looks so good now

By this point it's pretty much ready for the sole inhabitant I'm going to put in here, as there's not much water volume but the fish I picked should thrive in an environment like this.

So what species am I adding? You may ask.

Here it is:

This is a wildtype Betta! I've always wanted to keep something like this. This is specifically Betta imbellis.

Betta imbellis naturally inhabits shallow, sluggish, low-oxygen, and stagnant freshwater environments like rice paddies or swamps across Southeast Asia, including southern Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, and parts of Indonesia (such as North Sumatra)

Photo credits: ECA Tranship

Photo Credits: Betta Botanicals

In the photo of the fish above, it just came from like a 5 day shipping so it is super dull and stressed. When settled in, it's natural colors are going to stand out beautifully.

I acclimated him to the tank and immediately after putting him in he instantly looked different.

This is literally like 5-10 minutes in and his blues and reds are already starting to kick in, I couldn't wait to see the colors come even more.

The very next morning, this is what I came to.

He looks absolutely stunning. Look at those scales! He definitely settled in well.

I love seeing these in natural habitats like these, and honestly Bettas are probably one of the most misunderstood fish in the hobby.

And yeah, that's pretty much it. The tank has grown in over time, and it's super low maintenance. The whole water chemistry thing works differently in acidic water.

With these conditions and the water column-feeding plants, I've done 10-15% water changes every 3-4 weeks with no issues.

After about 3 months (the time I'm writing this), this is what it looks like.

Looks really natural and is pretty stable at this point.

Also the giant duckweed has gone insane on the surface, I take out a lot of it quite often. Its not necessarily a bad thing though, keeps parameters in check and eats all the ammonium (non toxic form of ammonia in acidic water)

Their roots look fantastic underwater though

So yeah, that's pretty much all I've got to say for this tank. It was really fun and enjoyable to make something like this. I've never tried it before and it is really nice.

Anyway to wrap up this post, here are some extra photos: