Be a Specialist Aquarium Designer

Aquariums are an attractive addition to any room, whether it is a business waiting room or a living room in your home. This type of landscaping is an art form and is referred to as 'aquatic gardening' or 'aquascaping'. You can create and maintain beautiful aquariums for your clients, and charge a monthly fee for cleaning and maintaining them.

But there’s more to this business than selling pretty accessories for home and business premises.  That’s because watching a fish tank full of swimming creatures has been proven to lower blood pressure, and that is why aquariums can often be found in the office of a doctor or dentist. They calm and relax patients and customers and add beauty to the decor.  And that means you should make the health and relaxation benefits a major part of your marketing campaign for this business.

However, while the idea of having an aquarium appeals to many people, most do not know what temperature settings are best for specific species of fish, and that’s another problem for you to be paid to address.

Obviously, you will also need to design a landscape that is appealing to the human eye and which also keep fish happy and healthy. An aquarium that makes fish happy but which the owner thinks is ugly will ruin your business.

You’ll need to make design decisions based on the preferences of the aquarium's owner. Some prefer non-living plants in their aquariums, since they require less maintenance, and usually they look more attractive than imitation plants. But some fish damage living plants by chewing on them or tearing them out, and some fish may be allergic to specific plant species.  But even though they look less attractive and may make the water dirty faster than living plants, plastic plants are low cost maintenance, so you have to weigh up the features of living and plastic types before creating your designs.

You may be able to persuade the owner of the aquarium to use live plants by letting him or her know that living plants enhance the water quality of the tank, while also providing a healthier and more stable environment for the fish within. There is also a wider range of colours and textures with living plants and since live plants change in size, shape, and colour as they grow and thrive, the aquatic landscape will never get boring or stale.

Some of your design decisions will be based on whether the tank is supporting salt water fish or fresh water varieties, and you must also take into consideration the size and dimensions of the tank and how often the water it contains will be changed or cleaned. Since many tanks have problems with algae, you must be particularly attentive to keeping algae from destroying both plant and fish life within your aquascapes.

While most people only get to design aquascapes as a hobby, you will have the gratifying task of designing and creating beautiful aquarium landscapes for people who appreciate them, and you will make lots of profit in the process!