This the little story a weekend project to add more of a soul to my computery-workspace at home. The result has really delighted me and I’m already well in to plotting out a similar project for my office. I’d suggest those who are considering such a project themselves should jump in to it!

The Story of the Desktop Aquarium

Lately I’ve been itching to setup a Terrarium of sorts. I found this website and it got me fairly excited on a few levels. I ordered a bunch of Bonsai seeds (mostly Japanese Maple variants), but my short-term drive to set up a little world of life remained.

After viewing all the neat and bizarre terrariums on that website I mentioned, I was starting to take notice of some of the glassware my “better half” occasionally hordes. A beautiful fat 4L jug/jar thing really caught my eye and away I went, on a relaxing tangent to get a funky desktop aqarium up and running.

In blog-geek style, I naturally took photos at various stages of the project. I had set out to have something full of life but also fairly self-sufficient. I therefore decided to have some aquatic plants before anything else. Then I thought, well, I may as well huck a fish in there too – afterall the fish should help provide CO2 to the plants and the plants can suppliment the O2 that a Betta (or similarly hardy fish) could just grab from the surface as needed. Anyway, I dumped about $40 in to plants, rocks, water treatment stuff, plant food and the fish itself. Seperately I added a grow light on a little timer thing to help the plants get the necessary rays.

This site also has some cute Terrarium tips..

So, how would you arrange your own desktop aquarium?

Some Photos