Aquarium Decoration Ideas

Dutch Style
This style is characterized by many different types of plants with multiple leaf types. It’s commonly seen with raised ‘layers’, or terraces, known as Dutch ‘streets’. The floor is covered by either a carpet, or plants, with taller plants lining the back of the tank. Most noticeably, it usually has no hardscape—you won’t see much, if any, stone or driftwood in Dutch tanks.
Taiwanese Style
This isn’t very common anymore, and has in some areas fallen ‘out-of-style’ compared to the Iwagumi or Nature Aquarium tank. Nonetheless, it’s usually seen with high terraces of varying depth, and its strangest feature is small objects or figurines placed in the tank to create a sense of ‘life’.
Iwagumi Style
This is one of the most popular aquascaping styles today. It was first made popular by the Father of Modern Aquascaping, Takashi Amano, and is characterized by a series of stones arranged according to the Golden Ratio, or Rule of Thirds. There should always be an odd number of stones to prevent the layout from ‘balancing’, since the human eye always tries to see a ‘split’ in balanced layouts. There are at least three stones: a larger ‘Father’ stone, and at least two secondary stones. There can be more, so long as the total number remains odd. These tanks may imitate a natural landscape, with a common theme of simplicity and open space. There are limited colors in plants & stone, and the number of varying flora and fauna is kept to a minimum to create minimalism. Scale is very important in this style. Powder-type substrate is used to create a sense of larger scale, and the father stone should be the largest object in the aquarium. Nano fish like the Neon Tetra are also used to maintain the scale.
Biotope Style
This style seeks to perfectly emulate a natural environment, including water conditions, flora and fauna species, and even the hardscape of stone and/or driftwood. These can be quite beautiful, and are useful for some biologists to study environments that would otherwise be a challenge to study.
Oddly enough, these tanks are usually somewhat easier to setup and maintain, since there isn’t any research needed to determine whether the flora and fauna you’re using are compatible—they exist side-by-side in the wild.
Jungle Style
This style is somewhat self-explanatory. The goal is to emulate a jungle, whether that’s the Amazon, or some other location. They’re quite popular in larger tanks, where the full scale of the style can be effectively portrayed.
The Nature Aquarium
This style is the one you’ve probably seen all over the Internet, in various forums, and winning tons of awards. And for good reason—they’re breathtaking tanks. These tanks seek to recreate various terrestrial landscapes—hills, mountains, valleys, and so on. These are further categorized into various substyles, like the ‘island’ type, which features a stone ‘mountain’, or mound in the middle, or the triangular type, where the substrate and genearl flow the tank slopes down from one corner of the tank.