For those who want an indoor garden but do not like to deal
with soil and potting, decorate with beautiful greenery growing in water in the
form of an aquatic garden. Nearly all of the plants that grow nicely in water
gardens are the low-light types, but all of the water gardens grow really lush
when they get at least four hours of artificial light every day, or when given
an occasional visit under the lights.
 |
| image via Wikipedia |
Vases, shells, decorative bottles, brandy snifters, or glass
bricks with openings in them offer suitable and interesting containers.
Philodendron, english ivy, dracaena, pickaback (tolmiea), nephthytis, pothos,
Chinese evergreen (aglaonema), and coleus are a few of the plants that flourish
in water. The plectranthus, a relative of the coleus, has a trailing habit
that's nicely suited to water culture.
Take out the plant from its pot, crumble the soil out, then
rinse the roots in running lukewarm water. Non-rusting needle holders would
keep big plants standing in containers. Stones and small shells may hold others
in place. Little pieces of charcoal will preserve the fresh water smell.
Colored glass, plastic bubbles, or bright beads add decorative touches to clear
glass containers. These truly bring sparkling translucent color under
agricultural lamps like Gro-Lux. If you raise tropical fish and aquatic
greenery makes up part of the underwater picture, place a fluorescent or
incandescent light on top of the tank and the plants will take on new life and
vigor. A lot of the fish take on fantastic coloring when lit with agricultural
lamps.
A 10-gallon aquarium tank would be lighted adequately with
one or two 25-watt incandescent showcase lights or a 14-watt fluorescent.
Several hobbyists believe they get the best results from warm white
fluorescents. If the aquarium is located in a cool, dark place, burn the lights
around eight hours a day. If it is in a sunny area or if algae forms too
quickly, bring down the size of the lights or the number of light hours.
Waterscaping a fluorescent-lighted aquarium can be a really
exciting. Right from the start there is this fascination while you select from
the host of suitable plants, most having strange-sounding names. For instance,
there is cryp-tocoryne, sword plant, vallisneria (eel grass), sagittaria
(arrowhead), cabomba (fanwort), myriophyllum (milfoil), nitella, water sprite,
hairgrass, anacharis (elodea), duckweed, banana plant, hornwort, and bacopa.