The Pond Aquarium

If you like to watch life in a pond, you can easily set up a small pond aquarium at home. It is much easier to maintain than a normal aquarium with ornamental fish, but none the less fascinating.

This Is How It Is Done!

Small containers holding a few litres are possible to use as basin. However, it must be possible to cover this vessel with a sheet of glass, as you don’t want animals like water scavenger beetles wandering around outside the aquarium. Apart from that, you don’t want dust accumulating on the water surface.

You shouldn’t expose the pond aquarium to direct sunlight, as this promotes the growth of algae, and everything will be overgrown soon. Best put it near a window facing north.

Washed sand or gravel is sufficient as ground, into which submerged plants like waterweed (Elodea canadensis) or milfoil (Myriophyllum sp.) are planted. Free-floating aquatic plants like bladderwort (Utricularia sp.) or duckweed (Lemna sp.) are suitable as well.

waterweed	milfoil	bladderwort	duckweed

The Inhabitants of the Pond Aquarium:

Before you put animals into the basin, always make sure that this species gets along with the other species in the basin. Never ever bring together too many animals in a confined space, since cannibalism may occur even between the most peaceful creatures. Water scavenger beetles, water bugs, mosquito larvae, caddis worms, larval mayflies, etc. belong to the species you can keep in an aquarium.

If you want to observe single animals of different species, it is often better to put them in different containers. Small, transparent plastic dishes are best. For example, dishes used for refrigerating food, which you can get in most departments for household goods. In these dishes you can often even keep sensitive species used to running water (e.g. stonefly larvae) without problems, if you only top them up with a shallow layer of water (1-2 cm).