The aquarium is considered by many to be an excellent way to find peace and relaxation from daily stresses and endless tasks and duties. There is an opinion that psychologically a house for underwater residents becomes that very water that can be looked at forever.
But the perfect picture for the eyes will not be such if you do not look after the aquarium and its inhabitants. And not everyone can afford care and control. Someone postpones the purchase of an aquarium because of the small children at home, someone just often moves, and someone is scared to take responsibility for living things because of their unnecessary or over-employment. And yet there is a way out, and it is called an artificial aquarium.
Features
Fans of marine subjects will like this acquisition. This is a beautiful product: an artificial aquarium organically fits into the interior. In particular, it will suit a room that is not yet well-lived. For example, in the living room there is the main thing - a sofa, a TV, perhaps shelves and racks. But the feeling of emptiness does not leave, in this case, you can make a bright decorative touch in the arrangement of the room, and an artificial aquarium copes with this perfectly.
It becomes a semantic point, a decorative accent, which in the future can be beaten. For example, such an aquarium can stand both on a pedestal and separately from it, being an independent design.
But to make the natural corner even more picturesque, you can put flowerpots with plants nearby.
Aquarium designs often play the role of walls or partitions; they can decorate a table or window sill. A dry aquarium is the common name for all products that look like reservoirs with the underwater kingdom, but do without water and living things in them.
By the way, the florarium can also be considered a dry aquarium.
Advantages and disadvantages
Almost all the advantages and disadvantages of such products are obvious. We can say that the main problem of a dry aquarium is that it cannot become a house for fish and other underwater inhabitants. But this is also its advantage: it is not necessary to take responsibility for living beings, while the decorative function is preserved.
Advantages of dry aquariums:
- light weight - it simplifies the search for a place for construction; such aquariums can easily be inserted into niches;
- visual effect - if the aquarium is also illuminated, it becomes the decorative dominant of the room, a small work of art;
- composition mobility - you can change it, add sand in different ways, change its shades, saturate it with a new decor;
- ease of maintenance - water does not need to be changed in a dry tank, just as it is not necessary to monitor the maintenance of its performance.
But nevertheless, the naturalness that exists in a standard aquarium cannot be defined in its artificial alternative. There will be no cute air bubbles, swaying underwater gardens, living fish.
You can compare a dry aquarium with an artificial fireplace: the decorativeness is high, the ease of maintenance is attractive, but there is still no naturalness and charm.
Varieties
The main division - built-in aquariums and remote. In the first case, the structure will be embedded in a wall, partition or niche. There may be a decorative dry aquarium in the tabletop of a coffee table, for example. They are built into the floor, and in furniture, and in pedestals. Remote structures are placed separately, placed on shelves, cabinets, racks, niches. There are also beautiful outdoor options for aquariums without water.
In shape, artificial reservoirs can be:
- spherical;
- rectangular;
- square;
- angular.
There is no doubt about the aesthetic characteristics of dry aquariums: they favorably emphasize the owner’s taste, preferences, and visual motifs for home decor.
Florarium can also be called an artificial aquarium, one of its varieties. This is a closed system that can be used as an illustration of the ecosystem.
An interesting and fashionable kind of artificial aquarium - compositions built into a niche in the floor. You need no more than 15 cm of space inside the floor so that the composition with the image of the sea landscape changes the interior of the room. If the floor thickness is not enough, it can be increased with a concrete screed or make a glass podium.
Structures built into the floor are experiencing a considerable load, since people walk on them, therefore, special requirements are imposed on the materials for their manufacture. The outer wall of the dry aquarium must support the weight of several people. Therefore, as a glass, triplex, a multilayer material that includes several glass layers that are bonded with a polymer, is usually taken.
Filling options
The tank itself would not make sense if it were not for filling. The main idea of such designs is to harmoniously select the decor in one container and enhance its visual brightness with competent lighting.
To form the bottom, you need to take suitable sand. You can mix different fractions of sand: for example, lay a finely dispersed composition in one place, make an island of medium dispersed sand in another, etc. Multi-colored layering looks interesting when the beige layer of sand is replaced by orange, followed by purple, etc.
The sand composition can be arbitrarily different: it depends on the imagination and efforts of the owner of the aquarium.
For additional decor are used:
- stones
- towers;
- corals
- mollusk shells;
- underwater trees;
- figures of jellyfish and fish (as living).
The choice for aquarists creating an imitation of the underwater world is very large today. There are many interesting bright artificial fish, which are really difficult to distinguish from living ones, crayfish, shrimp, frogs, algae. There are whole sets of decorations with dry crabs, for example.
Of particular note is the lighting of the aquarium. There are a lot of lighting options, color filters are also of considerable interest to the aquarist.
But the best and most preferred lighting is LED, it can create a reliable image of the underwater world, the most realistic.
Use in the interior
Very often, such structures are used as a room divider into zones. For example, the kitchen is combined with the living room, but you need to visually distinguish two zones. A partition is placed in which the built-in dry aquarium is located. It can be large (1 m by 1.5 m), such large tanks are usually bought ready-made: immediately with all the filling.
Also interesting may be such options for placing an aquarium.
- In the countertop of the coffee table. For a low but sufficient wide table, such a decor would be luxurious. If this piece of furniture is actively used in everyday life (for example, you arrange evening tea parties after it), the very appearance of the countertop will delight the eye and increase appetite. But do not overdo it: there should not be too much decor in different planes. If there are a lot of paintings on the wall, the table may look clumsy.
- On the floor. In the living room by the window or in the center, in the home greenhouse, a large outdoor dry aquarium will be very appropriate. A comfortable armchair and a floor lamp can be placed next to him to sit in this corner for reading and enjoy the coziness and beauty.
- In the nursery. Putting a real aquarium there may be somewhat premature, but its artificial version may well become an organic element of the room’s decor. Children love to look at the animal world, even if its imitation.
If you make high-quality lighting, an artificial aquarium can replace a nightlight, without the light of which many kids refuse to fall asleep.
Dry aquariums can be done independently. Starting with small glass containers filled with suitable soil, pebbles, shells, succulents and artificial marine inhabitants. They decorate the home, become a hobby for the whole family and a good distraction from technology, gadgets and household chores.
You will learn more about how to make an artificial mini-aquarium with your own hands.
