Plastic Aquarium Plants: Will Your Fish Know the Difference?

While some consider home aquariums to be little more than moving sculpture, other fish tank enthusiasts seek to replicate a natural habitat for their pets. The inclusion of plastic aquarium plants is often one of economy or necessity. While modern plastic aquarium plants look a lot like their natural counterparts, it is not just the casual human visitor that must be fooled. What do fish think of plastic aquarium plants? Will they know the difference?

Plastic Aquarium Plants - Techno Chic in an Organic World

Hanging on the wall in the pet store, shining in the glare of fluorescent bulbs, the plastic aquarium plants look awfully enticing. They are advertised as 'realistic' and 'just like the real thing.' You buy them, dig their cup-shaped roots into the fish tank gravel, and step back to admire their evergreen gleam.

When the fish first encounter the plastic aquarium plants, they may appear to be simply swimming about, gulping idiotically. But if you listen close, you may hear a different tale.

Plastic aquarium plants are green, or brown, or reddish, or flaming turquoise, and will stay that way forever. There are no artisticly decaying leaves on the underside of the plant. There are no brighter new fronds unfurling. The scenery is unchanging, inorganic, boring.

Plastic Aquarium Plants - The Wax Fruit Bowl Phenomenon

A carnivorous friend of mine once thought that setting out a bowl of wax fruit on the buffet table at the vegan community meeting was the ultimate in practical jokes. While none of them fell for it, isn't that what you do to your fish when you put plastic aquarium plants in the tank?

Many popular home aquarium fish are herbivores. That means they eat plant matter. While multi-color fish flakes and spirulina tablets provide some green material, a real green plant can entice an aquarium fish faster than anything. Providing plastic aquarium plants for your fish is the equivalent of replacing a Peter Luger steak with the box from a McDonald's hamburger.

Plastic Aquarium Plants - Can't Breathe... Getting... Dark....