Christmas Decorations for Fish Tanks

If you're an aquarium hobbyist and you want to incorporate your pet fish into a family holiday like Christmas, doing so can be very simple. Decorating your fish tank in the festive spirit can be a fun activity for you and your family, and the tank will serve as a conversation piece when visitors come over during the holiday season.

  1. Lighting

    • Though blinking Christmas lights are attractive to our eye, they can be dangerous for fish and reptiles. Blinking lights can cause seizures in anything that has a nervous system, so they can be dangerous for people as well. However, with the delicate systems of fish, blinking lights have been known to cause fatal seizures. Avoid submersible lighting, as electrical shock can injure the fish as well. For an attractive and safe decorative light system, string non-blinking Christmas lights around the outer edges of the aquarium.

    Ornaments and Figurines

    • Christmas decorations can be put inside the fish tank to become part of the underwater scene. Glass Christmas tree balls look beautiful in the fish tank, as do ceramic nativity figurines. Create an underwater nativity scene using these small figurines. Avoid things like Christmas-tree tinsel and things with glitter and glue on them. These items can be very harmful if pieces are ingested by the fish. Avoid older ornaments that may have lead paint on them.

    Miscellaneous

    • Change the gravel in your fish tank to a color scheme that will match the festive occasion. Red and green aquarium gravel is easy to find at an aquarium hobbyist shop and can be mixed to incorporate Christmas colors into the tank. You can also make a fish-tank background using green, red and gold colored wrapping paper, which can be taped carefully to the outside of the back of the aquarium. It is important, however, to still include plenty of places for your fish to hide, because the change of habitat may stress them out.