Aquariums are pretty amazing. They are essentially taken for granted by many (although still fascinated) but if you stop to think about it, a fish tank is an entire ecosystem built into one box, complete with life giving water, food, bacteria, plant life, and more. To think that anyone anywhere has the power to build and support one of these amazing eco-system is mind blowing. In a way we are playing God to the fish, coral, and the entire habitat. The fish are usually merely ONE of the living things being supported by your aquarium though.
The variety of fish is vast and there is an incredibly complex variety of fish species, but it's actually possible to create a tank that has no fish in it and still enjoy it immensely! Many people look at fish tanks in stores and only really pay close attention to living things that moving around in the tank, the fish. The reality is that some tanks are completely alive. With the exception of the rocks (wait, some rocks may not be rocks but living creatures own their own) everything in an aquarium can be alive.
You could effectively create a tank that is 80% life and only 20% inanimate objects: the tank itself, rocks on the bottom (pebbles), any decorative items such as a treasure chest, fake plants, and other items. At first glance and without the foresight/knowledge, it may be hard to figure out what life is in the aquarium. There are actually quite a few forms of life you can put in your tank.
* coral for the rocks and underwater mountains
* water plants that help clean the water
* marine algae that forms naturally
* and the ever present "sucker fish" to eat and clean the algae
As you can see, it's pretty easy to have an aquarium that is full of life but doesn't contain what we normally think of as fish. You can, of course always add fish to this equation to add even more (or more obvious) life to the mix.
Some forms of plants are very active and move around much like a fish. The tentacles of some plants are fascinating to watch and although at first you may thing the plant is swaying back and forth due to the currents in the tank but the reality is that the plant itself is moving on it's own and it is creating the currents in an otherwise standing water tank. The benefits of this are that the water is essentially "stirred" up and makes sure that debris is filtered properly.
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