A garden under water.

Planted aquariums, aquascapes and balcony ponds. Built and installed in Mumbai.

A densely planted desk aquarium with driftwood and red and green stem plants, lit up beside a monitor and laptop in a dark room
Plants as the filter Cycled before handover Minutes a week

What I build

Different ways to put a living world in a room.

Each of these is a style I've built and kept running. Tell me the room, the light and roughly what you want to spend, and I'll tell you honestly which one fits.

Iwagumi aquascapes

Stone and carpet, nothing else

Iwagumi aquascapes

  • Just rocks and carpeting plants
  • One stone set, placed to a rule
  • Dwarf hairgrass grown into an unbroken floor
  • Pressurised CO₂ and real light

A shrimp bowl, or a shallow tank

Desk tanks

  • Two shapes, one square foot
  • Neocaridina that breed on their own
  • A 3D-printed cave and a hairgrass carpet
  • Cycled and settled before it leaves

A different kind of gardening

Balcony ponds

  • Gardening without the bending and trimming
  • Crushed lava rock over pond compost
  • Planted dense, read from above
  • Fish and shrimp that take Mumbai sun

Calm, and forever waddling

Goldfish tanks

  • The most underrated fish there is
  • Four feet and up, so they grow properly
  • Soft sand and rounded river stone
  • Pothos trained out of the top
Flowerhorn tanks

All personality, and good company

Flowerhorn tanks

  • One fish with more character than most pets
  • They learn your face and follow your hand
  • Simple hardscape, nothing competing
  • Sized for a big, messy eater
Office installations

Planted, curated, barely any upkeep

Office installations

  • Specified from the room out
  • Planted heavily so it filters itself
  • Automatic top-up, timed light and CO₂
  • Installed on site and handed over running

Anything else

Custom

  • A clean, empty, ultra-clear tank is a blank canvas
  • Any footprint, any room, any idea you've seen and liked
  • Drawn as a render first, so you see it before it exists
  • Tell me the space and I'll tell you what belongs in it

Past projects

Built here, photographed here.

Every tank on this page is one I built and kept. Some are still running, some were torn down years ago and rebuilt into something else.

An iwagumi aquascape with a dark stone set and a dwarf hairgrass carpet
An overhead view of a densely planted balcony pond
A planted shrimp bowl on a stand by a window
A densely planted jungle aquarium with driftwood and tetras
A four foot goldfish tank in a kitchen with pothos trailing from the top
A flowerhorn tank lit in a dark room over red gravel
The balcony pond on a Mumbai terrace, seen from above
A miniature house perched on rock above hairgrass in a planted bowl
A shallow shrimp tank themed around dinosaurs and ruins
The iwagumi tank on a desk with its suspended light
A red cherry shrimp grazing on dwarf hairgrass
A four foot goldfish tank with sand, river stones and live plants

How it works

You see it before anything is bought.

  1. Step one

    Tell me about the space

    Photos of the spot, roughly how much room there is, how much daylight it gets and what you'd like to keep. "Not sure" is a fine answer to any of it.

  2. Step two

    I send you a render

    A drawing of the actual tank in your actual space — proportions, hardscape, planting plan, equipment, where the cables go. Nothing is ordered until you've said yes.

  3. Step three

    I build it and set it up

    Planted and cycled before it travels. I deliver it, place it and start it in your space, then stay on the phone while it settles in.

Start here

Your tank starts with a conversation.

Answer what you can and skip what you can't. It builds a brief and opens WhatsApp with it written out. Attach photos of the spot in the chat — that's the most useful thing you can send me.

What are you after?
See the brief this sends
Send my brief

Opens WhatsApp with your brief written out. Add your photos in the chat and I'll come back with a render.

Details

WhatsApp & phone
+91 98201 29694
Email
[your@email.com]
Instagram
@aquascapes.mumbai
YouTube
@AnuraagDoes
Studio
Mumbai — [by appointment]
Lead time
Made to order — [2–3 weeks]

Watch first, buy later

The whole method is public.

Builds, failures and the unglamorous parts are on the feeds. If a shop won't show you how it's done, that tells you something.

What we actually do

A fish shop can't sell you this.

A shop sells livestock. It can hand you a fish, a plastic plant and a bag of coloured gravel, and it is very good at that. What it cannot do is build you a garden.

The thing people mean when they say they want a fish tank is a slice of nature indoors.

Dense, healthy planting. Water you can see straight through. Something alive on the other side of the glass that is different this week from last week. The plants are the filter, the layout is the design, and the livestock goes in last.

Calm in a room isn't an accident. It's substrate depth, light duration, CO₂, flow and the right plants in the right places — the part nobody mentions at the counter, and the whole of what you're paying for here.

The founder

Anuraag P Thakkar

Studied
International Business, University of San Francisco
Turning point
Falling down a YouTube hole of fish tank videos and landing on aquascaping
Based
Mumbai — builds, delivers and sets up in person
Publishes as
@AnuraagDoes and @aquascapes.mumbai
The rule
Fish first. If your setup won't keep something alive, I'll say so before you pay.

Honest answers

The questions the shop dodges.

How much work is it, really?

A few minutes a week: feed lightly, top up what's evaporated, look at it. Every two or three weeks, a water change that takes about twenty minutes. Less than a dog, less than a lawn, about the same as a fussy houseplant — with the difference that this one is doing something while you watch.

Why shrimp and not fish in the small tanks?

Because a square foot of water is small, and most fish sold for small tanks shouldn't be in them. Neocaridina thrive at this scale, breed on their own and eat algae. If you want a fish, a single betta is the honest option and I'll tell you what it needs first.

What if something dies anyway?

Message me. Most of the time it's one variable and a boring fix, and I'd rather walk you through it than sell you a replacement.

Do I need to know anything before I buy?

No. The piece arrives cycled and settled, which is the part people get wrong. You'll get the two or three things that actually matter written down in plain language, and me on the phone for the first few weeks.

Do you deliver and set up?

Across Mumbai, yes — I bring it, place it and start it in your space rather than handing you a box to figure out. Maintenance visits after that if you want them.

Tell me about your space