You may want to go planted if you want a natural look.
Good idea on taking out the castle, those "toy-like" ornaments really aren't for the serious aquarist (no offence to anyone, but castles and skulls aren't natural)
Sure it can still look good but nothing beats live plants and natural decor. Anyways:
Driftwood
You can get many types of driftwood, I have malaysian wood, there is also bogwood and many other types. Sometimes driftwood will leach tannins into the water, lowering the pH and make the water brown/yellow instead of clear. Some fish do prefer this, like tetras and other fish that like a low pH. To rid the wood of the tannins, boil it in a pot or soak it in a large bucket with hot water. Any wood taken from the environment instead of store-bought should be treated for longer and you should keep a lookout for pests.
Plants
Live plants are awesome. But there's also a lot of failure in live plants. You're going to want to start out with easy plants--java fern, java moss, anubias, anacharis, amazon sword etc. You should use fluorescent lights and try to achieve 2.5 watts per gallon at least. (# watts divided by # gallons). Incandescent is a waste, it produces more heat than light. Some plants need to be fertilized. You can get liquid fertilizers, root tabs, or a nutrient-rich substrate. Gravel is better with plants, as sand will compact and the plants may not root properly. You want to use tall plants for the background, some interesting and maybe red plants for middle ground, and use a carpet of moss or glosso plants for the foreground. That's just a simple example of what looks nice.
Rocks
I don't know much about how people judge the positioning of rocks, but they should look good, and you can make caves and hiding places by positioning them correctly. Some rocks can raise your pH. Pour some vinegar on your rocks before you place them in your aquarium. If the vinegar bubbles, do not use that rock. If it doesn't bubble, rinse the rock with hot water and place it where you like. There's a pinned topic on which rocks NOT to use.
Put a dark background on your aquarium--maybe dark blue or black. It brings out the colours in the fish a bit better. And a dark substrate will help bring out colours too.
There are many amazing aquarium pictures on the internet that are great examples of what you can do.
Whoa
that was like my most informative post ever.
/www.petfish.net/forum/index.php?boa...tart=0#lastPost
Nobody has the same tastes so...
. That's just my opinion though, I like to go for a more natural/realistic look. Some large pieces of bogwood would look cool or a combination of rocks, rose quartz looks stunning. A nice selection of plants would look great too. If you shop carefully, you can also get lots of nice fake plants and ornaments (caves, rocks etc) that look good, can be expensive though but better than the cheap stuff.
