15 Amazing Gift Ideas For Aquarium Lovers

Have you ever tried picking out a gift for a fish tank lover? Feeling frustrated after getting the same gift ideas over and over again? Or maybe your loved one is an expert aquarist and already has everything?

Don't worry! We've scoured the universe of retailers and come up with 15 great aquarium gift ideas for you to choose from. Even the most most demanding fishkeeper would be happy to receive any one of these gift ideas. So, without further ado, let's dive in!

Algae grows in all aquariums. There is simply no way to prevent it. There are many types of algae scrapers to choose from but one of the newest tools are magnetic algae scrapers. Regular hand-held algae pads require you to put your hand into the water and scrub the glass. Water sloshes around, spills over the side of the tank and your arm gets wet.

Long-handled algae scrapers often can’t get into tight places, especially around pumps, filters, ornaments and around live rock. Magnetic algae scrapers use a two-part system that makes aquarium cleaning easy. The external handle stays outside of the tank. It magnetically attracts the scraper pad that sits inside the aquarium. Just slide the handle across the glass.

The scraper pad inside the aquarium follows along, cleaning the glass. You’ll be able to clean those corners and hard to reach places. The Aqueon Magnetic Algae Scraper makes cleaning the glass quick and easy.

Aquarium fish love frozen foods like brine shrimp, blood worms and daphnia. But who has time to thaw out chunks of frozen fish food? The Innovative Marine Gourmet Defroster makes thawing and feeding frozen fish foods easy. The patent-pending 3-in-1 design attaches to the glass with a magnet, allowing you to place it anywhere in the aquarium.

Just drop a piece of frozen food into the chamber and adjust the pivoting portion-control port. Food is slowly released into the water. This means the fish have time to eat the food instead of it getting sucked into the filter and fouling the water. This is a great gift for any freshwater, marine and reef aquarist!

Fish food flakes and floating pellets are a favorite with tropical fish, goldfish and saltwater fish. The problem is water flow from the filter often pushes the floating food under the water, making it wet and mushy. It also can also get sucked into the overflow system and get caught in the sump. The Two Little Fishies magnetic Feeding Ring keeps floating foods at the water surface and away from water turbulence.

The food stays inside the ring and does not drift around the aquarium. The floating ring rises and falls with water level and wave action, but stays in once place. Your fish will learn to come to the feeding ring for flakes and pellets. Foods stay drier, keeping essential vitamins and minerals in the flakes and pellets, instead of dissolving into the aquarium water.

Reef aquarists have to add multiple trace element solutions like calcium, iodine and strontium, to keep their corals thriving. Consistency is the key to maintaining stable water chemistry in reef tanks. Reef aquarists dose supplements weekly or even every day. This can become tedious and time consuming. The Jebao Auto Dosing Pump does the work for you. The programable pump system will automatically add up to four different solutions to the aquarium.

The Jebao dosing pump allows for customization for each of the four dosing pumps. This means the pump will add just the right amount of each solution. You can also select how many times the pump doses in a 24-hour period. The addition of any supplement can be doses in small amounts several times a day, instead of one big “slug” added once a day. This makes it easy to add calcium, pH buffers, alkalinity boosters, magnesium and trace elements like strontium and iodine.

Freshwater aquariums with plants also benefit from automatic dosing of fertilizers, trace elements, chelated iron, liquid carbon and other supplements. The Jebao Programmable Auto Dosing Pump works with any size aquarium. This gift is sure to please anyone with a reef or planted aquarium!

A perfect accessory for a dosing pump, the 3 acrylic dosing pump reservoirs holds up to 4.5 liters of calcium solution, trace elements or any other kind of liquid supplement. The clear acrylic chamber makes it easy to see how much solution is in the container. You’ll never run out because you can see how much is left. Unlike tall soda bottles, cups and other home-made containers, this reservoir is stable and can’t be knocked over. It has enough capacity to last weeks before it needs to be refilled.

It also looks much more professional than old plastic soda bottles! The reservoir comes with built-in hose barbs for easy attachment to your dosing pump. Just slip your dosing pumps tubing to the hose barb. The square shape allows for easy placement when using multiple solutions and multi-head dosing pumps. Add as many reservoirs as your dosing pump needs.

Maintaining good water quality is essential for the health of all tropical fish and goldfish. Poor water quality often leads to fish disease problems and even fish loss.

Testing the water is the only way to know the health and condition of aquarium water. Aquarists who rarely or never test their water are often met with sudden disappointment such as sick or stressed fish, due to poor water conditions. Testing the aquarium water is like going in for a check-up. The idea is to detect any problems before they become a serious issue.

Unfortunately, many aquarists don’t like to use liquid reagent test kits. They just want to run a couple of quick tests and be done with it. Dip strip-style testing perfect for this type of busy aquarist. Tetra EasyStrips is a complete testing kit for all freshwater aquariums. The easy to use dip strips monitor chlorine, pH, general hardness (GH), alkalinity (carbonate hardness), ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

The dip strips are fast and simple to use. No complicated liquids or powders to mix up. Just dip into a water sample and compare the colors to the chart! Maintaining a stable environment is the only way to keep your fish healthy and the aquarium looking good. Tetra EasyStrips make it easy to properly care for your pet fish.

Having a saltwater or reef aquarium requires you have dissolve synthetic marine salts in water. It is critical to mix the seawater to the proper strength. Hobbyist-grade salinity measuring devices are often inaccurate. Professionals use a refractometer to mix and monitor the strength of saltwater in public, laboratory and zoo aquariums.

To test the water simply place a drop onto the refractometer, close the lid and look through the eye piece. The meter displays the salt concentration in specific gravity and parts per thousand (ppt). You’ll instantly be able to see the strength of the sea water by observing the measurement indicator line.

The refractometer is temperature compensated for accuracy. It can also be calibrated if necessary. A salinity refractometer takes the guesswork out of mixing up batches of synthetic seawater. You’ll be able to consistently make the seawater at the proper salinity with every batch. This will reduce stress to fish and corals, while reducing the time it takes to mix and adjust the batch of saltwater. Every saltwater and reef aquarists should have a refractometer. Once you start using a refractometer to make saltwater, you’ll wonder why you didn’t get one sooner!

The Coralife Biocube aquarium is an all in one aquarium system designed with plug and play simplicity. There is no need to shop for a light, filter, tank, etc. It’s all in one box! But this is not a bare bones aquarium. The Coralife Biocube is a sophisticated aquarium with a built in filtration and LED lighting system suitable for a freshwater and marine aquarium.

The programable LED lighting system simulates sunrise and sunset. LED lighting doesn’t use much energy and puts out a lot of light. LED lighting runs much cooler than traditional aquarium lighting. Another benefit is that LEDs don’t need to be replaced.

The filter system is built into the aquarium. Everything is easily accessible, at eye level. Filter media just drops into the chambers. No spills or drips! Changing filter materials couldn’t be easier. The integrated filter pump sits inside the filter. It stays out of sight and runs silently. The pump is small but provides plenty of water movement and filtration capacity.

The the BioCubes small size fits just about anywhere in the home or office. Coralife gave the Biocube aquarium a sleek, modern look that blends with any decor. It is equally at home in the bedroom or boardroom. It makes a great addition to the classroom too! If you’re looking to for a complete aquarium kit, the Coralife Biocube will make any level of aquarists very happy!

LED aquarium lighting is a perfect upgrade for old-fashioned fluorescent aquarium lighting. LED light fixtures save money and produces less heat. They use light emitting diodes (LEDs) that don’t burn out or fade over time. The Current USA Satellite LED light has a streamlined look and almost disappears due it’s thin profile. But the light is packed with features perfect for any freshwater aquarium.

The Satellite LED fixture comes with pre-programmed advanced lighting modes. The lighting will dim periodically to create rolling cloud cover effects. The Satellite can even recreate stormy weather complete with lightning strikes. There is an innovative evening mode that include lunar moonlight and dusk. You can even change the color of the lighting for special moods. This light will make the colors of freshwater fish “pop.” You’ll be able to grow freshwater plants because this light provides the right color spectrum aquarium plants need to grow.

This light even comes with a remote control allowing you to change and adjust all the features packed into this cool aquarium light. The sliding mounting legs allow quick and easy adjustments for a wide variety of aquarium widths. You can even use two light fixtures if you have a deep aquarium that needs bright lighting.

Aquarium plants need good lighting and proper nutrition to thrive. Without a continuous supply of essential nutrients and trace elements, plants become stunted, yellow and melt away. One of the main causes of poor aquatic plant growth is lack of essential trace elements such as iron, zinc and molybdenum. These trace elements react with oxygenated aquarium water and are rendered unavailable to the plants. The Flourish tablets are formulated to protect these trace elements inside the tablet while they are in the aquarium.

The elements are slowly released in the root zone, where the roots are actively adsorbing nutrients. The slow-release tablets provide a continuous supply of these essential nutrients to the plants. Unlike garden fertilizers, Seachem Flourish tabs are formulated with just the right nutrients, vitamins and amino acids for your aquatic plants. Each Flourish tablet contains these fertilizer elements:

The Flourish tabs are placed in the gravel, near the plant roots. The tablets slowly release the essential elements for uptake by the plants. The plant roots adsorb the nutrients and transports them throughout the plant leaves, stems and roots. The end result is vigorous plant growth, deep red and green coloration and a strong, sturdy root system. If you’re keeping live plants, be sure they’re getting all the nutrients they need to survive and thrive!

Reef aquarists are always looking for next hot protein skimmer for their reef aquarium. Removing dissolved organic compounds (DOC) from reef tanks is key to having a successful reef aquarium. An accumulation of dissolved organics, ranging from coral mucus to algae-based oils, work to downgrade aquarium water quality. Unlike the natural reef environment, these dissolved organics accumulate in aquarium water.

They cause a yellow tint to the water, which absorbs light energy needed reef-building corals. Accumulating organics stimulates harmful pathogenic organisms that lead to fish diseases and coral infections. Many bacterial and parasitic organisms thrive in organic-rich aquariums. Organics decompose, causing elevated nitrate and algae-promoting phosphate in the water.

The Bubble Magnus Curve 5 protein skimmer removes these organics before they can build up and cause water quality and health issues in the aquarium. The Bubble Magus Curve 5 skimmer is designed to be placed inside the filter sump. The Bubble Magnus has a curved body design, allowing for a smooth, non-turbulent transition toward the collection cup. This feature gives the Bubble Magnus an advantage over less refined protein skimmers.

The water pump is positioned inside the skimmer, making the footprint smaller. The needle wheel pump makes the right-sized micro-bubbles needed to create dry foam. The Curve 5 also has special bubble plate feature that reduces turbulence inside the skimmer, which increases skimming efficiency. The collection cup is easy to remove for cleaning. Bubble-Magus skimmers are famous for running silently. The Bubble Magus Curve 5, handles reef tanks up to 140 gallons. Dimensions: 9.25” x 7.87” x 20.8”.

Aquarium water quality can only be known through testing. Harmful pollutants like ammonia and nitrite are colorless and have no odor. Yet they are the major cause of fish stress and even death in freshwater aquariums. The API Freshwater Master Test Kit is the industry standard for monitoring water quality in freshwater tanks. The kit makes use of easy to use liquid test reagents. Aquarium water samples are added to high quality glass test tubes. Just add a few drops of the test reagent, shake the test tube and compare the color result to the comparison chart.

While some aquarists like the convenience of dip strip aquarium testing, nothing beats the accuracy of liquid test kits. With liquid test kits you’ll be able to measure and detect lower levels of important water parameters like ammonia and nitrite. These toxins build up during the first six weeks of setting up a new aquarium. They can also appear if the aquarium is over-fed or contains too many fish. Most fish loss and disease problems can be linked to exposure to a stressful situation, like ammonia and nitrite. Testing is the only way to protect against this tragedy. Here’s a list of water chemistry parameters you’ll be able to test for with the API Freshwater Master Test Kit.

These parameters will provide a clear picture of the health of the aquarium. The Freshwater Master Test Kit comes with extensive, easy to read instructions that simplify water testing. The booklet explains how to perform the test and what the results mean. The booklet also has high-quality color comparison charts that allow you to make accurate matches with the test tube. Budget test kits use normal printing for their color charts. API goes the extra mile and uses an accurate, high-end printing process so the chart actually matches what you see in the test tube!

The Freshwater Master Test Kit comes with a sturdy plastic storage case that keeps all the components of the kit in one, dry location. All these features are why the API Freshwater Master Test Kit is the number-one test kit in the hobby. Any freshwater aquarists would love to receive this test kit as a gift!

An All In One aquarium kit makes a great gift for the beginner or expert aquarist. Everything you need to start the aquarium is included, eliminating the need to piece together an aquarium, lighting system, and filtration unit. The Marineland 5 Gallon Portrait Kit is an exceptional value in the world of small aquarium set ups.

Unlike most budget aquarium kits, the Marineland Portrait is made of crystal clear glass. Cheap, plastic aquariums easily scratch and also suffer from distracting, distorted viewing phenomena. Even better, the Portrait aquarium is constructed with a bent glass front. This means the aquarium has no visible corners or silicone seams like traditional glass box aquariums. The Portrait aquarium will look great from any angle.

The Portrait aquarium has Marineland's 3 stage hidden filtration system built right into the back wall of the tank. No filters hang on the tank or under it. The look is very sleek and clean. The filter unit uses a Marineland Rite-Size Z Cartridge and Marineland Bio-Foam. The cartridges capture debris and also remove colors and odors. The Rite-Size filters contain activated carbon, which adsorbs organic contaminants from the water. The Marineland Bio-Foam helps maintain the beneficial bacteria needed to keep the water balanced and free of harmful ammonia and nitrite.

A submersible water pump sits inside the filter system. You can even adjust the flow rate to suit the needs of the aquarium. You’ll be able to create a fast-moving river or a quiet tropical pool.

The Marineland Portrait aquarium comes with a high quality LED lighting system. Unlike regular aquarium lights, light emitting diodes (LEDs) don’t burn out or fade over time. You’ll never have to change a light bulb or experience the flicker of fading light bulbs. The light fixture uses bright white and blue energy efficient LED light. The fixture is mounted in a hinged configuration for easy access to the aquarium. The LED light features a 3-way switch to toggle between white and blue, off, and blue only settings. The all white LEDs create a shimmering look in the water. This mimics the underwater effect of sunlight. The blue LEDs produce a relaxing moonlight glow, perfect for night viewing.

The Marineland Portrait aquarium kit comes with a unique glass canopy that slides to the back of the aquarium for easy feeding, adding water and cleaning of the aquarium. The aquarium sits on an attractive pedestal base. This easy to assemble kit is beautifully designed and easy to maintain. The Marineland Portrait 5 gallon aquarium looks good in any room of the house. It also makes a great addition to the office lobby or company break room.

How do you feed your aquarium fish on a holiday or business trip? Trusting a neighbor or relative can lead to disaster. Friends and family members are often too afraid they’ll over feed and won’t feed the fish at all. Others think the fish are always hungry and feed too much. The same thing can happen with an office aquarium. Employees over-feed, forget to feed and are absent during weekend and holidays. The longer you’re away, the worse the aquarium gets. The fish are either starving or excess food is rotting in the tank and fouling the water. All of this is stressful to you and your pet fish. Who wants to ruin a holiday worrying about their tropical fish?

All that is over with a Heneng automatic fish feeder! How does it work? Simply fill the food chamber with pellet or flake food. Pellet food works best. Set the timer to feed once or twice a day. Adjust the sliding food gate to set the amount of food fed at each feeding cycle. And that’s it! The Heneng Automatic Fish Feeder mounts to the top lip of the aquarium. You can place it on the back, front or side of the tank.

The automatic fish feeder is battery powered so even if there is a power outage, the feeder still keeps time and feeds the fish on schedule. The Heneng automatic fish feeder even comes with two AA batteries. Nothing else to buy! The large feeding chamber holds several weeks’ worth of food. You’ll have peace of mind knowing that your fish are being fed just the right amount of food while you are away from home or the office.

Want to take cool close up photos of your plants and corals? You could purchase a $5,000 camera rig, or you can slip an Orphek Coral Lens onto your cell phone camera! You may have seen cell phone lenses before but the Reef Aquarium Lens is special. Reef aquarium lighting has a strong peak in the blue spectrum causing photographs to sometimes turn out with a deep purplish tint. The Reef Aquarium Lens kit is designed with special optical filters that color correct the photo and make taking amazing pictures easy.

The Reef Aquarium Lens system comes with 4 premium, aluminium, optic glass lenses which are compatible with all single and dual-camera smartphones.  Included are an orange lens for correction of 15K LED lighting, a yellow lens lens to color-correct for 20K reef lighting, a wide angle lens, and finally a macro lens. These filters will eliminate washed out, blue images. Your corals and fish will look vibrant and natural. The Polyp Lab also comes with a macro lens for taking close up photos of your corals. The Orphek Coral Lens clips onto any smartphone or tablet. Theses nothing else to adjust or set. This lens kit will take your reef photos to a new level of vibrancy and beauty. Makes a great gift for any reef enthusiast!