Aquarium Fossil Display

20 Gallon Aquarium

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I love how this turned out! Much prettier in person. This is a 20 gallon aquarium I picked up at a used store ofr $19.99 including the full hood with working florescent light! That’s a heck of a deal.

I bought some rather pricey blue shimmery plastic paper for the back. It looks like water.

This is an Ordovician fossil display, so I used Ordovician creatures. Then I printed fossil pictures I had downloaded from the internet and cut them out and taped them onto the paper, which I then taped onto the aquarium back. It gave the scene a 3D look.

NOTE: Most of the art is by Mike Menasco of theartisticindulgence.com Minneapolis. His link is on the right sidebar, check out the crinoid!

I purchased a bag of sand for the “sea floor”. Then I placed the fossils around with labels I printed on parchment cardstock. I even cut out a colored trilobite to be crawling on the sea floor. Great Fun!

Full Display

This is the full display as seen at the SE MN HBC Regional Tourism Center. The poster gives the basics at a glance and the chart to the right gives the ages so that people can easily see how old the fossils are and where they fit in the evolutionary time scale. NOTE: There is no water in it, but it is heavy! I built a simple wooden table for it to sit on with a shelf underneath and covered it with camoflage fabric.

This display would be excellent for a classroom, in a living room, or a child’s bedroom if the fossils are theirs–Great night light. 🙂