Rockscaping

[BROKER]

I decided to move some rock around and looking at alot of the tanks on this board it appears that many of you seem to have alot less rock in your tanks (could be the density) I have 50+lbs in my main tank but it never really looked natural. So last night i moved a large piece (approx 15lbs) to my refugium. My refugium is 30gal with rubble rock, assorted macros and clean up crew. Does anyone have opinions regarding ths? Good or Bad. Anything I should look out for?

I put a fresh bag of carbon a have left the lights off beacause my fish looked stressed.

 

[fishfarmer]

I'm in the school of thought "less is more" but I try to make up with less rock by using sand and caulerpa. Also lighty stocking the tank helps as well. I recently aquascaped a 55 gallon. I really didn't want a brick wall of rock. I think I have about 65 lbs of rock in there on top of a 4" sand bed. With the bed, the tank volume is more around 46 gals. Using the lbs per gal rule I'm close to 1.4. This tank does have a sump with a smaller sand bed and caulerpa as well as a skimmer.

I figure if I get more corals they will come attached to rock. I'm pretty maxed out on space though and this was a upgrade for me.

 

[SteveP]

I've got a 135 gal tank, and I doubt I conform to the pound per gallon rule. I also have a 5" DSB. The rock is stacked in the center of the tank's footprint so water can circulate all the way around. No rock wall look for me! I get adequate flow from just my sump return pump and one PH!

Steve
8{I

 

[jamesw]

I have a lot of pictures of my aquascaping at:

www.reefs.org/ops/jameso

That should help you out a bit. My tank is 120 gallons and I used 80 lbs or fiji rock.

Cheers
James

 

[BROKER]

jamesw,

Very nice set up. I reallly like how open your tank is. Before last night my tank was just a pile of rock. My main concern is that I kicked up sand and now have a huge piece of rock in my refuge.

I have a 3-4'' sand bed in the main tank but I have 6'' in the ref. and a sump that holds my skimmer and other equipment.

The lanscaping now goes from a large mass of rock to a smaller connecting piece to a space of sand and round piece on the right. It all kind of curves towards the front glass.

What to do with that 15lb of rock? Break it up and use it for attaching coral?

 

[Brad]

The focus of the tank should be 1/3 from either the right or left according to japanese garden landscaping. Breaking up a wall of rock into one large mass and a smaller separated one often looks nice. GL

 

[Merkur]

my 90 gallon has about 75lbs of rock shaped into on large mountain on the left and one slightly smaller mountain on the right which is just a bit taler. i like having the open space, and i'm sure my tang appreciates the swimming room. i hate the "wall of rock" look. this also leave lots of room for sps growth.

not a very good tank shot, but you can see the rock structure in the background prior to major sps stocking.

 

[BROKER]

Merkur,

Nice looking rock work. I love my tank even more now that I removed that big piece. More room for adding corals. I think I might be able to add another small fish as well. I have a tomato clown, coral beauty and a small cardinal. Any suggestions? I have decided to break apart the removed piece into 2 smaller pieces. I will break one into really small pieces for frags.

I see I am not the only one that has there desk right next to the tank! :mrgreen:

 

[eddi]

I am somehwat at the other end, I like a lot of rock. However I like crustaceans and lots of rocks allows for a multitude of crawling and hiding spaces for the various crabs, shrimps and lobsters.


Eddi

 

[Anonymous]

I'm about to aquascape my 180 and thank goodness I can't afford the rock for it right now cause now I can think about exactly what I want to do. I think how you aquascape should depend on what you are keeping. I personally like a lot of the substrate dwelling critters so I think I am going to make a good portion of my tank an open space. I also like the look of a small fish or group of fish swimming in and out of the crevices and caves of live rock so I will definitely have an area where the live rock is densely stacked.

 

[ShagMan]

I don't know if I would call this "aquascaping", I just didn't have enough rock. However, this is how I setup my 100G a few weeks ago, and I'm liking it:

http://shagman.org/hobbies/pets/100g-reef/P0004916.jpg
http://shagman.org/hobbies/pets/100g-reef/P0004918.jpg

... I didn't show these in the post because it's kinda wide, and would mess up the formatting here.