aquascaping suggestions?

[krullulon]

alrighty... my uncured rock has been doing its business and now it's cured and i need to aquascape the tank -- it's just stacked randomly in there right now. wondering if anyone has general advice based on my tank shape and my current rock selection...

tank is 90g 36Lx24Wx24H acrylic tank with a black background. there's currently no sand, but when i do the aquascaping i'm going to add a shallow bed of about an inch.

rock: about 9 pieces of marshall island (about 120 lbs), and the notable thing here is that i have 2 large flat pieces that are about 20 [edit: i just did a quick measure and it's more like 16, not 20] inches long and across. you can kinda see them in the pics -- first pic is the front view, second is the right-side view and third is the left-side view. in these pictures, the 4 rocks on the bottom are the larger ones, then the two mondo flat pieces, then 3 smaller pieces on the top.

i'm also going to try and only pull-out the two large flat pieces and stick 'em in a saltwater tub while i'm restacking, because the other rocks are growing sponges like crazy and i'd love to try and not have them hit any air.

i know it's really tough to visualize without actually seeing and fiddling with the rocks, but does anyone have any general suggesions based on my descriptions and the fact that two of the pieces are large flats? i have a few ideas, but i'm not great assembling shapes in 3 dimensions... i'm missing some critical spatial relations neurons.

any suggestions welcome, thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

Hmmm...I'd like a crack at that. It's kind of tough to tell, but you look to have some pretty interesting shapes in there If it's going to be a reef, utilize the flat pieces for shelves to support certain corals. If you have some plain, simple pieces, I'd use these as base supports and keep the "better" pieces in open view. It's a short tank and I'm wondering if you might even have too much rock. Twice in the last month, I've thinned out my LR from my 120. I had close to 140 lbs and it is a 5 ft. tank. I've sold off close to 30 lbs and what a difference! More light hitting previously shaded areas, improved circulation, and more open spots for the fish to maneuver about. I put a little bit in my sump too. Just a thought. I think given the length of the tank, a single rock structure in the center, with perhaps a couple random pieces flanking it on the bottom. I'm rambling now but have always been intrigued by these challenges. Maybe keep your most desireable pieces and try it with a bit less rock, adding it back as you see fit.

 

[liquid]

You might look thru some of our old Featured Aquariums in Advanced Aquarist: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/index/

Shane

 

[krullulon]

thanks! i'm taking both suggestions: i'm going to start out using only one of the large flat pieces, and i got some good ideas from looking at past featured aquariums (even if my 90 doesn't really present as many options as the 300+g featured behemoths).

i did discover that 24" wide should be enough for me to build a little rock pyramid so fish can swim the entire perimeter of the tank -- so i'm going to try and not stack the rock up the back of the tank, but rather have the large flat piece sitting on the smaller rocks in the middle of the tank as a base, and then use the larger rocks to build up a pyramid with some pass-through caves that peaks in the center of the tank. since the viewing is 270 degrees, this might be cool...

thanks again!

 

[wade1]

You can also use acrylic/pvc pipe as dowels and with a simple mortar bit, you can create some very interesting structures.... and without the risk of the rock falling to the bottom of a substrate-less tank!

Wade

 

[ADS]

You have some nice pieces to make shelves at different levels. Varying the spacing will allow for flow through the rock and places for fish to traverse.
I prefer the 'pillar' aquascape-creating tall, multilevel shelves to keep a variety of corals.
Adam

 

[hillbilly]

I agree. Looks like you have some interesting shapes there but maybe too much rock for the tank. With too much rock it will look like a pile of rocks no matter how you arrange it. I've found that the least rock you can get by with, the better it looks and the more room you have for corals. Maybe you could put some extra rock in the sump, or trade it for livestock. Looks like you are off to a good start. Good luck with the tank.

 

[SaltyMist]

The only thing I can add is "dont sacrifice the whole for the individual rock". And what I mean by this is, dont sacrifice the overall asthetics of your tank, to try and show of a couple outstanding rocks.

I tried doing this because I felt I had a couple pieces of liverock that really needed to be shown off, but found out that it was better to try and stack them to have an overall pleasing environment than to stack them to show off a couple really nice pieces of liverock.

 

[krullulon]

great advice everyone, thanks! i'll post pics when i take the plunge (as it were) this weekend.

 

[krullulon]

alrighty -- after 2 hours of fiddling around with various combinations and supports to secure the rock in my 90g 36x24x24, here be the final "artistic" interpretation, still freshly cloudy from finishing the job:

many, many tunnels & nooks and lots of horizontal surface area for placing stuff, and it's not stacked against the walls so the fish will have a 360 around and through.

thanks for all of the great suggestions!

 

[ADS]

NICE!

 

[vair]

Good Job. Off to the fish store soon? What's first?

Dave

 

[krullulon]

thanks! 8)

yup, today was fish store day:

2 scarlet skunk cleaner shrimp
4 turbo snails
1 small rock of green hairy mushrooms
1 3" green pipe organ coral that the LFS guy thought was a rock of green star polyps until the store manager saw it! 8O

the critters have been in the tank for 12 hours and all are doing fine... i drip-acclimated everything for 2 hours, left the lights off for 4 hours and everyone was active and/or fully expanded within an hour of turning on the lights.