Aquascaping / Coral Placement Advice - Cube

V

Vincero

New member
Hi guys,

I'm looking for some advice about my current rockwork and coral placement.

My tank is approaching the 4 month mark and I can't believe how much I've learnt. I'm really enjoying the hobby. So far, I think my attempts to establish a reef tank have been pretty successful, but I'd like some suggestions about improving the 'look' of my tank.

After browsing around and looking at other people's nano tanks (usually with envy), I've noticed that the vast majority of the ones I really like seem to feature far more rock than mine.

I like my basic layout, but I think it could be even better with a little more rock in the right places. I'm interested in cycling some more rock and building upwards a little more so that I can have some branching corals higher up in the tank.

However, I'm not sure about where to place the extra rocks? Should I build them up against the back wall in the left corner... add them to the rock already there... or maybe I should just leave the tank as it is?

Also, criticisms around my coral placement are welcome. I'm not sure if the ricordea and the toadstool would be better off elsewhere...

Any suggestions are much appreciated.

http://imgur.com/a/zvrdE

Thanks! :)
 
PS - The photos were taken in the morning so the corals aren't fully extended. I turned the lights on when they're usually off to snap these shots. Also, the tank is an aqua nano 40. 55 litre (14 gallon-ish) capacity.
 
Do you have enough rock work? Suppose to be around a 1# per gallon. Everything looks fine for coral placement that leather will get pretty big.
 
Looks good if the corals seem happy enough.

Honestly, I wouldn't add more rock. If you want to take up more space, I'd consider figuring out a way of manipulating your rocks to be more vertical, since it looks like they're stacked pretty densely as it is. Maybe take the bottom rocks, stack them vertical on their long axis, and epoxy or zip-tie rocks on top of that?

I think you have plenty of rock, and could just keep playing with the configuration to find the right mix for you.
 
Thanks for the advice. Do you think SPS corals like acros would survive on the rockwork at it's current height?
 
Definitely. Honestly, you're more likely to have brown SPS and acros from parameter swings or lack of flow than you are from not enough light.

What lights are you using?
 
I've replaced my corals, so I'll take some photos tomorrow after doing my maintenance. They look pretty good under this light!

I'm still not exactly sure what type of leather I have. It's not the elgans it was sold to me as though... :(. It's big and beige, that's all I know.
 
Nah, that thing should cut through the depths. I think you'll be fine with acros in your tank, probably anywhere.

Just make sure to space them 3x farther than you think they should be apart, because they'll grow before you know it. And don't fill the tank with frags unless you're planning on upgrading soon.
 
Also, since you're probably used to /r/, you can actually post images directly in the thread, and people will be much more likely to view them and comment on them if you post them directly instead of linking to imgur.
 
ReefWreak said:
Also, since you're probably used to /r/, you can actually post images directly in the thread, and people will be much more likely to view them and comment on them if you post them directly instead of linking to imgur.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I've had issues posting images in the past, probably due to low post count?

As for too many frags, I am quite partial to the "full-looking" nano reefs out there. This is my first time reefing, so I'm not sure what to expect in terms of how my tank will look in say a year's time. Currently, I have:

- A small patch of zoas
- 1 red and 1 blue mushroom
- 1 ricordea Florida that is splitting
- A toadstool leather
- A frogspawn frag

So it's very much dominated by soft corals.

fulltankshotlarge.jpg


Would something like this be achievable?
 
Honestly, I would say that looks a little too crowded. But, if one likes the bonzai look, then that's fine.
The point about not overfilling with frags should be taken seriously by everyone (I even put too many in my 125 thinking about every bare 4"x4" spot), but especially with small tanks. I have seen folks push their nanos over the cliff by going frag happy. It's not that you shouldn't aim for a fully grown in tank so much as you want room for corals to grow healthy colonies that aren't constantly warring.

By the way, you're tank looks great
 
Thanks for the kind words. Here's what it's looking like now, after moving things around and doing some maintenance.

nwbzAYA.jpg


p6Zy5hw.jpg


7bAXGKW.jpg



I realise the chromis isn't best suited to a tank of this size. Two days ago my LFS gave him to me for free after isolating him for weeks due to being picked on by the others. Apparently no one else wanted him. Seems happy enough at the moment. I'm looking to upsize eventually...

Any future comments/guidance is much appreciated.
 
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