Do you aquascape with water in tank?

[DaveFe]

I'm filling my tank with water as we speak to verify plumbing is good and no leaks. While doing this though I realized I'm going to have to take at least some of this water out when I add live rock(hopefully this weekend).

I'm curious what everyone else has found the easiest, in my freshwater tanks I always aquascaped with an empty tank, but those rocks weren't live rocks. Should I keep some level of water in the tank you think while I'm adding the rocks?

My main concern is I don't have the capacity to store an entire tanks worth of water so the rocks would be sitting dry for a dayish if I emptied the tank totally.

 

[homer1475]

Define how "live" the rock is.



Is it just white rock that was in water at your LFS(just has bacteria on it), or is it full of sponges, microfauna, and bacteria?


If the first I would just do it with 0 water, your going to have to cycle it anyways as you'll have quite a bit of die off. if the later and it's currently in water, I would do it with water in the tank to preserve most of that life.

 

[Bill_Moorman]

That's generally how I've done it. Fill it up and place rocks. Make sure your parameters are correct (mostly salinity) as you don't want to have too much die off from tour LR. You will have some die off guaranteed, but that's what starts your cycle.


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[Sk8r]

I do, because some rocks nearly float compared to some that don't, and a rockslide is dangerous. If you do it with water in the tank you can get stable arrangement.

 

[mcgyvr]

I always aquascape in water.... Its usually a week+ process for me as I keep adjusting it..