FO decorations

J

jim48

New member
Does anyone else not like seeing a tank full of live rock that just doesn't look so alive? You know what I mean. That brownish green stuff that just sits there giving shelter to fish, but not really doing much else in the way of brightening things up.

Has anyone decorated their tank with say plants or driftwood, logs, or just other kinds of rocks? I'm considering doing something different like this in my display tank and putting enough live rock in the refugium to help with water filtration.

Now I know if I give the live rock enough light it will prosper enough to look more alive, but if the extra light doesn't do much for the fish I don't know if the extra expense would be worth it.

Just thinking out loud, anyone done this before?
 
Plastics don't do a thing for me. I was thinking all natural stuff. I realize marine fish in a freshwater kind of tank are not going to look right, but lets face it, our oceans are not the cleanest of places in the world. I mean there is lots of junk down there and a heck of a lot of other structure besides reefs.
 
Jim,
I have posted this same question before. The brown crap live rock I call it. Instead of the nice looking purple'ish live rock, which is coral line algae. Active water changes, not over feeding, more light, ect. Those things give the live rock the small color changes ect. I am trying to experiement with different mushrooms, to see if I can find one the Trigger will not eat. I have some live rock I bought that the store called "plant rock"
 
You could always add macro algae to the tank though they can become problematic if not pruned regularly. There are a variety of shapes and some of the red macros are really quite striking.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9425934#post9425934 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jcopp24
Jim,
I have posted this same question before. The brown crap live rock I call it. Instead of the nice looking purple'ish live rock, which is coral line algae. Active water changes, not over feeding, more light, ect. Those things give the live rock the small color changes ect. I am trying to experiement with different mushrooms, to see if I can find one the Trigger will not eat. I have some live rock I bought that the store called "plant rock"
Click to expand...

Yeah, the corolline algae(red stuff) is the good algae. To get this algae to grow usually requires more intense light, so I've read. I'm not trying to be cheap about it, I just don't want to spend money unnecessarily, which I can see can happen very easily in this hobby.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9426050#post9426050 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Monkeyfish
You could always add macro algae to the tank though they can become problematic if not pruned regularly. There are a variety of shapes and some of the red macros are really quite striking.
Click to expand...

I've thought about the macroaglae and sounds like it could work. Couldn't a tang be put into the system to keep the algae under control?
 
jcopp24 has it right. Basically, if you want your live rock to look like reef tank live rock, you have to provide reef tank conditions, even though it's a FOWLR tank. Sometimes not easy with typical large predator/messy eaters.

FWIW, I saw a beautiful lionfish tank once with various caulerpa species....stunning!
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9426743#post9426743 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jcopp24
Coral line algae... and micro algae two different things.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know the difference between the red or pink coraline algae, the micro algae, and the macro algae, nuisance hair algae, diatoms etc. The pink stuff comes after the green stuff, but to get there you need more intense lighting.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9426791#post9426791 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SDguy
jcopp24 has it right. Basically, if you want your live rock to look like reef tank live rock, you have to provide reef tank conditions, even though it's a FOWLR tank. Sometimes not easy with typical large predator/messy eaters.

FWIW, I saw a beautiful lionfish tank once with various caulerpa species....stunning!
Click to expand...

That sounds great! Most people seem to treat the caulerpa species like the plague or something, but I like it and I think it looks more natural.
 
I actually have plastic plants in my 120 FO, along with a large faux blue coral. The plastics actually look good, I think at least, except they do have to replaced periodically. I had some that lasted 7 or 8 years before they just looked awful (pieces broke, were pulled off by aggresive fish, etc), then I just replaced them.

I think that some of the prettier macros would work as well, and if you have another tank with a tang, you can prune it for food, or give away or trade trimmings with other hobbyists to increase diversity. The bright greens and dark purples of plastics actually look better than I would have thought, though. My wife wanted them, and I went along, and I have been pleased with the results.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9427078#post9427078 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kevomac
I actually have plastic plants in my 120 FO, along with a large faux blue coral. The plastics actually look good, I think at least, except they do have to replaced periodically. I had some that lasted 7 or 8 years before they just looked awful (pieces broke, were pulled off by aggresive fish, etc), then I just replaced them.

I think that some of the prettier macros would work as well, and if you have another tank with a tang, you can prune it for food, or give away or trade trimmings with other hobbyists to increase diversity. The bright greens and dark purples of plastics actually look better than I would have thought, though. My wife wanted them, and I went along, and I have been pleased with the results.
Click to expand...

I think the new plastics for marine aquaria are mush more realistic looking these days. I remember when I just put coral skeletons in a fo tank. After a while they were covered with algae and looked horrible. I guess if you would do plastics and keep an algae loving tang, they would keep looking ok longer.
 
I keep snails in my tank to keep the faux blue coral clean, and they do a good job. So far my lei trigger hasn't bothered them.
 
I think that might be just a matter of time on the Trigger eating the snails. But they are a cheap treat for the trigger : )

I buy 6-10 small damsels once a year and let my trigger pick them off one by one.
 
Make some man made mines, missles , shipwreck items , skulls , barrels , chests., some may say it looks junky , but the sea is a huge junk yard unfortunately!!

I want to attempt something like this and not have same ole rock looking tank !!
 
There is also shark teeth jaws huge ones on ebay ! Sand dollars, shells !! Tons of simple things that people never use in their aquariums.

Imagination rarely used the days!!Have fun
 
you really dont need intense light to grow coraline algae, in my 33G cube, which is where my mantis shrimp lives, my LR is covered with coraline and all i have over the tank is an 18W 50/50 fluorescent bulb that fits in the hood and all i use is oceanic salt which is meant for FO,

but for the interest of this thread there was a guy in the large tank section that made a homemade shipwreck to put in his tank, it was really sweet and turned out pretty good i think
 
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