Re-aquascaped

HanoverFist

New member
With the new rock finally cured, 2 free days and the girlfriend properly motivated, we tore down our tank yesterday and redid the aquascaping. Had to get the lace rock out and make it more convenient for coral placement.

We had a plan so it went fairly smooth. Everything but fish went into 20g tubs. Old rock and corals in one tub with tank water. New rock in curing tub with fresh saltwater. Planned all the rock work out on a trash bag before setting in the tank.

Also fragged the rics off the base rock. First time and it went fairly well. Got 4 small frags plus the old one now. Much easier to manage.

For those who haven't read it, I used this article to get my ideas and creative direction / techniques. Very good article on the subject of creating a natural looking aquascape.

This was my inspiration:
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Here's the tank before:
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Emptied out:
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The mess:
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mmmm tub o' coral:
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The new rock:
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It took us about 4 hours. Other than fiddling with rocks we didn't have any issues. Fish, crabs, snails, and sexy shrimp all got through it with very little freaking out. Eggcrate was used under rocks where needed. Was going to use zip-ties to secure rocks together but it really wasn't necessary.

As you can see from the above pic, I wanted the smaller rocks to trail off from main structures like roots. Also made small widening canyon areas. Once you read up on how to do it, creating "depth" in 3 dimensions isn't all that difficult. It worked out well. Needs to be adjusted a bit and all the corals are sitting down there at the moment (I'm cycling up a new light fixture so corals are busy acclimating and will get a final position in a couple weeks), but I'm happy with how it turned out. Lots of caves, overhangs, tunnels, etc. Once it all purples up it should flow together nicely.


Tad cluttered at moment and pics don't really do it justice but this is how it turned out. Being it's a 40 breeder I had alot of depth to work with and you can feel it in the rockwork. I need to add some more rock for height on the right:
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Right side:
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Left side:
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Been testing regularly and no spikes/cycle so far. Been vacuuming the sand over last couple weeks so wasn't much of a storm. Rock was all cured or old so wasn't expecting much.


I still need to get my entire light fixture up to running full time. Once that's done all the corals will start moving to their final placement. Also plan to add some rock. But for now it looks better - and I got the hideous lace rock out.
 
Could not get the link to Part 2 to work at the bottom of that article. Anybody else have any luck or a link to part 2. Very good article, BTW.
 
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