Tips and Tricks on Creating Amazing Aquascapes

dkeller_nc said:
I agree. But (and I've just read through this entire thread) I would suggest staying away from the rote "two mountains with a pass in between".
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Hey! My tank resembles that remark! :)

I think in a tank of that size, I'm talking about hoju74's tank, it would be hard to fit two mountains and a valley.

One of the most instructive parts of this thread, for me, is the 'before & after' pics. What looks great as a rock scape is very often either lost or vastly muted by the growth of corals. The 'take away' from this is there is not a big need to sweat the details. As long as there are lots of coral 'spots', room for the fish to hide and enough space to maintain the tank, it will all will work out and look beautiful.

Consideration for growth is important. Placing a fast growing Monti cap frag on the outside edge of the mountain so it grows toward the tank will be an exercise in frustration. In no time you'll be either trimming the Monti or not being able to clean the glass.
 
This is my attempt at rock placement using the rule of thirds per veganbrians's recommendations. If you have any feedback, please share!
 
Yes, islands.
:)
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Thanks so much for starting this thread! My wife and I are tackling our first "big" tank (6' 126 gal, after only doing 20-30 gal tanks for the last 8 or so years), which will also be our first reef tank. Below is a picture of what our aquascape came out like.

We tried to create a more open swimming environment, with higher points on at the outer thirds and some lower points near the center to allow room for corals to mature. With just 18" front to back, there wasn't much room to create a great depth of field, but we did the best we could. All told, there is 130 lbs of pre-cured live rock in there. Any thoughts, suggestions, criticisms are welcome and appreciated!

125galcycled.jpg
 
Lavoisier said:
I like it a lot! I am firm believer in less is more. Once your corals start growing your tank will fill in.
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My wife says the same thing about less being more and the extra rock ended up going into the refugium. I have a bunch of mostly SPS frags going now, about 25 of them in total. They are all small but they will grow in within about a year. Thanks!
 
Some awesome aquascapes are in this thread. When I set up my first cube style tank I decided to go off the rails and do something really different. I was inspired by some of the bonsai type scapes and wanted tree-like with dramatic shadows. Also I wanted all the rocks to be essentially supported at 2 points to have as close to a zero footprint as possible on the sand. This I surmised would really eliminate dead spots and make a single MP40 on the back glass service the whole tank. It worked out better than I thought it would. I have had some setbacks wrt invert livestock due to losing power for over a week thanks to Sandy and a nasty case of Dino's that has only recently abated. Here is the basic framework done using sheet PVC as a base drilled with PVC rods and fiberglass to support the rocks:
Rock800x600.gif
 
Will be interesting to see how that turns out. IMO starts out looking real cool, but the two branches on the front left are going to block out a view of everything behind them. Too bad they are not smaller and lower.

Please post pics when things grow in. Would love to see how it turns out.

Cool trick with the GIF though. :thumbsup: Does a great job showing the rockscape progression.

PS - Bought a generator for Sandy myself. And wouldn't you know it? I was in the 5% of people in my town that never lost power. But if I'd have saved the money and not bought a generator, I'd have lost power for sure. LOL! Sorry about your troubles though.
 
scolley said:
Will be interesting to see how that turns out. IMO starts out looking real cool, but the two branches on the front left are going to block out a view of everything behind them. Too bad they are not smaller and lower.

Please post pics when things grow in. Would love to see how it turns out.

Cool trick with the GIF though. :thumbsup: Does a great job showing the rockscape progression.

PS - Bought a generator for Sandy myself. And wouldn't you know it? I was in the 5% of people in my town that never lost power. But if I'd have saved the money and not bought a generator, I'd have lost power for sure. LOL! Sorry about your troubles though.
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Yeah after the initial construction shown in the GIF I rotated that main structure on the left back about 20 degrees to prevent the branches from blocking as much and added some more shelf outcroppings. Incidentally I decided to make the GIF because I thought I might get asked lots if questions about how I built it and it would be a much easier way to get the concept of the build across ;) It comes across better in person IMHO because of the 3D effect of the rocks jutting out than it does in photos. Also I was setting the tank up in a corner near an entry door so you have to walk around the whole tank which helps the affect. This was one of the reasons I was excited by a DD tank, the added front to back depth made it a much more interesting experiment for me. I'll post some more recent photos that show it better in its current form later...
 
ReefKeeper64 said:
This is my attempt at rock placement using the rule of thirds per veganbrians's recommendations. If you have any feedback, please share!
Click to expand...

I owe you a picture of the "reef finger" idea (I figure a picture of an actual tank is better than my drawing abilities). Will post one later this evening.

You have the right idea, but you've (perhaps unwittingly) created a problem. While the sand space in your tank is divided along the "rule of thirds", and it looks like the height of each rock construction is a 2:3 ratio (also good), you've created a very strong structural form repeated as a duplicate (two arches). To me, this is quite jarring.
 
Here is my try in my 125g. It has more demension then the pics show and it has been a PIA to scape because I have to hide the eel's pipe that runs around the left overflow and along the back wall.

I'll try to get another pic. (Please ignore the algae)







What do you think?
 
Anyone have any good pics of a corner tank with stellar aquascaping?, most seem to end up looking like a pile of crap just piled up in the corner
 
Greendarwin19 said:
Anyone have any good pics of a corner tank with stellar aquascaping?, most seem to end up looking like a pile of crap just piled up in the corner
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There is a corner tank thread here on RC somewhere that has some pretty amazing tank shots. You should check it out!
 
This has been an awesome thread to follow along with! I've been tagging along here from the start! Some amazing work in here and hopefully more to come.

I would love to hear whatever feedback and ideas anyone out there would like to give on my current attempts to lay out an interesting foundation for my first reef: 90 gallon mixed. I'm currently at the aquascaping faze of my build and am ready to start mortaring some of my pieces together soon.

Multiple design attempts and lots of pics to be found here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2291302

:artist:
 
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