to rock wall or not to rock wall?

[ekoroknay]

I am going to be setting up a rimless Solana and I am going back and forth on the idea of a rock wall on the back of the tank. I like the idea of the rock wall and have seen some great looking ones, however because the Solana is rimless it think it may look better without the rock wall. Im:angryfire::angryfire: torn!

 

[MrHarvard]

I love the rock wall idea as well but I would personally advise against it due to your space constraints. Unless you are drilling and adding a sump to your solona you are already losing space due to the AIO chambers, now when you add the rock wall you lose another inch or two. I built a really awesome bonsai tree scape for my 29g rimless cube and ended up breaking it apart because of lack of space. The small cubes look like you have plenty of room until you start adding liverock and power heads. As much as I love a good rock wall I think they work better in larger tanks. This is just my personal opinion though.

 

[CrazyEyes]

I was going to do it to mine but didn't want to lose any space in the tank. I'd say don't do it. I take it you mean the 34g right?

 

[ekoroknay]

Ya. 20x20x20x

 

[ekoroknay]

I was worried about losing space, but actually Im not sure it would look good in a Solana. The Solana have the sleek, rimless look and I want to keep that "feel." Does that make sense?

 

[C4DC]

I love mine in my 125 but passed on doing it in my 34 red sea max in my office. You could do one and make it easily removable. If you do, I'd make it lol profile. I can't remember if your back chamber is flush all the way across or juts out which could complicate things.

 

[ekoroknay]

It cuts back to the corner so it will make this harder

 

[Coelli]

Just remember that although you lose depth in the tank, you gain height to mount coral directly on. Most of my SPS is mounted on the wall of my 24" tank. Softies and LPS get the bottom half of the tank. You also gain a very significant amount of surface area for bacteria wih the front and back of the wall plus whatever rock is incorporated into it. My tank with rock wall has been up since November and my nitrate has never been anything but 0 even with heavy feeding and I attribute it to the wall).

Drawback is if you get algae that's not nutrient-dependent (I'm looking at you, bubble algae!) you can't remove the wall to deal with it. I don't recommend not having it attached to the wall and sealed because of the toppling danger, and detritus buildup.