Aquascaping My 20 Gallon
- Thread starter bg7003
- Start date
xxBarneyxx
Fish Aficionado
There are a few tricks you can use. The reef safe epoxy and putty are useful for making sure everything stays together but a lot can be done with just careful stacking.
You can also use things like acrylic rods, drill a hole in to a bit of rock, put the rod in, put a hole in another rock and use the rod to hold the two bits together.
Other than that it really is just a case of playing around with it and seeing what works for you.
Couple of pointers though:
Place the rock directly on the glass of the tank (or put eggcreate on the glass and put the rock directly on to this). Putting the rock onto sand could lead to the sand moving and the rocks becoming unbalanced and falling (espeically if you have livestock that buries in the sand).
Make sure that the rock piles are stable. I have found with liverock that a lot of bits will just lock together nicely. The ones that are a bit more unstable use marine epoxy/putty to hold them together.
Leave spaces for corals (assuming you arent going FOWLR) and plan ahead giving yourself spots with different depths and water flow. Most of the corals I have ever bought came on chunks of LR and I then had to mess about trying to fit them in. When I moved to a bigger tank I left plenty of flat spots in the rock pile to fill in later with corals.
Leave space between the edge of the tank and the rockwork so you can fit your algae cleaner/magfloat in there. Nothing worse than have a bit of rock at the bottom of the pile too close to the glass and then getting stuck with one spot of algae on there your cant get to.
If you get something you halfway like the look of LEAVE IT. Give it a day to really look at it and if you still arent 100% happy then try again. Lots of times I have got something I liked the look of and then thought "maybe if I just move that bit" and then messed the whole thing up again
Try not to have to many "pointy" bits on the glass. You want the weight from the rock to be spread out as much as possible to avoid small areas with lots of pressure on them. Also I was once recommended not to have any rock leaning against the sides of the tank. I honestly dont know if it is a potential problems to do that or not but I have always avoided it just in case
Last tip is put a sheet down on the floor and keep lots of towles to hand
You can also use things like acrylic rods, drill a hole in to a bit of rock, put the rod in, put a hole in another rock and use the rod to hold the two bits together.
Other than that it really is just a case of playing around with it and seeing what works for you.
Couple of pointers though:
Place the rock directly on the glass of the tank (or put eggcreate on the glass and put the rock directly on to this). Putting the rock onto sand could lead to the sand moving and the rocks becoming unbalanced and falling (espeically if you have livestock that buries in the sand).
Make sure that the rock piles are stable. I have found with liverock that a lot of bits will just lock together nicely. The ones that are a bit more unstable use marine epoxy/putty to hold them together.
Leave spaces for corals (assuming you arent going FOWLR) and plan ahead giving yourself spots with different depths and water flow. Most of the corals I have ever bought came on chunks of LR and I then had to mess about trying to fit them in. When I moved to a bigger tank I left plenty of flat spots in the rock pile to fill in later with corals.
Leave space between the edge of the tank and the rockwork so you can fit your algae cleaner/magfloat in there. Nothing worse than have a bit of rock at the bottom of the pile too close to the glass and then getting stuck with one spot of algae on there your cant get to.
If you get something you halfway like the look of LEAVE IT. Give it a day to really look at it and if you still arent 100% happy then try again. Lots of times I have got something I liked the look of and then thought "maybe if I just move that bit" and then messed the whole thing up again
Try not to have to many "pointy" bits on the glass. You want the weight from the rock to be spread out as much as possible to avoid small areas with lots of pressure on them. Also I was once recommended not to have any rock leaning against the sides of the tank. I honestly dont know if it is a potential problems to do that or not but I have always avoided it just in case
Last tip is put a sheet down on the floor and keep lots of towles to hand
mutantbigman2000
Fish Crazy
i prefer a natural stack.
None of the rocks in my 30g reef tank are fixed.
Look at the rocks you have and think about using the different sizes and shapes to create an interesting scape.
after every rock is placed give it a few hearty taps from as many directions that you can. as long as you have no movement it is safe to continue to the next layer.
Also think about using rocks to create spaces and caves.
also remember that over the course of cycling and initial stocking of the tank you will tweak your layout. moving rocks from here to there. dismantle rocks cos a stupid snail has fallen off etc.
None of the rocks in my 30g reef tank are fixed.
Look at the rocks you have and think about using the different sizes and shapes to create an interesting scape.
after every rock is placed give it a few hearty taps from as many directions that you can. as long as you have no movement it is safe to continue to the next layer.
Also think about using rocks to create spaces and caves.
also remember that over the course of cycling and initial stocking of the tank you will tweak your layout. moving rocks from here to there. dismantle rocks cos a stupid snail has fallen off etc.
Try to be unique and avoid the clump of rocks technique. Atolls and peaks look nice. I prefer epoxy myself. SH
Similar threads
Most reactions
-
473 -
324 -
236 -
221 -
212
-
179 -
169 -
161 -
144 -
133 -
128 -
111 -
102 -
93 -
79