How to aquascape small aquarium

crrichey · #1 12/20/2007, 11:31 PM

I have a biocube 8 with a 150watt metal halide and koralia nano that I want to try keeping sps corals in. Currently there is a single large rock in the dead center of the aquarium however I don't want all of my coral on a single piece. I'm thinking of building a rock wall against the back to provide more area to attach coral however nothing is certain yet. If this were your tank how would you aquascape it?

MikePowell · #2 12/21/2007, 12:55 AM

Rock work is totally a personal opinion, but i would make a slope from front to back but the total width of the aquarium. also not too steep so the sps can grow up and not cast a shadow on the other corals.

mjstover · #3 12/21/2007, 02:24 AM

I also like to have some sand open to let other things grow on that such as some sort of plate coral. very similar to the previous post but I build up to say the top right of left corner making like a triangle ish shape

crrichey · #4 12/21/2007, 02:41 AM

I know it's a personal opinion thing however I'm not happy with my current look and want to get other people's ideas.

!wrass! · #5 12/21/2007, 01:31 PM

Look around or ask for FTS. Find one that you like that fits with what you want to keep. When you find some you like, save the pics to you can go back to them. I am setting up a tank now and found a tank shot that I like. I wish I could give credit to the person who did it but I have no idea which thead it came from.

I like it because it has plenty of open sand without looking like a desert. It would be perfect for an SPS tank because it has plenty of room. I will use something similar for a mixed reef. It allows for good flow and easy cleaning.

Search for the nTOTM threads too. These tanks are very nice tanks. They are mature so you get an idea of how things grow together as the tank ages.

I have a rock wall in my current tank. It looks ok but hard to keep clean and places to put corals are limited. This is my current tank (with a huge cyano problem...its kinda under control now). There are alot of frags on the sand because there is no real good spot for them on the rocks.

The Saltwater Kid · #6 12/22/2007, 10:51 AM

This is my aquascape in my BC29...

...my objective was to have many varying levels in which to place corals as well as many caves and crevices for fish to go in and out of and feel safe. I also have some open area in the front. One thing I strived for after talking to an LFS owner in Canada was to achieve a circular flow pattern around the whole aquascape so that little or no detritus would settle or collect and give me any nuisance algae problems. It's hard to tell from the pic but NONE of my rocks are touching the walls of my tank on any side (including the back)...this is done so that there are no dead spots where the flow can't get around and detritus would build up and create the above mentioned nuisance algae problem. I had this idea in my head before I got the tank though so I knew what I wanted to implement from the guy in Canada and I cherry picked the rock I was going use from my old tank that I tore down and actually assembled it on a towel on my livingroom floor to give me an idea of how it would look inside the tank (I actually measured how much space I had to work with and used those measurements when assembling my model on the floor). I don't know how you could incorporate this aquascape into a smaller tank (I guess with a lot smaller pieces of rock it could be done) but at least you could incorporate the idea of the flow pattern and eliminating deadspots. Hope this helps, good luck!!!

The Saltwater Kid · #7 12/22/2007, 10:53 AM

here is a more recnt pic of my tank for you to look at...