aquascaping with the future in mind

C

chrisrush

Premium Member
Anyone aquascape or place corals with the future growth in mind? I going to re-do about 90% of my aquascaping in my tank this weekend, including adding sand and 2 reef ceramic peices. I was looking through RC and I found a couple of nice examples of what I'm looking for. I'm guessing that it's a way of grouping certain corals together (i.e. stags, tables, plates, etc.)

This picture was taken from cwards tank in OH.

I really like the depth of the tank, which, unfortunately, I won't be able to duplicate, but also, I like the general layout.

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What does everyone else think?


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I like the look, if only it had more sand. :wink:

It is good to plan where corals go, especially planning for growth. We've got a few people in this club that not only do that, but also plan the way the colors intersperse, creating a beautiful display. My tank tends to have the same colors near each other, as I don't have that gift.
 
Unlike many people in the hobby, I prefer a minimal approach to aquascaping. I really dislike the wall-o-rock, even moreso when the rock touches the back and the sides. Generally this limits flow and accelerates the accumulation of detritus, which can lead to a host of othe problems. While your fish may also have plenty of places to hide, that means you have less places to view them and sometimes animals can die and go undetected until their half-eaten carcasses wash out from behind the structure.

Cward has the right idea but the composition is a bit off IMO. That coral on the substrate is bulls-eye center, which is a big no-no; if it was closer to the right side of the tank, he'd get a little better arcane balance in the composition and would accentuate the channel in the rockwork. In fact, I think bringing the right side a little closer to the glass (zoanthids or rics would be great for this) would really bring it all together. Those colonies are super-impressive! I personally think that tables and large plating corals do better closer to the ground as they shade out less of their neighbors that way.

Try to think about your aquascape as a piece of sculpture; use whatever depth you have to creat the illusion of more space and to contrast the textures, colors and growth forms of your indivdual pieces.

I just got my new sump last night; if I wasn't doing a bunch of travelling for work this week I would be spending my time hooking up my plumbing. When I get my system up and aquascaped, I hope to have something that exemplifies the things mentioned above.

Please post pics once you get yours redone!

edit: Check out Invincible569's tank, he was TOTQ on the Zeo forums a while back. His composition was pretty good.

http://www.zeovit.com/DTOTQ/edwardindex.html
 
The tough part of making an open aquascape is decorating it with frags. Cward has some large colonies that fill in the open space and give it a more even look. I understand Nathan's idea of a "sculpture", but it makes creating a masterpiece tough when you don't have everything you need.
 
I added this question to a threadon RC.

I do agree with what Nathan/Bill said to some extent. I'm going to try and place some plating corals and stags on top of each other to see if I can get them to grow together. I would also like to make a cap island with the three diff. cap colors that I have acquired (blue, green, red). Another idea would be to try to get several colors of digis and see if they will intertwine. I have a green and a blue/brown species so far.
 
@blide wrote:
The tough part of making an open aquascape is decorating it with frags. Cward has some large colonies that fill in the open space and give it a more even look. I understand Nathan's idea of a "sculpture" said:
When will any of us have all the corals we need? :) IMO a reef aquarium is always a work in progress as the animals grow, change and (unfortunately) die. You start off with a variety of small frags/colonies and as they grow thin them out to accentuate your favorite(s).
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Hmmm. For some reason, my favorites die and the ones I don't care about take over. That doesn't happen to you? :roll: :wink: :lol:
 
I think he needs to do some fragging there. It looked much better in the first pic. And the color loss on the blue tort... sad
 
I tried really hard to setup my new tank for growth. I think it will look a liitle empty for about a year but I want soime big colonies in a couple years instead of 500 baseball sized ones in there.
 
Finished adding sand and my reef ceramics to my tank, and I put all the acros/corals back into the tank and I'm reading to start aquascaping.

Let me know what you guys think about my idea. I went through and id' my stonies as either, tabeling, stag, or bushy. Right now I've got 5 bushy stonies, 8 tableing and 9 stags.

Here is a current picture with the ceramics in. I bought an outcropping and a back wall. I kept three pieces of live rock to make a table on the right hand side. (plus, my wife wouldn't let me get rid of the bta).

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As you can see, the left side is where the ceramic outcropping is. It's a little close to the front class, so I'm going to move it back a bit.

In this picture, you can see down the right long side. I would like to move the rock mound over a little bit towards the right and leave a little more opening between the ceramics and the rock mound.

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There are a few more frags that I would like to purchase, but for the most part, I'd like to see my frags grow up. I'm thinking that I could put the tableing acros down a little lower in the tank, mostly towards the ends. Put the stags a little higher up and then finish the top part of the outcropping with the bushy frags.
 
Thanks Bill. I need to place/mount the corals tomorrow and try and get most of the stuff off the sandbed, but other than that, I will do my best to leave it alone.

I can't wait to see these ceramics covered in coralline.
 
Nathan - they are the mount for his tunzes to be on a rotating deivce...

Chris - I like it, it is very open. My only critique is the back wall. If there was a way you could raise it up to the top of the water and then hide the open space at the bottom, I think that would look better. I love the sand too btw
 
@JasonJones wrote:
Chris - I like it said:
I agree, you will not be able to appreciate the why you have this layed out for another 19 months. Could you put PVC to support the ceramic in the back? It would look better elevated, but I wonder if it will not matter in 6 weeks when it isn't ghost white.
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Thanks for the replies Jason and Ryan. I think that once the RC gets a little corraline growing on it, it will hide the top part. I could stick a fast growing birdsnest or pocci up on top so that it covers it as well. I'd just hate to shade everything down below it.

I mounted most (75%) of my sps frags yesterday. I think that it will look real nice in about 6 or 8 months, and allow for great growth patterns.
 
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