Rock Work / Powerhead Opinions

[JRM2468]

Please take a look at the pics and give your opinions of how the rock is stacked. I want to make sure that the fish will have plenty of hiding spots and that there will be enough flow through the rock as well. If you have any suggestions for the placement, type and size of powerheads that would be greatly appreciated as well. There is 135lbs of sand with 100lbs in the tank and 35lbs in the sump. At the moment there is 50lbs of Fiji rock and 50lbs of Tatoka rock as well. I hae placed the base rock on 1 1/2" pieces of PVC to hopefully keep the stack stable. The dimensions of the 90G BF are: 18" wide @ middle X 27" High X 48" Long. Thanks for the help.

 

[Wes]

its a good start, the bottom half looks really nice...if it were me i might try to open up the top a little more. as for flow, what kind of corals do you want to keep? that will really determine how much you need but as for type, probably the best bang for the buck is koralias...i have 5 k3's in my 90 with a mixed reef and things seem to like it well, you dont have to get that much i mainly do it for the few sps i have. good luck with it, it should look great as it gets going.

 

[ReefNut2010]

Looks real nice ! The new Korallia evolution pumps are great and these ones can be hooked up to a wave maker. I wish I could exchange mine(got the older model). New ones were not out yet. These cannot be hooked up to a wavemaker. Why does your tank look so blue?

 

[JRM2468]

Thanks for the replys. I am not sure why the pictures turned out so blue. I took them with a phone so that could be it..... In person it is no where near that blue.

 

[ziege]

White balance on cell phones is a pain.

Rockscaping is all about what looks good to you. I like tanks where the rocks are arranged more fore-to-aft, forming coves and peninsulas, than side to side forming a back wall. I actually like to have at least some of the LR within an inch or two of the front glass, and I don't mind having multiple piles of rock that aren't really connected to each other.

I also like to do google image searches like "reef tank rockscape" and steal ideas from others. A lot of people doing neat things.

 

[SumThinhWong]

the rock work looks nice i myself is a fan od a lot of rock. one thing you might want to think about is holes for frag plugs. I have a lot of rock but the only thing is that i sometimes need to take the rock out to drill holes for frags or need to glue them to the rock itself. something you might want to think about if your planning on doing SPS. it seems like you have a couple of good spots. i also ike the caves that you have small but good enough for fish to hide in. On the flow how much are you looking to spend on pumps.I think since most of the rock work is settle to the back wall two good sized pumps will do good with maybe one small one facing the rear to keep detritus for settling in the back of the rock work.

 

[JRM2468]

@SaltNewbie wrote:

I am wanting to do a mixed reef but still not sure if I want to take the plunge into trying to keep SPS. In saying that; I would still like to be prepared for it in case I jump off the cliff in the future. I have anywhere from 2 - 6" of clearance from the rocks to the back glass panel and I am a little concerened about dead spots behind the rocks. Would I need to place a small powerhead behind the rocks to get some flow behind there as well? To answer your question on price range, I am looking at spending 150 - 225$ on powerheads to start out with and then go from there.

At Nextwave I believe that Dr. Ron had mentioned something about using milk to to be able to visibly see how the water is flowing through the tank. Has anyone used this method before or is there another product that could be used to help locate dead spots? Thanks again for all the help.

 

[MarcoG]

I would definitely recommend a powerhead back there. I've never used milk but I have used food to see the flow through my tank, just not a lot. If you don't have any fish in there yet, you might want to try a small shrimp and just watch it for a while. be sure to squeeze it when you put it in the water so it doesn't float at the top the whole time.