Re-doing Aquascape

[terriertype]

I need to rearrange the rock in my tank. Now that it is set up and running it just looks wrong. The foot print is 12 x 36” and 16” tall. Makes for a long tank layout without much room for depth in the rock arrangement.

When I purchased my original dry rock I got a combination of branch, shelf and pukani. Turns out the shelf rock is the wrong profile for my long tank. The one big centre piece of pukani is too large and messes with the flow pattern creating dead zones. If I add another power head there will be too much flow and the substrate goes everywhere.

My question is what sort of issues can I expect from doing a rock overhaul. The new pieces of rock I will be adding have been curing for 8 weeks. I had planned to use them between Christmas and New Years, but landed in hospital on Dec. 18 and had to have surgery on the Dec. 26’th. I am now just getting to the point that I can think about setting up my FOWLR tank.

Should I add a canister filter for a short amount of time to get all the debris out. I would just put floss and maybe carbon in the canister and run it the water clears.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I have attached a picture of the current layout.

 

[PCDS]

What I did was to mark out the footprint of the tank on a waterproof sheet on the floor and kept at the rocks till I got the structure I liked. Because of the width restrictions, using smaller pieces of rock might be easier. I then used aquarium putty to fix segments together.
But I see you have critters in your tank already- aquascaping outside of the tank May not be realistic??- I thought you said fish only. Sorry.

 

[DaveK]

That is one of the problems of a tank that is only 12 inches wide. It's going to be difficult to aquascape. However it can be done.

"... Turns out the shelf rock is the wrong profile for my long tank. The one big centre piece of pukani is too large and messes with the flow pattern creating dead zones. ..."

What you do here is take a hammer and cold chisel and make the rocks that are too big smaller. Do not over do it. You don't want rubble. It's best to do this outside if possible. Less mess to clean up.

You should add another pump for flow, but don't use power heads. Get something like
Hydor Koralia Nano Circulation pumps. You'll get a lot of flow, but not a massive blast of water.

When aquascaping, don't try to create a rock wall. Have high points and low points. Place the rock with some gaps between the pieces. That will make much better caves than actually trying to construct a cave. Make sure the rock arrangement is not symmetrical,