Placing of LR

[MINIATUS]

Ok heres the situation, Im not the best at aquascaping a tank with LR. Should it be away from the back wall or is ok to pile it up. I was hoping to leave a lot of space at the front of the tank for swimming space. I hope to add Clams and other thing to the front for better viewing. I thought it would be easy to aquascape with just 110 of rock but my last tank had nearly 200lbs so there was much choice.
Your decorating skills would be greatly appreciated.

MINIATUS

[cheeks69]

Aquascaping is always frustrating for me I'm never happy.One thing I always try to do is is leave some space between the rock and the back glass to allow some circulation and prevent the buildup of detritus. I'm sure there's a lot of differing opinions but that's JMHO

[essmaker]

I also have about 1.5 inches of space between in the back. I don't have any good reason for doing it, but it seemed like a good idea from a circulation perspective

[Witfull]

you can always place the bottom pieces away from the back and angle the rock closer as you go up. leave open spaces for flow, and if you want, put a power head in the back facing the length of the tank. instant back current.

[EdgeKrusher]

I tried to keep some space in the back of my tank, but I need room in the front. So I comprimised and sort of an island in mine. Big base that tappers to the top. and then you'll arange it until your satisfied. Then you'll change it again! LOL

Peace

EK

[jks1]

i agree with Wit, i usually come out about 2" andrork up the back. As long as you carefully select each piece for maximum waterflow i thing you are in good shape. In a larger tank i would like to try a "reef crest" on one side sloping to a sand flat on the other-- jmo

[MINIATUS]

Anyone got some Pics of there rock setup, especially if its a 90 gal.

Sorry to go on but this is driving me nuts.

Edge, what do you mean by islands in your tank. Is that the same as Bommies

MINIATUS

[MINIATUS]

JKS
Can you elaborate on that, Got me curious.

MINIATUS

[DPdsny]

I built a rack out of 1/2 inch PVC pipe. I left one end of the pipe open and stuck a power head in it, drilled a few holes pointing up and placed the rock on top and in front. now it looks like I got 3 times as much rock and there is a lot more room for the fish to swim. I got some pic but I just don't know how to post them......... but I will learn

[wooddood]

mine is pretty much against the back glass towards the top of the tank,but i have many open spaces for good circulation also.and alot of open caves all through the tank for even more water circulation.in my opinion leave as many open spaces in the tank as possible as far as cave and such.hth a little.look in my photo gallery.

[fidojoe]

I wish I had the problem of too much LR to not be able to decide how to aquascape, cause 20 # in a 50 is not hard. At first, I had it angled and leaning aginst the back, then I had it scattered in small mounds, then I moved it to 2 bigger structures towards the center, away from the sides, it all comes down to personal preference. Maybe tankgirl will chime in, she's an aquascaping expert, IMO, and she might be able to help

[MINIATUS]

Tank Girl get your Knowledgeable skills out here.
Come out ,come out where ever you are.

MINIATUS

[Montanareefer]

One of my aquascaping pics:

http://www.thepsas.org/modules/mx_al...e4 a3ceed4e36

[tankgirl]

This was from psas, food for thought, hopefully;

One good principle is to avoid creating equal shapes (size, height, mass, etc.) And along with that goes avoiding splitting shapes visually in the center (either vertically and horizontally). And, avoid anything that grabs your attention that's dead in the center of the tank. It's more interesting to favor one side (of the tank) a bit.

Maybe a big mass of rock that's shorter and a narrower but taller rock mass. Some people like to use the seesaw principal; if you imagine the rock masses sitting on a seesaw, a bigger mass closer to center will balance a smaller mass that's farther from center.
Contrast come into it - horizontal vs. vertical, tall vs. short, big vs. small, color contrast, etc. On color contrast; if you put a purple acro next to a green one, both will look more vividly colorful because they're complimentary colors - across from each other on a color wheel. Another color scheme might be putting cooler colors at the back and warmer colors at the front.

Anything that "points", like a oblong rock, will pull your eye towards the direction it's pointing. You want the viewers eye to be continuously pulled, never coming to a stop. If your eye hits a rock wall, it will slide down it towards the bottom of the tank (or sometimes up if the rock is leaning differently), so (if your eyes go down) you want another rock mass (even a small spur will do it) or coral near the bottom that leads the eye back into another part of the tank again. Course, all this depends on what you want from your tank; some people want harmony and some others want a kind of colorful chaos? But, this "pointing" shape stuff is really helpful for achieving either one. If you notice what pulls your eyes around an aquascape, and start getting tuned in to that, you won't believe what a difference it will make.

Also, one really hard thing to do in most tanks is create depth, but you can do it with even a small spur coming forward from the main rock mass. Or, another really effective way to create depth is to put something narrow, like a gorgonian, behind an opening in the rock masses - anything to create layers of depth.

If you think of an aquascape as music; you probably don't want a monotonous beat, you want a little syncopation, some visual jazz. Some surprises.
As for avoiding even spacing - not easy to do since you want your corals to have room to grow and room so they don't touch other corals, but you can do it by just varying the distances between them a little, maybe putting a smaller acro a tad closer to a bigger one. Or slightly in front of another.
You don't want anything (rocks or corals) to be equal sizes or heights, and especially not a row of them.
But, you also want simplicity, and a way you can achieve that is by grouping. If you look at good aquascapes you'll almost always see things grouped into a few groups. If you look for that, I bet you'll see it right away.

Anyway, hope that's useful to you.
Not that I'm ever satisfied with my own aquascapes, of course! Smile