Aquascape for an Engineer Goby

[GrumpyAlison]

I was curious for those of you with engineer gobies (or other bulldozer critters) what your favorite way to reinforce your rock work was.
So far I've been very much in the 'if you stack it right it won't fall over' camp, but if I do actually get the engineers when I setup my new tank (75 gal) I'd obviously want to go with more reinforcement so my rocks don't crush things.

My plan was to put an eggcrate down (purely because I don't like rocks sitting directly on the tank bottom), then put the rocks on the eggcrate, then fill lots of sand around them. For the rocks themselves, I was hoping I could just drill some holes in my existing rocks and slip them onto one of the fiberglass road poll things from Lowes and more or less call it a day? Is one rod/rock enough? Are there any varieties of them that aren't reef safe?
I'm hoping to not need to glue multiple rocks together because, frankly, I'm weak af and if I need to move the rocks, having them be a 90lb chunk isn't going to work.

I saw some other posts about ways to reinforce rockwork but I'm curious to hear more personal thoughts on what's worked for you guys personally (or what hasn't). Bonus points if you have an engineer goby (for some reason they're the only fish i've ever really seen and gone 'I need this fish' so I'm kind of trying to design my tank around them XD)
Thanks!!

 

[laverda]

I have used short sections of large diameter PVC with holes drilled in the sides for my rocks to sit on. You could also use ABS pipe.
You could use acrylic rods glued to a sheet of acrylic as well.

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Ive used large zip ties too.
D

 

[TheDragonsReef]

As long as the rocks are placed before sand and are study you'll be fine. Theyre not overly strong but will just dig under them. So if theyre not touching the bottom they can pull the sand out from underneath and cause a collapse

 

[GrumpyAlison]

Did r2r suddenly switch to a dark color scheme?!

I have used short sections of large diameter PVC with holes drilled in the sides for my rocks to sit on. You could also use ABS pipe.
You could use acrylic rods glued to a sheet of acrylic as well.

I read about the pvc option first (and frankly i have a lot of it around) but I also read it was harder to drill holes that large, so I thought the rods might be easier.

Ive used large zip ties too.
D

I assume you like... looped it through some of the holes in the rock and not around the entire rock kind of thing? tbh i like the option just because it's very non destructive and doesn't involve drilling wet live rock.

 

[Rubberfrog]

Fiberglass rods are easy to use and need smaller holes.

 

[GrumpyAlison]

Fiberglass rods are easy to use and need smaller holes.

That's what I'm leaning towards because they're thin, last a long time and are easy enough to come by locally.

Most of what I'm trying to figure out is I guess the best way to attach the rocks together. Like do most people just make a pillar around/ontop of the rod, or are they strong enough where if you put an angled hole in a rock, could the fiberglass rod support another rock sticking off of that (if that makes any sense at all).

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

You want a combination of all 3.
Glue epoxy. Rods. And the zip ties. Yes drill holes. Loop. Make a chain if needed. Place rock over to hide.
Deburr or sand the sharp edges of the cut zip ties.
I didnt like the rods myself.
I also suggest taping out the dimensions or outline of your tank on the garage.floor or similar and aquascape their. Takes some imagination but u got this!
D

 

[GrumpyAlison]

The taping is a pretty killer idea. tbh I'm not sure why I didn't think of that
I probably don't have that option as my bf will get salty (no pun intended, but I'll take it) if the tank is floating around the house for too long so i'll probably need to assemble everything pseudo in place.

Does this seem like a reasonable approach:
--Find giant base rock & drill hole for rod
--Drill holes into other rocks and stack sort of however (I imagine it's kind of hard to get stuff to sit nicely on other things when drilling so I kind of figured the rocks would sit somewhat unevenly even if I stacked & drilled the stuff very methodically)
--take other, smaller chunks of rock and glue/cement them into place to hide how hideously the other rocks sit

Seems like it could sort of maybe be a good combination of rods and gluing without me having to deal with like 30lb chunks of rock (especially once my corals get stuck on them for realsies)

Thanks all for the suggestions!

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

I stacked mine in such a way that an earthquake would be needed to bring it down. When my guy passed at age 12 he was almost 18” long and living in my biocube 32 and never brought anything down

 

[laverda]

Did r2r suddenly switch to a dark color scheme?!

I read about the pvc option first (and frankly i have a lot of it around) but I also read it was harder to drill holes that large, so I thought the rods might be easier.


I assume you like... looped it through some of the holes in the rock and not around the entire rock kind of thing? tbh i like the option just because it's very non destructive and doesn't involve drilling wet live rock.

I guess I did not make myself clear. I just use the PVC as support under them. They just sit on top of the PVC. You could zip tie but not really needed.

 

[Auquanut]

When I set up my 125, I knew I would be adding a couple of engineer gobies. I lined the bottom of the tank with egg crate before adding the rock and sand. I set my live rock first, then added the sand around it. I set my base rock good and firm, and just aquascaped around that. Nothing glued. Over 4 years, the engineers have moved an ungodly amount of sand. They're constantly closing old tunnels and opening new ones. Through this time I've never had a shift in my rock work. Everything is rock solid. Pun intended. If I had it to do over, I would have just put the egg crate under the rockwork, and not lined the whole bottom of the tank. Just for ease of maintenance. Just another option to consider.

 

[Ta2oodfreak]

I have a 8-10" Engineer Goby that lives up to his name. My main points of the scape sit on shelf rock buried in the sand. He just dig up everywhere else.