Aquascape, stacked or glued? Need suggestions.

[KBlue]

Building a mixed reef tank and I just picked up 110lbs of rock/coral and I’m not sure what road to take for the aquascape. Stack it or glue it. What would you do if you had this to work with? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[marineman]

I stack a much as I can, just so I can remove, move and replace things if I want. Sometimes though, you have to glue or zip tie to prevent avalanches!

 

[EricR]

I stack a much as I can, just so I can remove, move and replace things if I want. Sometimes though, you have to glue or zip tie to prevent avalanches!

I like removable sections as well (in case you have to pull and scrub in the future).
*if you have to secure stuff with mortar/epoxy/whatever, I'd vote at least try to keep sub-sections still removable, within reason

I like the IDEA of acrylic/fiberglass rods for secure but removable,,, although never got motivated enough to do it.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

in the hobby for a few years and having multiple tanks, I've always enjoyed the flexibility to swapping rocks out from tank to tank for whatever reason.

Plus, you never know, for example (knock on wood) you might get aptaisia or bubble algae or something, and would need to reason to pull out single rocks,

You might drop something precious, a new frag or something, behind some rocks and need to move a rock or two....

 

[fishywishy]

I stack unless a rock is to loose then i use glue.

 

[JC1977]

It really depends on what you’re planning to keep. If you’re going to keep cute little reef safe fish like wrasses and clowns etc stacking is perfectly fine and like others have said it leaves you a lot of flexibility. However if you’re planning on keeping larger fishes or eels the rockwork has to be secured. In my FOWLR tank all my rock is cemented together with E-Marco. The other consideration is how you want the scape to look. Stacking only gives you so many options. Gluing or using cement allows you to do overhangs and arches you simply can’t do without those products.