Let's talk about Habitat Aquascaping... What needs to be considered in the HNSA approach?

Nemo&Friends · Apr 5, 2022

I too just pile rocks. I try to put 2 paralleles lines of rocks, about 2 inches apart from each others to create a kind of tunnel. Then I pile the rocks on top, which ever way. That create tons of hiding place. I leave about 2 inches between the back wall and the rocks, and may be 4/5 inches in the front in the front.
It is fun to see my fish disappearing at one end and reappearing at the other, or in the middle. is it visually appealing? May be not, it is just a big wall in the middle, but all the fish who want to hide can do so and that is all I am interested in. I have 14 fish, and except for the clowns who do not hide, all of them disappear at night and I cannot see any of them.
My guess is that the 7 green chromis I have for at least 4 years, are still all alive, because they each have their own hiding place, and can hide from each others and completely disappear from sight at anytime.

Daniel@R2R · Apr 7, 2022

I have never done an NSA (Negative Space Aquascape), but am really interested in trying this approach (Habitat Negative Space Aquascape). I want to create something that will be great for flow and fish homes and that will look creative and unique. We'll see what I come up with. Ha ha!

The other thing I was thinking about with this was maybe some goby burrows in the lower portion. Like holes/spaces that will be in the rock but under the sand line that they can dig out. I even thought that could be cool if I do end up planning for a snowflake eel (something I'm considering but not committed to yet).

atoll · Apr 7, 2022

One thing often overlooked when it comes to reefscaping is the very fact that the bare reefscape will look well a bare reefscape. However, no matter what your reefscape it will look completely different once colonies of corals become established. The whole shape will visually change. This make take a number of years, 3 is not unusual if planting frags.

Here is an example. This was my aquarium in February 2020.

And my aquarium now.

Daniel@R2R · Apr 8, 2022

atoll said:
One thing often overlooked when it comes to reefscaping is the very fact that the bare reefscape will look well a bare reefscape. However, no matter what your reefscape it will look completely different once colonies of corals become established. The whole shape will visually change. This make take a number of years, 3 is not unusual if planting frags.

Here is an example. This was my aquarium in February 2020.

And my aquarium now.

Good point. I wonder how many people are thinking about a plan for coral growth and what that will look like once grown in. I think the main rule I follow there is to be sure to leave space for growth. I think all of my previous scapes have really been too large at the beginning, and I know the reason is wanting the tank to look "full" even before the corals grow out...I think that's possibly one of the most common "mistakes" in aquascaping.

offtropic · Jun 1, 2022

Hey there - I'm looking to upgrade from 90g (48x22" mixed) to about 210g (82x27" SPS dominant) and have been giving this a lot of thought as I think about how to stock, design and accumulate the gear needed. Right now I'm sort of working backward from:

1. Size/configuration of tank
2. Initial desired stock (fish, inverts, corals)
3. Initial physical structures/habitats in tank (rockwork in combination with tank shape/type and sand).
4. Initial flow in all parts of tank (SPS and some fish like a lot of flow, some fish don't want much/any at all).
5. Ability to clean/access the majority of the tank without disassembling everything.
5. Lighting needed to support the above items.

Of course, as the tank evolves all those variables can change as more habitats become available and flow (and light) patterns change). Hiding spaces, flow and ability to access can all work at odds to each other so this is an interesting puzzle!

The NSA stuff looks pretty fun/artistic but not really natural and our desire to be able to see and access every single part of the tank at all times is definitely at odds with the fact that most fish want to be able to hide (some a lot, some just a little). This would seem to be magnified by peninsula style systems where there are naturally many less hiding areas unless the tank is significantly wide enough to enable large interconnected/dark areas in the middle. While I still would love a peninsula, I think I might find it challenging to create the amount of hiding spaces needed for the number/type of fish I'd like to stock without something like 40+" wide (which wouldn't really mesh well with my existing house).

I'm considering a larger rock structure that maybe even extends to the back wall on one side of the tank and a transition to more 'NSA' type as you move across the tank while still offering hiding spaces/habitats along the way (not just overhangs or swim-throughs). Currently looking through the internet for examples (while people here are knocking BRS for the NSA stuff, the BRS160 is pretty habitat-friendly at least in its current configuration).