New to aquascaping! Any/All advice please.

dustynavy · Jul 23, 2022

I am completely new to the reef tank world and want to do it right. Any and all advice or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you again for your support. The tank is 75 gallons. 75lbs of Marco rock and a few pieces glued so far except the top pieces until I get advice on negative space and height.

Coralreefer1 · Jul 23, 2022

One of the best words of advice I can give you has to do with husbandry. Make sure that your aquascaping leaves you room around the inside of the tank so that you can clean the glass without knocking things over or having to disturb or remove rock and/ or corals.
Good luck…

dustynavy · Jul 23, 2022

Coralreefer1 said:
One of the best words of advice I can give you has to do with husbandry. Make sure that your aquascaping leaves you room around the inside of the tank so that you can clean the glass without knocking things over or having to disturb or remove rock and/ or corals.
Good luck…

Thank you for the advice. I was doing about 2” around. Do you think that would be enough?

Jekyl · Jul 23, 2022

Couple things to think about. Small islands for invasive coral. Then what ever amount of fish you have in your head will each need their own cave/hiding place. Otherwise I like the concept. Something I wish I would have done was use smaller rocks than I did and create more features and overhangs. I'm 5 years in now and have never been happy with my scape. Just a pain to change at this point.

Coralreefer1 · Jul 24, 2022

Personally that isn’t enough room because if you have to get your hand in there to clean the glass, you will want and need more room. Often times I can’t clean the glass with a magnet type and need to use a razor blade or dedicated scrubbing sponge and need the space to get on the front and two sides. I don’t care about the back as it is all black. This is just my experience having been in the hobby for 40 + years!

dustynavy · Jul 24, 2022

Coralreefer1 said:
Personally that isn’t enough room because if you have to get your hand in there to clean the glass, you will want and need more room. Often times I can’t clean the glass with a magnet type and need to use a razor blade or dedicated scrubbing sponge and need the space to get on the front and two sides. I don’t care about the back as it is all black. This is just my experience having been in the hobby for 40 + years!

That makes sense I will pretend to clean it and see how far away would be ideal. Glad I did not glue everything yet.

dustynavy · Jul 24, 2022

Jekyl said:
Couple things to think about. Small islands for invasive coral. Then what ever amount of fish you have in your head will each need their own cave/hiding place. Otherwise I like the concept. Something I wish I would have done was use smaller rocks than I did and create more features and overhangs. I'm 5 years in now and have never been happy with my scape. Just a pain to change at this point.

Thanks for the advice. I was wanting to break the rocks up more as well and I think I am going to get a chisel today. The only rocks that are glued are the base rocks and one or two up from that. For the island should I take the left side down and make it separate from the rest of the rock?

Screwgunner · Jul 24, 2022

Are you going bare bottom? ,
If you are go to menards and get some light diffuser to put on the bottom . If not . Put your rock in first then your sand.

dustynavy · Jul 24, 2022

Screwgunner said:
Are you going bare bottom? ,
If you are go to menards and get some light diffuser to put on the bottom . If not . Put your rock in first then your sand.

Hi, Thanks for the response. I have 4 20lbs of caribsea live sand that I want to put in. I'm going to go one bag at a time until it is about 2". I want to get the aquascape right before I mess with the sand, plus I have to figure out everything else before I push it closer to the wall. How far away do you have your tank from the walls?

Screwgunner · Jul 24, 2022

Mine is up tite but I have internal overflows built in my tank if you are starting out with hang on back power filter make sure you have room. Or if you want to put hang on back refugium. Ect. Ect.

Jekyl · Jul 24, 2022

Make a masking tape outline and design your scape outside of the tank. One rock falls....

dustynavy · Jul 24, 2022

Screwgunner said:
Mine is up tite but I have internal overflows built in my tank if you are starting out with hang on back power filter make sure you have room. Or if you want to put hang on back refugium. Ect. Ect.

Yeah, I am doing a hang-on back skimmer and a canister filter. Here is my build thread with the equipment I have so far. I have been changing a lot of items out from research but I am sure it will change with more advice I receive. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dustys-75-gallon-first-reef-build.925628/

Jekyl · Jul 24, 2022

dustynavy said:
Yeah, I am doing a hang-on back skimmer and a canister filter. Here is my build thread with the equipment I have so far. I have been changing a lot of items out from research but I am sure it will change with more advice I receive. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dustys-75-gallon-first-reef-build.925628/

My 90g I just use a HoB filter and skimmer.

dustynavy · Jul 26, 2022

Jekyl said:
My 90g I just use a HoB filter and skimmer

How were the results?

dustynavy · Jul 26, 2022

New design.

Djordan719 · Jul 26, 2022

I think it looks great! Some of my regrets over the last few do-overs:

Not leaving room near the glass to get the algae scrapers through!

Not leaving “sloping” regions where I could place coral at varying heights of the tank.

Moving too fast and not taking the time to envision where I would place coral and imagining where livestock would have their hiding places. I do think looking at your livestocks natural habitats is good. Like tangs seem to like big open areas and wrasses seem to like series of tunnels

A few times I ended up adding “islands” for some types of coral. These islands would be away from the main rock work. Zoas look great on them!

Also, do what YOU think looks good!