Ruined! :( Caribsea Life Rock

[Faccia di Pesce]

I have to say I love the thought of aquascaping but in reality don’t enjoy it. I bought boxes of caribsea rock for my new build and was so unhappy with every scape I built I bought Arka rock floating reef pieces and love it. Ready made and just throw it in. I am very fortunate to be involved in the industry however and I know only too well how expensive all of this can be. I like what you have done so far. Just need to picture it covered in coral. All too easy to try and make your tank look the way you want it right away with rock alone.

thanks. I am trying to see it as it will be rather than what it looks like now. Which I did not before. So hopefully i will get this done soon. I like the caribsea pic!

 

[KorD]

Your scape is going to look nicer then mine. I got 80lb box of rocks and just threw them in like a blind drunk guy in the dark.
my thought was the ocean does not aqua scape, so I picked the Idea of “this is where the pirate ship busted through the reef”.
the good news is I keep another 15lb of rubble rock in my sump in case I want to change it up a bit latter or use it for attaching frags to islands.
It does not look like it, but some of that rock is the size of a basketball.

 

[Faccia di Pesce]

Your scape is going to look nicer then mine. I got 80lb box of rocks and just threw them in like a blind drunk guy in the dark.
my thought was the ocean does not aqua scape, so I picked the Idea of “this is where the pirate ship busted through the reef”.
the good news is I keep another 15lb of rubble rock in my sump in case I want to change it up a bit latter or use it for attaching frags to islands.
It does not look like it, but some of that rock is the size of a basketball.

if I bought that tank and stand I would not have any money to but a rock! LOL. Looks nice!!!

 

[KorD]

if I bought that tank and stand I would not have any money to but a rock! LOL. Looks nice!!!

What’s funny is I have been after a tank this size for 14+years. Up until a month ago I had tanks smaller than 30gal, and mega basic.

this was literally my dream tank size..... and yes.. after loading it and getting getting everything for it.. I’m too broke to bet corals..lol
But what’s nice is I build a lot of my own things, so I save on other areas.

 

[Faccia di Pesce]

waiting for my delivery today (aquascape cement). But I might go something like this. Looks like a dragon (tail on left and head on right turning around). . we shall see.

 

[Nhjmc]

I didn't glue my rock work together like should of from day one months later was in tank moving/adding and half of rock work toppled over smashing my fav. large purple stylo into three pcs. I cried. A year into it and I still don't like the look of my aquascape it's def. a challenge.

 

[CPC Reefer]

I totally feel you. I should have glued my rock together. I have 180pounds of arches and caves. Had it all set up up and got the brilliant idea that a 40#, 30 inch long arch would look awesome. Rocks sit about 30" tall in a 36"tank. Seems like every time I do a water change I hit something and it all comes crashing down. Luckily I still only have a few small frags in the tank. Did a water change last night, once the water level went below the top rock, it fell off taking 3 rocks under it along. Spent another 5 hours rebuilding. At least I'm getting much better at aquascaping and my fingers are not cut up as bad. But my wife sure is ticked!

 

[McPuff]

I totally feel you. I should have glued my rock together. I have 180pounds of arches and caves. Had it all set up up and got the brilliant idea that a 40#, 30 inch long arch would look awesome. Rocks sit about 30" tall in a 36"tank. Seems like every time I do a water change I hit something and it all comes crashing down. Luckily I still only have a few small frags in the tank. Did a water change last night, once the water level went below the top rock, it fell off taking 3 rocks under it along. Spent another 5 hours rebuilding. At least I'm getting much better at aquascaping and my fingers are not cut up as bad. But my wife sure is ticked!

You can still "glue" it together even as it sits. I have done this to lock in pieces that were not mortered together (as that's not always possible). Just use some putty and superglue and push it in between the rocks. Doesn't take much, especially if the rocks sit together nicely. And if you use the pink stuff (e.g., DD Aquascape) you won't even notice it after a couple months.

 

[1stNoel]

Thanks. I heard some bad reviews about this. Saw a video of someone using it and saying how great it was. Then a few months later said that he can no longer recommend as it does not grow correline algae and does not hold after awhile.

I'm not a fan of this. Cool concept, but it cools too fast and quickly becomes unusable.

Reef safe mortar is much, much better. If you look at Top Shelf Aquatics' aquascapes, that is what they use. BRS has a video on it.

 

[Faccia di Pesce]

I am using Two Little Fishies Stix Coralline Red Hydraulic Cement which is the exact same thing as E-Marc 400. Same exact packaging and cement and polymer bag.

STIX Coralline Algae Red (5 lbs) Hydraulic Cement - Two Little Fishies

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.

www.saltwateraquarium.com

 

[Daddy-o]

I am using Two Little Fishies Stix Coralline Red Hydraulic Cement which is the exact same thing as E-Marc 400. Same exact packaging and cement and polymer bag.

STIX Coralline Algae Red (5 lbs) Hydraulic Cement - Two Little Fishies

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.

www.saltwateraquarium.com

I wonder how different your $40 bucket is chemically to an $8 bucket of Quickrete Hydraulic?
Cheers! Mark

 

[MnFish1]

Well my first attempt at aquascaping ended in a disaster. I think I would make a better butcher than an aquascaper lol!

I bought 40 LBS of Caribsea Life rock. And then bought on arch for 50 dollars from a local store. The rocks form the 40 pound box were extremely large as was the arch. I only have a 40 Gallon Breeder. I tried to shape and glue some of the rock together with E-Marco. I came up with the pic below. But when I put it in the tank it seemed to be extremely large. So I tried to play around with it and the arch broke and fell and shattered half of it. Ugh!

Back to the drawing board. I might just get the Life Rock Shapes and use that with what I have. The arches seem smaller than what I just broke. I am guessing I'm not the first to butcher an aquascape project.

AHHHHH this is the before picture............ I thought it looked great LOL - Honestly - I would not necessarily use the arch - for carious reasons - BUT - maybe what you might imagine is what the scape will look like with corals - and base your final version on that? Assuming you're going to have corals? For example if you're planning on corals that can grow large - even having the larger surface area may be beneficial if you dont have teh arch. It might be cool to see a pic of the pieces when they are broken>

 

[MnFish1]

waiting for my delivery today (aquascape cement). But I might go something like this. Looks like a dragon (tail on left and head on right turning around). . we shall see.

Excellent - you have plenty of space under the rock

 

[Faccia di Pesce]

I am done! This is what I have and I don't care anymore LOL! Its my first tank and I am going with it. .

 

[Daddy-o]

I am done! This is what I have and I don't care anymore LOL! Its my first tank and I am going with it. .

Sweet! Thats badazz

 

[Faccia di Pesce]

It is finished! I can live with this.

 

[Faccia di Pesce]

Ok so it was ALMOST finished lol. I decided to drain water and fix a few spots. As someone on this thread said, do it right now so that down the road I will not regret it. I cemented a few pieces that had potential to come crashing down. Its now secure and solid as a rock. My cement job is a butcher job but soon it will all be covered by correlean algae anyway. Next time I start a tank I will aquascape before adding water or sand. lesson learned.

 

[Faccia di Pesce]

Clownfish safe and sound in their newly aquascaped home

 

[JRAD]

Nice!

 

[Reefrookie733]

Sorry to hear about your damage. I acutually drilled my rock and used a little bit of glue for some top pieces. Ironically enough some of those top pieces did fall as well. The drilled pieces never budged. I would have thought it was more common practice to drill versus using cement/glue compound.
RR