Show off your NSA!

[Reef Wizard]

Hello Everyone,

Lets see some of your NSA Aquascapes. I would like to get inspiration and decide if I want to do NSA. Send all that you have and maybe we can inspire not just myself but others who may come upon this thread!

Happy Reefing! Thanks to @Jedi1199 for making me go back to the drawing board on what Aquascape I might do for my next build :)

 

[blaxsun]

I don't know if it's quite "NSA", but here's mine.

 

[Reef Wizard]

bump

 

[exnisstech]

This started as nsa but is probably more of a hybrid? After I had it built I decided there wasn't enough hiding places for fish, a common concern with nsa scapes. To rectify that I added some rocks to the bottom. It gives the fish nice hiding spots and added some places for lower light corals. Tanks is 36"x24"

 

[Reef Wizard]

This started as nsa but is probably more of a hybrid? After I had it built I decided there wasn't enough hiding places for fish, a common concern with nsa scapes. To rectify that I added some rocks to the bottom. It gives the fish nice hiding spots and added some places for lower light corals. Tanks is 36"x24"

Looks pretty neat! I may do a hybrid of sorts uncertain still

 

[exnisstech]

Looks pretty neat! I may do a hybrid of sorts uncertain still

Thanks. As much as I like a true nsa, especially when they have some nice sps colonies I just didn't want the fish to be stressed.

 

[F i s h y]

Before

After 1 tank upgrade and just shy of 2 years...

 

[Reef Wizard]

Before

After 1 tank upgrade and just shy of 2 years...

Very nice tank! Coral really fills it in!

 

[Reef Devils]

Hello Everyone,

Lets see some of your NSA Aquascapes. I would like to get inspiration and decide if I want to do NSA. Send all that you have and maybe we can inspire not just myself but others who may come upon this thread!

Happy Reefing! Thanks to @Jedi1199 for making me go back to the drawing board on what Aquascape I might do for my next build :)

 

[Reef Wizard]

Nice! the two arches :)

 

[dangles]

Mine isn’t exactly an NSA but more like the H-NSA that’s more fish-friendly…

 

[F i s h y]

Very nice tank! Coral really fills it in!

thank you

 

[Reef Wizard]

Mine isn’t exactly an NSA but more like the H-NSA that’s more fish-friendly…

thats alright. looking for anything and everything. Im digging it though looks great!

 

[Reef Devils]

Nice! the two arches :)

Yup. Wish I could make something more unique but it works.

 

[Reef Wizard]

Yup. Wish I could make something more unique but it works.

Coral placement should get you rocking an rolling. Zoa Garden on one Nems on the other. You can do some sort of Balance theme if you wanted. Yin to the Yang. Perfectly balanced as all things should be -Thanos haha

 

[Reef Devils]

Coral placement should get you rocking a rolling. Zoa Garden on one Nems on the other. You can do some sort of Balance theme if you wanted. Yin to the Yang. Perfectly balanced as all things should be -Thanos haha

Yup that would be so cool.

 

[FrozenReefer]

I know this is a bit of an old thread but I’m still happy with my design and wanted to show it off a little. I was going for a more HNSA approach but I was limited with the rock that I had. I had a bunch on Tonga shelf and Pukani from an old tank and picked up a bunch of Liferock that came with a used tank off FB. Trying to mix and match was a huge pain and honestly if you can just go with Marco rocks from the start, you should but this is what I had.

I kept my rock about 4in away from all glass, figure 2in for cleaning and 2in for future coral growth. This limited my design more than I thought because now I essentially had the footprint of a 55g even though I’m going into a 120g. The benefit here is I will have plenty of room for small islands nearer the glass if I want to down the road.

I tried hard to work with several size fish and inverts as I planned out my habitats. There are 4 caves for large fish, 4 caves for medium fish and then 20ish small caves for anything else that can fit. Then the overhangs and tunnels should help fill the gap for any other aggression.

I planned all that out while also keeping a tiered thought process in mind for coral (higher in the back, lower in the front). The max height in the back is 14in, just slightly higher than my 12in 50% mark so SPS should work fine if I go that route. I also made sure to leave several platforms lower in case I want softies or LPS as my circulation is coming from the back wall and the front lower tank should have the lowest movement.

The middle I went back and fourth from a big pukani slab that I had carved out tunnels under for sand sifters and a couple of cave structures. I’m going to stick with the cave structures because it still has sand sifters habitats but also added a other large fish home. The downside is the tunnels were large enough for an eel. That’s what I had in my old tank and it loved this rock so likely no eel in this one, future tank potential!

The right hand side was a major pain to figure out how to use them. I like the fact that this could give me space for a couple tiers of garden type scapes now. Maybe even a good home for a few anemones for my clowns to host. It clashes with the other rock structure but I think the function of it overtime will work out. Once it’s covered nobody will care that it’s very different from the left side, it will just be a home for different corals.

 

[M4sonic]

Filled it with water yesterday.
It might not look like it but it has 15 different caves worked into it.
The right structure also has a large swimthrough in the middle.

 

[FrozenReefer]

Filled it with water yesterday.
It might not look like it but it has 15 different caves worked into it.
The right structure also has a large swimthrough in the middle.

Looks great! Is that middle bridge modular or did you glue it all down? I’ve seen a few people do it with pegs on each end to remove just in case.

 

[dangles]

Mine isn’t exactly an NSA but more like the H-NSA that’s more fish-friendly…

A year later…