First tank (5g): Looking for aquascape ideas

[Karen00]

Hi fellow saltines,

After about 3 yrs I finally pulled the trigger on my first tank. It's a 5g so there isn't a heck of a lot of room. It's fish only (for now). I purchased only one piece of dry rock and would like ideas as to what I can do for the left side of the tank. Here are my thoughts:
- Get another larger rock?
- Get a couple smaller pieces of rock?
- Leave as sand for livestock that sit on the sand like coral or an oyster if one can fit in a 5g.

Currently I have a Hi Fin goby/Pistol shrimp pair under the rock and I will eventually have coral.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Congratulations! The best I can do is show you a 7-gallon All In One (AIO) I had once (I actually had two of them). Remember that some of the corals you will buy will come on their OWN rocks; that can really make it jamb-up fast, so pace yourself.

 

[Matt_95]

Here is a photo of a 4 gallon pico that I set up 8 years ago. Sorry it’s not the best pic.

I would get some more dry rock (something like Marco). Break it up so that you have a lot of small pieces and build something from those. It’s hard to create a convincing pico scape then the rocks are too large.

 

[Karen00]

Congratulations! The best I can do is show you a 7-gallon All In One (AIO) I had once (I actually had two of them). Remember that some of the corals you will buy will come on their OWN rocks; that can really make it jamb-up fast, so pace yourself.

Thank you so much for sharing those pics! They're great and seeing them helps a lot! Thanks also for the tip about some coral coming on their own rocks. That didn't even occur to me. I will leave it as is for now and see how things plays out. I won't be adding coral until the tank matures so that will give me time to properly plan. After so many years of sitting on the sidelines I have to remember to practice restraint and go slow. I don't want to fall into the trap of building an instant reef only to find out the hard way there's no room for things to grow!!

 

[Karen00]

Here is a photo of a 4 gallon pico that I set up 8 years ago. Sorry it’s not the best pic.

I would get some more dry rock (something like Marco). Break it up so that you have a lot of small pieces and build something from those. It’s hard to create a convincing pico scape then the rocks are too large.

That's an amazing tank! Thanks for sharing it! That's also a great idea to breakup a larger rock into smaller pieces. I can see how that can make for a properly scaled scape. It's funny because when I got the piece that is seen in the pic I kept thinking it was going to be too small... Until I got it into the tank, then it wasn't that small by comparison. I'm still happy with that piece but I think smaller pieces around it will help balance the view.

 

[Waters]

As stated, you definitely want to start with smaller rocks to keep the size of the tank in perspective. You can create very convincing scapes and make the tank look and feel much larger than it is by using properly sized rock.