I absolutely suck at aquascaping

[Fred2482]

Lol, LOVE the title of this thread. I really feel for you!! I think your latest iteration looks good. I just finished aquascaping my new build and wow! I used e marco 400 for supporting the rock. Took over a week, hot the wife to help, finally had something!!!! Well transfering it into the tank....... cementing the peices....

Let's just say ita nothing like the final we planned on putting in the tank and I bought super glue to touch up where cement did not hold.

 

[cvrle1]

It may also depend on what you want to do with it.

If you are endeavouring to grow corals, think about where you want to place the corals. Considerations light, flow, ability to place multiple corals. Also think about how close to the waterline you are going to want it to be. And then last the only thing to consider is that within 2 years you probably can't see the original scape anyway for all the corals...

In my tank, I feel the aquascape is a little to linear, which means that apart from the top it is hard to find a place to put the corals. I'd do it differently a second time (this is my first tank.... )

One of the reasons why I am trying to add more pieces and expand top of the left side is to give myself more room for corals. I am gravitating towards SPS corals the most, however there are some lps that I would like to have as well. Issue is that mixed reef from all the reading I did is hard to do, as one coral type likes pristine water, while other likes it a bit dirty. So someone will suffer. Another idea I am playing with is doing bare bottom. That will allow me a lot more room for corals, but that means no fish that need sand. Havent gotten that far yet.

Lol, LOVE the title of this thread. I really feel for you!! I think your latest iteration looks good. I just finished aquascaping my new build and wow! I used e marco 400 for supporting the rock. Took over a week, hot the wife to help, finally had something!!!! Well transfering it into the tank....... cementing the peices....

Let's just say ita nothing like the final we planned on putting in the tank and I bought super glue to touch up where cement did not hold.

After doing lots of reading on various cements, I will use Quikrete Hydrolic Cement. There was no definitive info that it is bad, and lots of people had good results with it for years. I was thinking originally of using Aqauforest stone fix, but I may need lots of it, so cost would go way up. Plan is to cement outside what I can into several sections, then use fiberglass rods to hold those sections together in the tank. This way if I need to remove seection down the road, I dont have to remove whole rock structure. Of course plan and reality often end up being 2 different things haha

 

[fishface NJ]

For a person who thinks he was never artistic person, you did a great job!

 

[cvrle1]

For a person who thinks he was never artistic person, you did a great job!

Thanks. Still working on that left side, as I am not liking it too much. Still looks like pile of boulders on top pf one another. I like that swim through cave, as I think it would be good for the fish for hiding and swimming, but rest of it I will need to play with more.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

One thing that makes a great aquascape is angles and slopes. These features naturally make the eyes move and follow the shape. This is why big clusters of rock just look like blobs...because they are. You have plenty of negative space, which is a huge plus, things will always fill in.

I would try to incorporate some kind of long slope somehow, creating movement across the tank. ALL great aquascapes have some sort of slope.

 

[CoastalTownLayabout]

Don’t be afraid to get the hammer and chisel into those rocks. Large pieces can be difficult to incorporate unless they happen to be a perfect shape. Sometimes your better to build from smaller pieces. Glue, cement...whichever you prefer. If your going with sand, minimise hard to access detritus trapping base structure. Also, don’t obsess about the detail unless you’re planning on keeping scape hugging corals.

For SPS the priority needs to be enough correctly spaced attachment points in optimal light and flow locations. Failure to achieve this will hinder your long term success or force a rescape.