Nano Aquascape

meta · Apr 21, 2021

Hi, whilst my tank is currently on day 10 of cycling --
I finally took some time to look into corals and their future to be placement.

I may or not have made the mistake of creating one big blob as my rock-infrastructure,
not really thinking ahead with coral placement / fish hiding spots in mind.
What you therefore see in the pictures is already completely epoxied together.

Note: (above) I have some more rock on its way. To be used on the left and extend the trailing structure -- making it more full.

Regarding corals, is it bad that I made "one" main-piece instead of different separate ones?
I already know that placing Zoas on it is out of the question,
for that I will try to make islands on the substrate with MarcoRock shelves / attempting floating rocks on the back with magnets.
What I'm however still not sure about: will it affect (because of invasions / turf-wars) the amount of other corals I can place on main-structure?

When I did the scape I tried to make a little cave / passage, but besides that I didn't really plan any other caves or holes. Are there per your opinion enough hiding spots, etc?
The current to be stocking list would be:

1x designer clown
1x Royal Gramma
1x Purple firefish
1x Blood shrimp
<n> other CUCS

Alex Cataldo · Apr 21, 2021

Just prune the corals back if they get too big, it should be a while before they get to that size though.

Azedenkae · Apr 21, 2021

I dunno, I quite like it. It's true that corals may/will fight, but... at the same time, the rockwork imo is great. >_<" Sacrifice coral diversity for the scape!

Alex Cataldo · Apr 21, 2021

Sometimes the scape can look so good you don’t want it covered with a forest of acros and such. Could even be accented with slow growers. But bottom line, it’s your tank. You do you.

FishyFishFish · Apr 21, 2021

I'm new to this but it looks good to me. The problem with Nano tanks is the lack of floor space. If you didn't have the big 'blob', as you call it, 2 smaller rocks would be very small in comparison to what you have.

Nano sized fish can hide in some pretty small holes, and it looks like yours does have some hidey holes other than the main cave.

It also looks like there is still some room on the sand bed for a couple of small rocks. You could use these small additional isolated rocks to keep something like Zoas, without them being on the main rock.

I have had similar thoughts with regard to corals selection on my big rock, but you will find something that will work for you.

meta · Apr 24, 2021

Alex Cataldo said:
Just prune the corals back if they get too big, it should be a while before they get to that size though.

Alex Cataldo said:
Sometimes the scape can look so good you don’t want it covered with a forest of acros and such. Could even be accented with slow growers. But bottom line, it’s your tank. You do you.

Azedenkae said:
I dunno, I quite like it. It's true that corals may/will fight, but... at the same time, the rockwork imo is great. >_<" Sacrifice coral diversity for the scape!

Thanks! I guess you both are right too. It doesn't need to be fully covered -- and for that to happen, a lot of time will pass. Slow growing corals sounds therefore good.

FishyFishFish said:
I'm new to this but it looks good to me. The problem with Nano tanks is the lack of floor space. If you didn't have the big 'blob', as you call it, 2 smaller rocks would be very small in comparison to what you have.

Nano sized fish can hide in some pretty small holes, and it looks like yours does have some hidey holes other than the main cave.

It also looks like there is still some room on the sand bed for a couple of small rocks. You could use these small additional isolated rocks to keep something like Zoas, without them being on the main rock.

I have had similar thoughts with regard to corals selection on my big rock, but you will find something that will work for you.

Thank you. Given the limited space, there will always be cons and pro's, which you summed up nicely. At first I tried going with 2x structures, but that seemed "meh" -- but from there on; I lost track of my thoughts, and just did the blob haha.

Regarding the hiding spaces / holes, I guess you are right too, and that I as simply overthinking it.

OREGONIC · Apr 24, 2021

Scape looks great, reminds me of my first tanks scape.

meta · Apr 24, 2021

The new rocks & stand (WB one) came in yesterday. Re-did the scape a bit; I mostly extended the structure a bit to the left, attempted to create islands with leftover rock / rumble -- and decorated per small rock placement.

What I'm however not sure about: are those islands sufficient for zoas / xenia to grow on? If so, is there enough spacing between the main structure and island(s) // will the zoas have enough light available there? (AI Prime HD)

I also saw some people growing gfs on their back wall, something which I'd love to try as well. Yet, I think I probably shouldn't → this due to the main structure leaning (3x contact points) on the back. If I however did -- and set something with stingers at the first contact point, would that actually work as a defence?