Narrow tank aquascape ideas

vinvinaa · Jun 15, 2022

Hi all,

I will have a 100cm x 30cm x 40cm narrow tank under construction now. I am thinking to make lagoon style softie tank. Any idea on the aquascape? 2 islands? Thank you.

Happy reefing,
Kevin

blaxsun · Jun 15, 2022

Marco shelf rock is great for lagoon-style tanks.

vinvinaa · Jun 16, 2022

blaxsun said:
Marco shelf rock is great for lagoon-style tanks.

Thank you for your idea. I am planning to have something like this. Does it make sense?

Chrisv. · Jun 16, 2022

Tall narrow aquariums are very hard to work with. 55 gallon tanks (48"x13"x20") used to be very popular but fell out of favor in the hobby due to aquascape difficulties. Whatever you do, I suggest gluing or epoxying the rocks together to avoid rock slides down the line.

vinvinaa · Jun 16, 2022

Chrisv. said:
Tall narrow aquariums are very hard to work with. 55 gallon tanks (48"x13"x20") used to be very popular but fell out of favor in the hobby due to aquascape difficulties. Whatever you do, I suggest gluing or epoxying the rocks together to avoid rock slides down the line.

Thank you for your note. Totally agree with you that this is difficult in aquascaping with such narrow tank, but I have no space after moving to my new home. In addition, after some web research, it used to stack up the rocks to the back wall, but it is not recommended due to water flow. I only have fewer than 10 inches of space with consideration of leaving 1-2 inches spaces on the sides around the tank.

Chrisv. · Jun 16, 2022

vinvinaa said:
Thank you for your note. Totally agree with you that this is difficult in aquascaping with such narrow tank, but I have no space after moving to my new home. In addition, after some web research, it used to stack up the rocks to the back wall, but it is not recommended due to water flow. I only have fewer than 10 inches of space with consideration of leaving 1-2 inches spaces on the sides around the tank.

I've done this twice, and once in a 55g and once in a 37g (similar height and width, but shorter in length). Maybe this is an opportunity to get creative with rock and do something like the "negative space" aquascape, with several arches that you can grow coral on. You can also employ some of these synthetic magnetic rocks that people mount on the back to give the tank the illusion of more depth front to back.

Will you have a sump on the tank? If so, less rockwork in the tank can be made up for with rock in the sump (in terms of biological filtration surface area).

vinvinaa · Jun 16, 2022

Chrisv. said:
I've done this twice, and once in a 55g and once in a 37g (similar height and width, but shorter in length). Maybe this is an opportunity to get creative with rock and do something like the "negative space" aquascape, with several arches that you can grow coral on. You can also employ some of these synthetic magnetic rocks that people mount on the back to give the tank the illusion of more depth front to back.

Will you have a sump on the tank? If so, less rockwork in the tank can be made up for with rock in the sump (in terms of biological filtration surface area).

Yes I have a sump. I am just "fantasizing" to have the rockwork of having an island with a bit of dry rock out of water and with a mangrove on top. I know it will be super difficult as my tank is narrow.

Chrisv. · Jun 16, 2022

vinvinaa said:
Yes I have a sump. I am just "fantasizing" to have the rockwork of having an island with a bit of dry rock out of water and with a mangrove on top. I know it will be super difficult as my tank is narrow.

You could still make it happen. Are you familiar with the e-marco mortar? My vote is get creative with e-marco mortar and rocks, and get some magnetic rocks for a few accent pieces on the back. Honestly my two narrow tanks were both rock walls in the mid to late 1990's -- with the new tools and ideas of the current reefing era, this is more possible than ever!

OfficeReefer · Jul 2, 2022

vinvinaa said:
Thank you for your idea. I am planning to have something like this. Does it make sense?

Any reason for the mangroves? They like to get big roots, lots of them. Think of reverse acropora into your tank.

OfficeReefer · Jul 2, 2022

vinvinaa said:
Thank you for your note. Totally agree with you that this is difficult in aquascaping with such narrow tank, but I have no space after moving to my new home. In addition, after some web research, it used to stack up the rocks to the back wall, but it is not recommended due to water flow. I only have fewer than 10 inches of space with consideration of leaving 1-2 inches spaces on the sides around the tank.

I'm inclined to agree with @Chrisv. The mangrove or other areas could result in some aquascape challenges and it might be better to consider a HNSA or not even going that far back. You'll want to keep some flow in the tank from areas where nitrates and other undersirables can lurk in the tank.

vinvinaa · Jul 3, 2022

OfficeReefer said:
Any reason for the mangroves? They like to get big roots, lots of them. Think of reverse acropora into your tank.

Thank you for asking. I somehow would like an aquascape of lagoon style with a mix of "wet-dry" areas. To be honest, I think my tank size does limit me to have such design as I don't have a wide-flat but a narrow-tall dimension.

Probably I will need to go back to the drawing board to rethink about the design. Any suggestion?

OfficeReefer · Jul 4, 2022

Hi @vinvinaa it's doable, I just don't see too many people attempt this in this width of a tank. Maybe let's start with what you want to put in the tank and think it out?

I found a thread on Nano Reef that would be a possible workaround. I've seen some photographers do some really neat stuff with algae tanks and one of them used plastic grates for coral frags, etc. to make the same design you wanted. Then they took a bunch of LR and busted it up on to this. Could be a messy thing and never know what's in real live rock. I might suggest a mix of this with a few ponds of crushed up marco rock or the like and a few pieces to seed with.

Brad's Natural Reef | Powered by NanoBox | Pics pg 24

www.nano-reef.com

vinvinaa · Jul 4, 2022

OfficeReefer said:
Hi @vinvinaa it's doable, I just don't see too many people attempt this in this width of a tank. Maybe let's start with what you want to put in the tank and think it out?

I found a thread on Nano Reef that would be a possible workaround. I've seen some photographers do some really neat stuff with algae tanks and one of them used plastic grates for coral frags, etc. to make the same design you wanted. Then they took a bunch of LR and busted it up on to this. Could be a messy thing and never know what's in real live rock. I might suggest a mix of this with a few ponds of crushed up marco rock or the like and a few pieces to seed with.

Brad's Natural Reef | Powered by NanoBox | Pics pg 24

www.nano-reef.com

Hi @OfficeReefer . Thank you for referring this to me. This is inspiring and I never thought of building a "big mountain" like the one shown. I think I will try to rebuild something like this using LR to stack them up, but the difficulty/limitation is the width of my tank - too narrow. It will be very difficult to stack up the LR while I still need to leave 1-2" for water flow at the back of the tank. As my tank is 3-faces with 1-side putting at the back of the wall, it will be extremely difficult for me to clean the detritus if I don't leave the space at the back of my tank, so leaving me only about 8" width to stack up the LR!

My idea is originally inspired by this tank. (I think I came across this tank in this forum, but I can't find it now.)

vinvinaa · Aug 1, 2022

At the end, I cannot build the aquascaping as planned due to the limitation of my rock and the width of the tank. Below is the current setup:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/new-rimless-narrow-tank.923807/#post-10427898