Opinions on making minimal aquascape NOT minimal

[Miami Reef]

The redundancy hurts.

I have a lot of tangs and they are not getting along. Not enough hiding places. It is my job to ensure my fish are happy, so I need to bulk up my rockwork to make fish feel safe.

The section that I am really focusing on right now is on the left. That large gap doesn’t look good.

I need some opinions on how I can make my tank feel safer for 11 tangs yet still look good to the perfectionist in me.

The second picture was when the tank was new. I broke some of the rocks by accident when a coral got stuck.

 

[TuxUrchin07]

Maybe just add more caves? But make sure you make enough cuz they might fight over the caves

 

[FishDaddy]

Less tangs, that’s a big bio load as they grow plus the aggression. Sounds like you’re going to lose a bunch of them. Maybe focus to 4/5.

 

[vtecintegra]

I'll just come out and say it, NSA sucks from a habitat point of view. Almost all of my fish, except for a pair of cardinals, go to sleep every night in a cave, hole, or crevice in the rocks. Within 45 minutes of lights out, they've disappeared. I've got one Tang, and made sure there were at least two caves with large enough entrances where he can sleep. He uses them in the day time also, any time he's nervous. NSA isn't anything like a reef environment. I would add enough caves and rocks where each fish has their own spot. I don't know how easy it will be to pull it off with that many Tangs, though. It will take a lot of rock, and scraping the NSA design.

 

[Miami Reef]

I'll just come out and say it, NSA sucks from a habitat point of view. Almost all of my fish, except for a pair of cardinals, go to sleep every night in a cave, hole, or crevice in the rocks. Within 45 minutes of lights out, they've disappeared. I've got one Tang, and made sure there were at least two caves with large enough entrances where he can sleep. He uses them in the day time also, any time he's nervous. NSA isn't anything like a reef environment. I would add enough caves and rocks where each fish has their own spot. I don't know how easy it will be to pull it off with that many Tangs, though. It will take a lot of rock, and scraping the NSA design.

I think I can turn it into a rock wall. I can add rocks in between the bridge gaps in the right. Add rocks to connect the s shape mound to the new filled bridge. Then connect the bridge to the tree and fill in the empty spaces. It will look like a flat 2 dimensional wall.

I’m going to sleep on this idea. It honestly hurts to think of scraping it because I worked so hard to make it look like this. But I actually can add caves and still make the tank look nice without the NSW look. Plus I can fill with more corals.

 

[Miami Reef]

I successfully added rocks to the tank. I’m really proud of how it came out and I can already tell the fish feel more secure.