Re-scaping After Coral Growth

LJLKRL05 · Oct 24, 2018

I find myself wanting to re-scape my tank after noticing how my corals are growing. I think I have too much rock, and I think my structures might be too tall.
The tank is a 29 inch tall 210 gallon with a single overflow on one end.
Any suggestions on this layout? Attached is the most recent FTS I have.

DaneGer21 · Oct 24, 2018

IMO, I think it looks nice.

Lostreefin · Oct 24, 2018

I like it too, it's really balanced, all the spires give a cool look.

KrisReef · Oct 24, 2018

It's a good looking collection, but if you want suggestions for movements:
Move the eye catching Welso-brain right to the spot underneath where the foxface is swimming in your photo. Move the tall stack that is currently behind the Welso (duncan?), swapping places with the torch stack on the left.

But if any of this is going to cause a rockfall, skip-it and leave it all where it is.

LJLKRL05 · Oct 24, 2018

KrisReef said:
It's a good looking collection, but if you want suggestions for movements:
Move the eye catching Welso-brain right to the spot underneath where the foxface is swimming in your photo. Move the tall stack that is currently behind the Welso (duncan?), swapping places with the torch stack on the left.

But if any of this is going to cause a rockfall, skip-it and leave it all where it is.

Good suggestions, but that Wellso swells up way bigger than that area below the foxface, and it slowly moves along the sandbed. I guess as it swells and shrinks it slides. The piece in the middle actually has a hammer on it, that is not glued down, so I could move it pretty easy.

vetteguy53081 · Oct 24, 2018

Like a bunch of softballs in the tank. Nice sized pieces. Tank seems well balanced and rocks look fine

LJLKRL05 · Oct 24, 2018

vetteguy53081 said:
Like a bunch of softballs in the tank. Nice sized pieces. Tank seems well balanced and rocks look fine

Thanks I appreciate that.

Katrina71 · Oct 24, 2018

Very pretty.

Waters · Oct 24, 2018

Like everyone else, I like it. It is different...looks really good.

MARK M. DAVIS · Oct 24, 2018

New tank purchase or upsize? This one looks good!

playapixie · Oct 24, 2018

LJLKRL05 said:
I find myself wanting to re-scape my tank after noticing how my corals are growing. I think I have too much rock, and I think my structures might be too tall.
The tank is a 29 inch tall 210 gallon with a single overflow on one end.
Any suggestions on this layout? Attached is the most recent FTS I have.

It looks great. Definitely not too much rock. That rock is your stability. The more the better.

LJLKRL05 · Oct 25, 2018

MARK M. DAVIS said:
New tank purchase or upsize? This one looks good!

I had a 55 for a while, but this one has been running for about two years, maybe a little more.

ChrisW · Oct 25, 2018

Dude the tank looks great wish mine looked that good

LJLKRL05 · Oct 25, 2018

ChrisW said:
Dude the tank looks great wish mine looked that good

Thanks I appreciate that.

ScottB · Oct 25, 2018

Like the previous posts, I too like what you have. But, if you are like me, you don't stay satisfied for long. Most folks like my scape, but over time it just looks like a pile of rock to me, even though I love the corals my rock hosts. The other thing I want to solve for is flow. I will post what it looks like now, and what I am tinkering with and building to change it.

In short though, I want to change from a "vertical pile look" to more of a "branching reef look" with more spacing to enhance flow through the rock. In theory, none of the rock will touch the back wall of the tank.

ChrisW · Oct 25, 2018

I was of the same mindset when i first had the tank set up, and I rescaped it a month later after getting on this site and seeing and reading what others have done, I realised I had too much rock and too much height so I most like would've ran into problems w/ being too close to the surface and the lights. @KrisReef seemed to have good suggestions, but what don't you like about your current setup? Is it just the vertical rock columns that don't leave a lot of room for growth upward? Your tank height is the same as mine but I have 110g less. Its hard to tell but if someone showed me the pic of your tank and asked what was wrong, I wouldn't say too much rock, but maybe would need a little more horizontal spots as opposed to vertical. But thats not a criticism of the current setup. And all that being said I like what you got goin on there

LJLKRL05 · Oct 25, 2018

Like @ScottB said, flow is a concern. I feel like the right side rocks are too close together, and it is hard to get flow along the bottom all the way across. The Wellso does not like a lot of flow, though. The clam I recently bought does not want a lot of flow on it either.
I am only using one gyre xf 250 on the left side for flow, in addition to the return lines out of the overflow.
I am ok with the taller pieces for the most part, I just need to get some corals on them. SPS seems to be doing well on them, so maybe I can add more SPS to them.
I would like a better layout for the horizontal pieces I think. I will have to take the hammers and frogspawns off the rocks on the right and see what kind of layout I can get to look better. The taller pieces in the back and middle are drilled and either have fiberglass rods and epoxy or just epoxy holding them together so there should not be any rocks falling over.
The left side does not have as many pieces to work with, so it might be easier.
There is about a 2 inch space between the back wall and the rocks to allow for flow across the back.

ScottB · Oct 25, 2018

Again, my goal was to escape the "pile of rock" look to go a bit more minimalist with a "branching" look. Equally important, increase water flow across the tank.
No experience uploading pics to R2R but here goes.

The first pic is obviously a full tank shot. Red Sea 525 with a "rock pile" look.

The second pic is a front view of the rock structure I am toying around with. I promise, when I am done, it WILL NOT look like a dancing chicken!

The third view is from the side. Notice the room for flow.

While this structure is a composite of many smaller pieces, it comes apart in three sections that interlock pretty solidly. A front "low cave" piece, the middle column with attached overhang, and the rear support column.

Perhaps you can see the acrylic rods along the bottom of each piece. All of my rock "floats" on the sand bed on 3 or 4 clear, acrylic legs. Super stable, and easy to blow out detritus.

ChrisW · Oct 25, 2018

ahh i see what you're dealing with now. and what @ScottB is saying. It'd be nice if you had like a "bridge" of sorts from one of those columns to the other to increase the real estate. I am super new at all this so if its a bad idea forgive me, but could you get like a low powered powerhead that would give flow in some of the spots but isnt strong enough to disrupt any surrounding areas? I ask that bc that is what I was thinking for my tank, trying to be proactive w it, I was thinking two vortech mp10s, one on the back of the tank going to the front and then one across the bottom front, back towards the over flow box