TheLadyCrash's 45g JBJ - Aquascaping Thoughts?

[TheLadyCrash]

Below is a FTS of my 45g JBJ taken as of this morning. I'm battling a bit of an algae problem atm but hopefully the urchin I'm getting later today will help out.

What do you guys think of the aquascaping thus far? I'm thinking of raising the island on the left to about twice it's current height to add some vertical on that side of the tank and also to give me some more room to add corals.

I am open to any thoughts, suggestions, comments, questions.

Thanks!

 

[RyanCSGO]

Below is a FTS of my 45g JBJ taken as of this morning. I'm battling a bit of an algae problem atm but hopefully the urchin I'm getting later today will help out.

What do you guys think of the aquascaping thus far? I'm thinking of raising the island on the left to about twice it's current height to add some vertical on that side of the tank and also to give me some more room to add corals.

I am open to any thoughts, suggestions, comments, questions.

Thanks!

looks great!
I tried to do something similar to mine, added a rock on the left side to elevate one end to make it not look as uniform.

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

I like the twin pyramid look, I think having them both around the same height will give the scape more vertical presence and make folks focus on the upper end of the tank a bit more

 

[Tahoe61]

Constructive criticism, I would remove some of the rock and move up some of the corals off the bottom. You have a lot of healthy looking corals, just can not decide what direction your going corals wise. I would look more to a minimalist style, open up the bottom. An easy way to remove that algae is with a soft tooth brush to clean the back and the power head and the out flows. Let settle and siphon out during a routine water change. I have this tank and it offers a challenge with regard to keeping rock away from the back and sides. This is a hard tank to scape, even the JBJ 20 and 30 gallon RL are easier to scape.

 

[TheLadyCrash]

Thanks for the feedback! As a first step I ended up pulling the left pyramid forward a bit to increase the look of depth in the tank. I put another, shorter rock behind it that I’m planning to move the toadstool and the yellow Fiji onto with the hopes they’ll peak out behind the pyramid.

I’ll post an updated pic tomorrow. All the corals are pretty ticked off at me right now.

 

[TheLadyCrash]

Constructive criticism, I would remove some of the rock and move up some of the corals off the bottom. You have a lot of healthy looking corals, just can not decide what direction your going corals wise. I would look more to a minimalist style, open up the bottom. An easy way to remove that algae is with a soft tooth brush to clean the back and the power head and the out flows. Let settle and siphon out during a routine water change. I have this tank and it offers a challenge with regard to keeping rock away from the back and sides. This is a hard tank to scape, even the JBJ 20 and 30 gallon RL are easier to scape.

I definitely appreciate constructive criticism

You are very right in that I’m having trouble deciding which coral types to focus on. I prefer the softies because I like how they move but it feels like they just don’t have the same vertical draw as the LPS/SPS.

 

[smiley28]

Nice tank looks very healthy to me. If I was you I wouldn’t change it at all. Do you want to change the scape for a particular reason? The height looks good to me cause now you have room for your coral to grow vertically and the rock doesn’t look packed.

 

[TheLadyCrash]

Nice tank looks very healthy to me. If I was you I wouldn’t change it at all. Do you want to change the scape for a particular reason? The height looks good to me cause now you have room for your coral to grow vertically and the rock doesn’t look packed.

Mainly because I have a lot of corals on the bottom of the tank and don’t know where to place them. The leathers are the ones bothering me mainly at the moment because I’d like to move them higher but can’t figure out where to place them on the rock.

 

[smiley28]

Maybe just trim the leathers? They already look like they are doing very well. I’m sure you know those leather corals are going to get massive.

Also just recently covered sea urchins and dissected one in my biodiversity class.

 

[TheLadyCrash]

So here’s a FTS after pulling the left pyramid forward and placing another rock behind it to put the leathers on.

What do you all think looks better? (I haven’t moved corals off the bottom yet because I don’t want to glue anything down until I’m 100% sure on the formation)

Before:


After: