I’m a firm believer in having lots of rock, it makes the system healthier for the fish and corals because of the added surface area for bacteria. In my case my dt is in my bedroom and I don’t have a basement so my dt is packed with rock, if I had a basement I would have less in my dt and probably double what I have now in a big sump down there. The fish have more places to swim through, sleep, seek refuge, chill out etc... My current tank is a 92g, and 30g sump in the stand. I have 13 small to medium size fish and a lot of corals, my bioload is pretty heavy, I feed them 8 to 10 various Hikari cubes a day, and the fish and corals are all thriving which I know wouldn’t be possible if I had even half the rock I have now. Here’s a couple pics to give you an idea, and yes there is rock under all the coral.
I already had 3 Kessil160’s on 2 other tanks at the time I setup this one up a few years back and I liked the different looks they gave those tanks not to mention all types of corals grew under them. So when looking into lighting for my current tank I put the 3 160’s on it then bought 2 more 160’s, saving $ by not changing completely, ended up working out great. The 360 in the middle you see now I bought a couple months back since my lfs was blowing them out since the 360x came out. So that’s how I ended up with all the Kessils.
The rock before coral was just a bunch of rock piled up making lots of caves and swim through’s. The rock basically goes from all the way up the back to a couple inches from the front pane. I added flat pieces over the course of the 1st year or so to have more flat surface areas for adding frags. For flow I have 3 jebeao pp8’s. It works well as all the acroporas up top get good flow and the lower lps corals get much less like they like.
I’m a firm believer in having lots of rock, it makes the system healthier for the fish and corals because of the added surface area for bacteria. In my case my dt is in my bedroom and I don’t have a basement so my dt is packed with rock, if I had a basement I would have less in my dt and probably double what I have now in a big sump down there. The fish have more places to swim through, sleep, seek refuge, chill out etc... My current tank is a 92g, and 30g sump in the stand. I have 13 small to medium size fish and a lot of corals, my bioload is pretty heavy, I feed them 8 to 10 various Hikari cubes a day, and the fish and corals are all thriving which I know wouldn’t be possible if I had even half the rock I have now. Here’s a couple pics to give you an idea, and yes there is rock under all the coral.
If I had the option of say a basement I would probably have a tank full of rock tied in to the dt, after 30+ years of doing this I know it doesn't hurt it only helps the tank inhabitants.I thought I was the only one with that train of thought regarding more rock more bacteria. Mines is only a 45 gallon but under the coral is plenty of rock.
