Will This work?

[Savant]

Will this work?

My first try is so LOL but I read and looked and read and rebuilt and rebuilt then rebuilt again and this is what i finally think is going to work. There is a minimum of 2" clearance to all 4 sides of glass to allow for cleaning/scraping.
PLEASE tell me of any problems you see and any suggestions you might have.
Its easier to change now than after I get it cycled....

Tank is 105G & thats about 90 lbs rock with 2"sb. I plan on seeding small (fist size) pieces of LR after cycle. 40g fuge, gonna add more lr into fuge
This will primarly be softie/LPS but I am going to leave the upper shelf/ridges unpopulated for possible SPS down the road

LOL first try

after research

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[Panda500120]

what are you planning on putting in the tank?

 

[mike007]

Looks good to me. It is hard to aquascape rock there are so many possibilites. My only suggestion is to make sure you have a lot of ledges to put corals on. Looks like you have created spaces where you will have good circulation throughout the rock. Good job.

 

[Dtech07]

Looks nice but you won't truly know till you have it up and running. Main concern is water flow even behind the rocks and as said earlier you won't know till up and running then you can fine tune.

 

[Savant]

cool, thanks! I tried to build it so most of the surfaces all along the top "ridgeline" are flat so I can place stuff on it. I also "terraced" flat surfaces moving down to the sand to obtain different light intensities.

Would it be beneficial or necessary to plumb one of the returns down to a "spray bar" behind the coral along the base to improve water circulation up through the coral?

 

[Reefing Madness]

Looks good to me. But if your going with a Reef tank, I'd up the Rock another 100lbs.

 

[jedimasterben]

Looks good to me. But if your going with a Reef tank, I'd up the Rock another 100lbs.

You're kidding, right? You know what that tank would look like if it had any more rock in it?

IMHO, you have too much rock in the display to make an aquascape look like anything more than a 'box of rocks'. Negative space is your friend!!

I would take it all out and start putting it in piece by piece. That way you can look at it from different angles and decide where each piece will go without being overwhelmed with all the other rock around it. If you have rock left over, either put it in your sump/fuge or save it for a future project (or give it away to a friend). People think you need a ridiculous amount of rock to have a biofilter, but that is simply untrue. Your sandbed has many more times the surface area the rock does.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Reef tank should be run with 2lbs of Rock per gallon. Gotta remember that the Rock is your filtration system.

 

[jedimasterben]

Reef tank should be run with 2lbs of Rock per gallon. Gotta remember that the Rock is your filtration system.

Again, you're kidding, right? That's made up and doesn't make any sense, just like the inch per gallon and watts per gallon rule.

You only need to use as much rock as is aesthetically pleasing, which 2lbs/gallon will NOT accomplish.

 

[mike007]

I would have to agree i think that you will be much happier with more rock. You can add later but it will be pain. But there is nothing wrong with what you are doing if it pleases you. It's your tank my friend.

 

[dastowers]

You're kidding, right? You know what that tank would look like if it had any more rock in it?

IMHO, you have too much rock in the display to make an aquascape look like anything more than a 'box of rocks'. Negative space is your friend!!

I would take it all out and start putting it in piece by piece. That way you can look at it from different angles and decide where each piece will go without being overwhelmed with all the other rock around it. If you have rock left over, either put it in your sump/fuge or save it for a future project (or give it away to a friend). People think you need a ridiculous amount of rock to have a biofilter, but that is simply untrue. Your sandbed has many more times the surface area the rock does.

Ahh...I don't think so. Check out bare bottom tanks.