Blazer88
Well-known member
I setup this tank about nine months ago and I have always hated the aquascape. It's essentially a flat wall stacked up against the back. I didn't have much room for frags and the flow around the rocks was poor at best (maybe why I still have some GHA). So I decided to tear down everything yesterday and make some improvements.
Here was my current full-tank shot. Many of the rocks were verticle leaving little room for placement of frags. Not to mention it was boring looking.
My idea was to create a hollow tower in the center of the tank and have many ledges, over-hangs, and interesting caves. It's tough to tell in the picture, but the PVC pole is 20" tall (tank is 24" tall) and has a 6"x6" square platform (egg crate) about 4" from the sand bed help up with PVC legs. My idea was to have none of the rocks touching the back of the tank to allow for good water flow around and through the rocks.
This next pictures shows more progress on the tower. I pull out most of my rock and picked the best pieces to start stacking with. I used the natural holes in the rocks and hung them with zipties, almost like christmas ornaments, around the PVC pole. I was most concerned getting the pole hidden but still allowing the fish to use this "cave" and have plenty of room inside for waterflow.
Here the aquascape is essentially done. This didn't quite fit the picture I had in my mind, as it is still basically a rock wall, but I still feel it was a large improvement. I have a large cave at the base of the tower (and many others throughout), plenty of ledges to attach SPS to, shaded areas for lower-light corals, and almost nothing is touching the back wall/overflow. The water flow seems to be great through all of the rocks and I can even hide a small powerhead at the top of the tower and have it blow down the tower if I want to keep detritus from accumulating. I also made another small PVC structure to hold up the rocks on the right-hand side of the tank (above the cave) that is supporting the large shelf. I'll post the final pictures of everything stocked when my lights turn on this morning. This whole idea stemmed from seeing Dave's (o2manyfish) tank where he made cool towers and such from PVC. Enjoy!
Here was my current full-tank shot. Many of the rocks were verticle leaving little room for placement of frags. Not to mention it was boring looking.
My idea was to create a hollow tower in the center of the tank and have many ledges, over-hangs, and interesting caves. It's tough to tell in the picture, but the PVC pole is 20" tall (tank is 24" tall) and has a 6"x6" square platform (egg crate) about 4" from the sand bed help up with PVC legs. My idea was to have none of the rocks touching the back of the tank to allow for good water flow around and through the rocks.
This next pictures shows more progress on the tower. I pull out most of my rock and picked the best pieces to start stacking with. I used the natural holes in the rocks and hung them with zipties, almost like christmas ornaments, around the PVC pole. I was most concerned getting the pole hidden but still allowing the fish to use this "cave" and have plenty of room inside for waterflow.
Here the aquascape is essentially done. This didn't quite fit the picture I had in my mind, as it is still basically a rock wall, but I still feel it was a large improvement. I have a large cave at the base of the tower (and many others throughout), plenty of ledges to attach SPS to, shaded areas for lower-light corals, and almost nothing is touching the back wall/overflow. The water flow seems to be great through all of the rocks and I can even hide a small powerhead at the top of the tower and have it blow down the tower if I want to keep detritus from accumulating. I also made another small PVC structure to hold up the rocks on the right-hand side of the tank (above the cave) that is supporting the large shelf. I'll post the final pictures of everything stocked when my lights turn on this morning. This whole idea stemmed from seeing Dave's (o2manyfish) tank where he made cool towers and such from PVC. Enjoy!
