28g HQI first time 'round

SO.... here's the new news. My buddy and I divided our rock 90lbs between us...and here are some pics I'm posting. yet to really marine-scape <--- (so I heard that this is a more accurate term than aquacscape cause.. aqua means fresh and marine is for salt.please learn me if I'm wrong). first, since I put a little clean up crew in with the 90lbs. we gathered them all up and placed them in a zip-lock and set them aside.I put down 30lbs of CaribSea Agaronite Aragramax select. it gave me a bed of about an inch and a half. since I didnt plan well and had a huge storm, I just dropped the rock in and added the CUC and said I'd deal with it all later.. after everyone weathered the storm.

Bad news people. everyone did not weather the storm well. not at all. i lost a trochus, some asterina stars and some brittles and scared everyone else into hiding. my trochus was so scared he left his shell behind... so anyways i plan on leaving all alone for sometime. then I will _____scape my rock into something. right now it is all in mostly a piramid fashion right in the middle..bad.. but soon I shal add 12 more snails to my CUC before getting my first fish a gobie. cause I want a pistol shrimp also. that will be cool..:thinking2well back to the good times. here are some pics with his body removed. wanted to spare all on the tragedy.updating my sig. now

 

Seniorgreenpant - nice update

aqua means water - so in effect everyone is wrong we dont scape water, we scape the rocks we put in the water LOL

Steve

 

Here I just got back into town decided to move some rock and this is what I got. dont think I'll keep it like this. I think more of a semi-circle with open sand in the middle for zoas?

 

seniorgreenplant

aquascaping is a matter of personal taste so please feel free to ignore my comments below

there are certain things I have learned the hard way for myself.

1 - I make sure I decrease the size of the corals as I work up the reef
this means you have great shelves / coral placing locations which you dont get if you place rocks of a similar size on top of each other

2 - I dont have large flat rocks sitting diagonally, as they make great shelf rocks for placing corals so I aim to keep them as close to 180 degrees/ level as I can when setting up

3 - I like to incorporate space on at least the lower rock layer, because this gives fish a way through (creates tunnels) and also exposses more of the rock surface area , tunnels and caves are just things I enjoy when scaping a reef tank

the above may sound like its to uniform and rather unatural but when the corals start to grow and spread, you cant see the original rock work and in the mean time, you have had a relatively easy time of placing corals and dont run out of good placement locations to quickly


Steve