Temporary Aquascaping Attempt # 1 (of Many)
Tried my hand last night at some temporary aquascaping to start getting a feel for what rock I have at my disposal.
** apologies for the poor phone pics. promise to get my DLSR out and worry about lighting/reflections/shadows at some point further into the journey **
- getting the tank to look good from two different sides/aspects is going to be a challenge
- pretty happy with the two structures that I was able to create. Have tried for a semi-minimalist look, with a few overhangs and swim-through gaps. Want plenty of swimming room for fish and enough hiding places/territories to keep everyone happy and healthy. I am gazing at a few of the larger rocks and visualising fish sitting in some of the "large" holes that bore through them. I can see a blenny in my future somewhere, with his cute little head poking out of one of these holes, once the tank is a few months older.
- Plan initially was to put PVC lifts (pieces of round PVC pipe drilled with large holes) under my rockwork to allow more flow around and under the rocks and hopefully mimimise detritus build-up. This is still easily applied to the right hand structure, but the left structure not so much. Most of the contact points with the substrate for structure # 2 are relatively small (5 x 5cm or less) and there are quite a few contact points. Not sure if I will be able to fashion multiple PVC lifts, while at the same time keeping them unobtrusive. Might need to try the "eggcrate platform zip tied to PVC lifts" idea that I have seen pics of on various reefing forums. Any advice/tips would be appreciated.
- Also, two of my favourite rocks, one cool base rock with a nicely sized cave in the bottom of it (my yellow assessor's house) and one pretty large and flat shelf are still in my other tank. So I don't want to spend too much time on scaping the tank til those two rocks are available for use (both rocks have some algae that I think may be bryopsis, so may be doing the scrub and acid bath trick again before transferring them). For reference these two rocks together are approximately the same size as the right hand structure in the pics below.
Here is what I came up with so far.
"Close" shot of left hand structure from the "front"
"Close" shot of right hand structure from the "front"
Pic from the "front". Small rock in front is going to be the central structure under a zoa garden, hopefully.
View from the other side
** apologies for the poor phone pics. promise to get my DLSR out and worry about lighting/reflections/shadows at some point further into the journey **
- getting the tank to look good from two different sides/aspects is going to be a challenge
- pretty happy with the two structures that I was able to create. Have tried for a semi-minimalist look, with a few overhangs and swim-through gaps. Want plenty of swimming room for fish and enough hiding places/territories to keep everyone happy and healthy. I am gazing at a few of the larger rocks and visualising fish sitting in some of the "large" holes that bore through them. I can see a blenny in my future somewhere, with his cute little head poking out of one of these holes, once the tank is a few months older.
- Plan initially was to put PVC lifts (pieces of round PVC pipe drilled with large holes) under my rockwork to allow more flow around and under the rocks and hopefully mimimise detritus build-up. This is still easily applied to the right hand structure, but the left structure not so much. Most of the contact points with the substrate for structure # 2 are relatively small (5 x 5cm or less) and there are quite a few contact points. Not sure if I will be able to fashion multiple PVC lifts, while at the same time keeping them unobtrusive. Might need to try the "eggcrate platform zip tied to PVC lifts" idea that I have seen pics of on various reefing forums. Any advice/tips would be appreciated.
- Also, two of my favourite rocks, one cool base rock with a nicely sized cave in the bottom of it (my yellow assessor's house) and one pretty large and flat shelf are still in my other tank. So I don't want to spend too much time on scaping the tank til those two rocks are available for use (both rocks have some algae that I think may be bryopsis, so may be doing the scrub and acid bath trick again before transferring them). For reference these two rocks together are approximately the same size as the right hand structure in the pics below.
Here is what I came up with so far.
"Close" shot of left hand structure from the "front"
"Close" shot of right hand structure from the "front"
Pic from the "front". Small rock in front is going to be the central structure under a zoa garden, hopefully.
View from the other side
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