Live Rock placement question

[SuperXdude]

Is there a "best method" for placing live rock in the tank?

I've have mine stacked evenly from left side to right side, but I have
seen pics where the rock is shorter at the sides and highest at the middle.

See attached link.


www.computersims.com/stars/jpegs/rock.jpg


SuperX

[JimT]

There really is no best method. It is typically what you find most pleasing. There are a couple of groundrules that I like to follow:

• 1. Caves, Caves, Caves - I like to have as many good caves as possible. It is great for the fish becasue they will have plenty of hiding places and plenty of holes to swim in and out. It makes the whole reef more dynamic.
  
  2. Plenty of Current - With any rockwork, you will need to make sure to try to eliminate dead areas. It is good to have several powerheads or jets strategically located throughout the rockwork so that there is plenty of current both inside and outside the reef framework.
  
  3. Minimize Contact with Walls - Minimize the contact area of the rockwork with the walls. You don't want to introduce any pressure points on your glass/acrylic walls that could stress the walls. Any pressure point could eventually work its way into cracking and you could have a tank explosion all over you display room floor.

[MikeP]

Arrange it, wait a day or two and you will probably want to rearrange it again. I just redid my tank and had to undo half of it again because I accidentally used a giant rock covered with zoos as a shim on a bigger structure. I like plateaus and flat areas, the overhang gives shaded spots for fish and lower light corals and the flat areas are great for placeing frags or larger colonies. Also ditto on what Jim T said about not having too much pressure from rock on walls but my Oceanic is built like the proverbial brick outhouse and its less of an issue. A cheap 10 gallon with a 50 lb rock against it is scary.

- Set rock on bottom of glass and then place substrate around it. This is soooo important. Your sandbed will shift over time and having sand right under big chunks of rock seems to create nasty anoxic zones that should be deeper in your sandbed. Also if you have burrowing critters like me they won't collapse your whole reef. I place a few large pieces deep into sand and then build up from there.

- Stability, if it rocks or wobble much at all a snail , fish or crab will find a way to topple it so make sure it's snug. I use small pieces of live rock rubble and old coral skeletons to shim up wiggly spots.

- Consider water flow behind the structure also - I have my main return blowing back behind the rocks and have some of my maxijets hidden in the rock creating current through it - prevents detritus buildup and seems to increase the amount of filter feeding critters popping up in rock (I have counted about 12 different types of hitchiker feather dusters appearing so far!)

- Most importantly have fun. It's best to take the time and get something you will be happy with for a long time - lots of people complain about the 'wall of rock look' but it's one fo the closest approximations to many reef zones we have. One of the the Fossa/Nilsen books has an awesome seciton on aquascaping and recreating specific reef areas - I'll dig it up and post a few ideas if I can.

-MP

[ratboy]

I rescaped my tank last night and this time I went for 2 piles of rock instead of my typical wall setup. I have a mix of figi and tonga branch so I always create lots of caves and overhands. I will post pictures of my aquascape after I finish placing the corals.

One thing /i did this time when rescaping that made things easier was I bought plastic sweater storage boxes from target. They are 5" deep and ~ 18"x24 perimeter. Each one held 5 gallons and allowed me to carefully place each coral in groups (zoos, acros, leathers) so when I rescaped I could place all my high light/current pieces in one spot, low light/current in others. Thiswas hte first time I didnt break a fragile sps colony or otherwise beat up one of my corals by placing them in buckets

[matt]

Excellent posts by everyone who's replied; I would just reinforce the bit about providing for good current in all areas of your tank. Especially, keeping rock off the tank walls will help to keep the dreaded dead zones to a minimum. I've always placed my rock in the sand, though. Next time I aquascape I'll try putting the really big pieces on the tank floor.

Oh yeah, one other thing I read once advocated keeping some areas of rock separated by open sand to prevent migration of corals (like xenia!) throughout the tank. If you have a big enough tank to do this, it's worth a try.

Matt