Suggestions/advice to rock scaping

I was wondering what is the best way to hopefully make a rock scape look natural but yet allowing for placement of corals in the future?

I have a 110 gl (4' X 18" X 29") so I have a lot of height in the tank but feel like the options to place rock are limited. I'm not afraid to end up drilling the rock to keep it from falling, as I practiced on my fiji branches that ended up in my Solana cube tank.

Are there any good resources or images to search?

Here is a most recent pic of what I have done so far but at times I look at the tank & think that some of the rock don't look natural. I also have a line of small rocks along the back side to keep the anemone from being sucked into the overflow, as the first night in the tank while it was moving around it got stuck with its tentacles in the overflow and I had to shut the pump down to rescue it.

 

that looks pretty good, bu I have steered away from the traditional wall/pile look, I like to do 2-3 separate stacks in my tank to build small under water Islands. just my preference tho

 

Use rocks with a lot of surface area on bottom and twist them into the sand so it looks like they've been there for a wile and have some piles closer to the front of the tank and some towards the back to give depth and if you have any long or skinny pieces I think some bridges look good.
Just an opinion
Always something that doesn't quite look right.

 

Im not sure if anybody is 100% happy with how there scape turned out in there tank, however you can look at somebody elses and absolutely love it. That's just how it goes

 

i prefer larger rocks with unique shapes (as opposed to round) to piles of smaller ones. i know the large rocks can be expensive but i feel it is well worth it. When i look at an aquarium, i tend to focus on the full tank shot so the aquascape makes the tank for me.

 

I've decided I'm going to order about 65 pounds of dry rock from reefcleaners. I emailed them & sent the same pic I have here & his suggestion was anywhere from 65 to 70 to fill out the tank better.

 

Building a reef structure

I always try to have my aquascape up off the sand bed by using doubled egg crate and acrylic tubes. First i custom cut egg crate to the shape i want(double it) hold it together with ties then i cut tubes glue square pieces to top and bottom of them. I drill holes in tubes for flow through and they act as little refugiums for micro fana, then i cable tie tubes to egg crate and you have a strong platform to build your aquascape on plus a area for fish to swim and place for corals needing less light.
I also like the fact that i get flow all around and through my rock scape
Works well with taller tanks and also helps with lighting needed by different corals as stated above.

 

Platform



This is the platform i built for my newest reef build it's going in my 300 gallon 30" tall tank. It is 7' long with three levels of sand beds along with skylights to allow lighting to hit lower sand bed at bottom of tank. The way this one is set up i will use (5) large Pukani rocks with areas cut out of the back of them to hide the five upright supports. Then i will cement additional Pukani covering balance of areas needed along with building some cool tall rock formations for an endless supply of areas to place corals.
Things worth noteing are holes drilled into pvc structure this will allow water to enter along with micro Fana, also the sand in raised beds will be large grain to allow water to flow through them. Another item is each level is made so that if needed a section of the reef support can be removed without removing the others.
By elevating rock structure it not only gives you more areas for corals but it gives more exposed sand bed and lots of areas for coral placement not needing so much light and gives fish alot more areas to swim
I will dig out some pictures of past structures where i used acrylic tubes for support making the reef look like it's floating in air.

Happy ReefN,

 

Thanks for the pic. I appreciate any pics you have from past structures.

Any pics of something of this nature set up in your tank? I'm trying to imagine the sand bed, etc?

Any special glue that you used on these structures? Is PVC glue safe in a reef?

 

For filtration purposes it's key to keep it as open and airy as possible. Also try to have the Least amount of rock possible touching the sand bed o prevent dead spots. Personally I think tall aquascapes look better than short long ones. JMO...