Constructive Criticism...Aesthetics

[sharij1]

Here's my tank. Not real thrilled with it at the moment. I'm looking for constructive criticism on aquascaping future corals to purchase and replacement. It's a 29gallon long, 2 ocellaris, one royal gramma, various snails and crabs. I have an anemone, torch coral (bottom left), goniopora, small duncan frag, brown polyps of some sort, small frag of pulsing xenia, and two frags of zoas. I love movement and color in a tank, but am looking for fairly easy corals.

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Edit: woops...placement, not replacement...I hate autocorrect.

 

[outdrsyguy1]

Looks like a pretty good start to me.
Your rocks look a little precarious, are they pretty stable? It's pretty easy to accidentally knock them over or have powerheads go funky and get a lot of flow.

Also, if I were you I would put the xenia on a couple rocks that can easily be removed and fragged occaisionally. There's quite a few tales of xenia taking over tanks and my understanding is that if you can pull it out and frag it there's very little chance of having it pop up all over the tank which can occur when fragging in tank.

If you like movement and color you would probably enjoy a nice green star polyp (gsp) colony. Again, just place it properly so you can pull it out when it starts to spread beyond where you want.

You have a decent sand bed so you could consider a pistol shrimp/goby pairing at some point in the future.

good luck, look forward to seeing it progress!

 

[rjrgroup]

Glue some gsp to the back glass.

 

[cedzaquaddiction]

Not a bad start at all... How about tilting some of those rocks up from the bottom, and bracing them against eachother? This will make for some more caves, dimension, filtration, and get rid of the flat bottom look...

Keep us posted!!!

 

[sharij1]

the flat bottom rock will eventually go in a 75 gallon when my freshwater fish die and i can switch that tank over to saltwater. I dont want it to die off before that happens, otherwise it wouldnt be in there...I agree. im liking the idea of the gsp. the rocks on the bottom center are an experiment with the anemone. the stupid thing is fine during the day but tumbles at night. it has a natural crevice in the rock. I was thinking of moving the xenia to the rock in the middle so i can move the rock or frag as necessary. youre right about easy access for fragging.

 

[camellia]

Looks like its coming along great.
If you want something a little different get the pink star polyps. It comes in long polyps and isn't as common. If you weren't so far away I could frag you a little. I have it in my softie tank and enjoy it but i do keep it isolated to keep it from jumping rocks.
A prices of Tonga coveted in PSP or GSP would be a nice add for interest,

 

[sharij1]

How do you get something to just encrusted on a specific rock? I've seen other stuff just encrusted over a skull and things like that. Anyone know how to do it?

 

[morganatlanta]

Paint the back black, or just get some of the black film for the back

 

[heathlindner25]

You might want to look into more flow.. are those powerheads 425's
a little trick I do is get a razor blade and cut out every other fin on those power heads... insta upgrade

 

[kilralpine]

Regardless, even if you isolate the xenia it WILL pop up in another place in the tank eventually. They grow so fast that once in a while they break off small branches that end up rooting elsewhere. I wouldnt recommend xenia, they are easy to frag/tug out of the tank and trash but its more maintenance than I would like.

 

[sharij1]

yeah they are two 425s. i had three in there but it was just too much and the water was pretty turbulent. i am still trying to figure out the best placement for optimim water flow.