[tcmemphisbbq]

I've been looking at tons of pics of reef tanks, and Ive got 50lbs of live rock in my 55gal tank. Long term it's gonna be a reef tank. I have aquascaped it but the rock doesnt come up half way if I put it a "wall" formation and I am thinking about adding another 30 or 40lbs.

What I have noticed in the pics ive looked at is it looks like the rocks are piled up right next and up against the glass of the tank - is this common to pile the rocks that close? I was under the impression you wanted to leave enough room to clean aroun everything - but in alot of the pics ive seen it would seem impossible to clean behind some of the setups I have looked at -

Looking for advice and feedback on the subject - I personaly like the styles that have two seperate "piles" of rock with gap in the middle - is there a cheaper rock you can use for building it up instead of using live rock that may not show through anyway -

Thanks,
Tom

[Tinyfish]

My preference is to stack the rocks leaving gaps for fish to swim in and out of. I put my rocks as close to the back and sides as possible and leaving that small gap. I have seen rock piled very high this way.

The other way to stack is to use nylon or plastic rod, drill holes in the rock and assemble like tinkertoys. This method is not flexible enough for me. I like to rearrange periodically.

I don't clean behind the rocks.

There is one more method which is referred to as the volcano stack. It is just like it sounds, one stack that looks like a perfect volcano in the middle. This way you can clean all sides.

[map95003]

I also like the 2 piles with a space somewhere in the middle. What I did with my recently setup 75g was I use base rock (dried fiji rock) for the back and bottom, I drilled through most of the rock and stack them to my liking, connecting them with nylon threaded rods then anchor them to pieces of acrylic. After I arranged them the way I wanted, I added my live sand over the acrylic base to keep the rock structures in place, this also kept the rock off the back glass giving me about 2-3 inches back there to clean and allow flow.

The down side to this approach is that it's very difficult to move the structures after you've added the sand, so if you don't like it you're pretty much stuck. In my case I didn't anchor all the rock, just the main structures so I'm still able to move a few pieces around.

[talofalava]

Ive recently used a ceramic rock product (vidarock) in my tank that colonizes the same way as LR. I chose it because I was able to find the shapes that I was looking for. It was very easy to build the aquascape I wanted. I got some pillars and plates and stacked the flatter plate like pieces on top of the taller pieces. The shapes of the ceramic rocks stack really well because the pillar shapes had flat bottoms. Maybe this would be an alternative for you.

[talofalava]

you might be interested in a ceramic reef background. Recently seen some from cerameco and it saved alot of space but added the function of the live rock because it colonizes in a similar way with bacteria. It was a good alternative to stacking alot of rock.

[mrmusicart]

After giving to my reef tank an incredible underwater passage with live rock, it colapsed yesterday. I felt so sad...but after the deception, started to llok for the safer way to stack live rock without cracking it. They have said epoxy and pvc pipes...Any with good experiences?
Greetings Sebastian

[pogodzib]

Welcome to RB Sebastian! I've never used either epoxy or PVC piping for my rocks since I like having flexibility to move rocks around as I add corals. However, I know of several local reef keepers that use PVC pipe for their rocks and they look nice and it works good for them.