180g DT Aquascape - Need Feedback Please

[Brit’s Fish]

I have done probably 10 or so aquascapes now, including two 4’ 120g DTs, but never one of this size. This one is 6x2x2, so it’s the largest tank I’ve ever scaped. I usually use CaribSea Life Rock shapes but this time, I had this bright idea to use branchy rock, including some Jakarta live rock in order to make a lot of swim throughs for smaller fish. The branchy rock that I ended up getting is fairly lightweight, which also worries me so I may end up gluing/epoxying it. A full 5 gallon bucket of live rock was only 22 lbs, for reference.
I’m not planning to have many corals, maybe some of my larger colonies of softies will move into this tank but I will have anemones for sure.

This tank is used from my nephew and it came with 6 larger fish and I plan to add 3 more from an existing tank that I’m tearing down - fish list below. I will probably do some shuffling around with another of my tangs. I would also like to add a group of Banggai cardinals, some small damsels or maybe anthias?

These are the 6 fish that have already been together for several years:
- 8” Gold Spotted Rabbitfish
- 5” Sailfin Tang
- 4” Yellow Tang
- 4” Purple Tang
- 4” Hippo Tang (full grown at 5 years old!)
- 3 1/2” Bristletooth Tang

My fish that are going in:
- 5” Moustache Jawfish
- Large pair of Spotcinctus clowns

Proposed Tang shuffle: I want to move my 3 yr old 6-7” Hippo Tang into the new tank or I’ll have to rehome him. I would move the little Hippo Tang into to one of the 4’ tanks and maybe the Yellow Tang, since he’s always fighting with the Purple Tang.

All of that is to say that I know I need space for everyone to hide and sleep. I was hoping to have two islands with an open raceway down the middle, but I’m second guessing that now too. What would you change if you were scaping this tank?

I’m feeling very uninspired, especially with the rocks I have. I kind of hate this aquascape so far, particularly the right side. I can get more rock tomorrow & I would probably get another box or two of CaribSea life rock shapes. What I have seems like it’s not enough anyways.

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

Actually I like it! It is very similar to my style of aquascaping. I always try to recreate what I see in the ocean, not some NSA scape. If you look at my build thread for my 40g it is similar. I like to build islands and arch off of those. You do have a lot of white space (sand) If you want you can add more Arch islands off of your other ones. I know you said it won't be a heavy coral tank, but this will allow you to let them grow out and you can do small isolated islands for goni's or zoas or what ever fast growing coral you like. I wouldn't worry about having a complete aquascape right off the bat, this allows for plenty of change. It is a good strong base to expand on. Having lots of hides for fish are important and you did well with that.

 

[braaap]

Lots of vertical space for future growth. It all depends on your stocking. SPS? It’s nearly perfect. Tweak as you go. LPS and softies? Could go up more.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Actually I like it! It is very similar to my style of aquascaping. I always try to recreate what I see in the ocean, not some NSA scape. If you look at my build thread for my 40g it is similar. I like to build islands and arch off of those. You do have a lot of white space (sand) If you want you can add more Arch islands off of your other ones. I know you said it won't be a heavy coral tank, but this will allow you to let them grow out and you can do small isolated islands for goni's or zoas or what ever fast growing coral you like. I wouldn't worry about having a complete aquascape right off the bat, this allows for plenty of change. It is a good strong base to expand on. Having lots of hides for fish are important and you did well with that.

Hey friend! Thank you for the feedback! I really appreciate it and I think I will probably add a couple more arches. I’m going to check out your 40g build now.

 

[Brit’s Fish]

Lots of vertical space for future growth. It all depends on your stocking. SPS? It’s nearly perfect. Tweak as you go. LPS and softies? Could go up more.

For corals, there will be softies and maybe some large meaty LPS in the future. Maybe one day I’ll feel confident enough for SPS. I will also have anemones. Everything is probably going to come from my other existing tanks for now - I have a mass of huge RBTAs that desperately needs to be thinned out and some large branching leather colonies that could easily be cut in half, at least.

I also have a massive green polyp toadstool that o think I’m gong to move to this tank. It’s about 12” across and 10” tall. Not sure where I would put it in this current scape. What do you think?

 

[Tumey]

I don’t know if it’s possible Brit but I might try to create a mirrored arch structure like you already have for the left side as looking at the tank. Turn & twist the arch structures moving them closer to the back & move the smaller structure you’ve already built between them towards the front. It does look good right now though too

Edit: I’ve got my left & rights mixed up, LOL, I hope you understand what I’m thinking

 

[Brit’s Fish]

I don’t know if it’s possible Brit but I might try to create a mirrored arch structure like you already have for the left side as looking at the tank. Turn & twist the arch structures moving them closer to the back & move the smaller structure you’ve already built between them towards the front. It does look good right now though too

Edit: I’ve got my left & rights mixed up, LOL, I hope you understand what I’m thinking

I like this idea! And I knew what you meant. I do like to have a little more variation in the distance of the rock from the front glass, so I think I may end up doing something like this. Thank you for the suggestion!

 

[Brit’s Fish]

So I ended up changing things a bit on the right side. My husband and I went to an LFS and saw this cool Life Rock structure and he, especially, loved it. So here’s the new aquascape. There’s still plenty of room for changes if needed but I think it will accommodate some of the larger fish better. A few of the really branchy pieces are actually stacked up behind the new large structure where they can be used as hiding spaces for small fish but it doesn’t affect the overall look of the tank much.

 

[TeamAquaSD]

Lots of vertical space for future growth. It all depends on your stocking. SPS? It’s nearly perfect. Tweak as you go. LPS and softies? Could go up more.

I always look at the scapes that have rock 3/4 of the way or more up the tank and always think about how little room there is for verticle growing coral. Glad to see I am not the only one who looks at that haha