Cool trick to do with your rocks.

[rxheaven13b]

I got some frags from a forum member today and I was astonished with his 180 gallon display tank. He told me his trick was to build a frame to hold his rocks in place. This did three things that I noticed right away.

The first thing was make the rockwirth look like there was more there than what it was.


The second thing was building the rocks to make them look natural like in the wild.

The third thing is it organized everything so that all of the corals were optimized to get the most light.

Here is the before picture, I'll post work in progress pictures and after pictures.

[aquawolf]

I will be tagging along to see what you end up with when you are done.

[richhershey]

Me too.

[Loverotties]

Me too!Looking good!

[rxheaven13b]

There is no right or wrong way to do this, I made this to support the size of the rocks i have. I have large rocks (for a 20 gallon tank) so i made the prongs a little further apart.

You can see the tools i used, not many.

And what I came up with. After letting it sit till tomorrow to let the glue joints cure I'll get it in the tank and see what it looks like holding the rocks.

[aquawolf]

Very interesting. It will be cool to see what it looks like with rocks on it.

[rxheaven13b]

I may rearrange a few things until I'm happy with everything but this is the basic idea. There are a few gaps but the whole idea is to get the corals grow over them.

I hope some of you use this idea, I'd like to see what you come up with!

[rxheaven13b]

pics from the sids

[rxheaven13b]

This is a link to the glue I used http://cgi.ebay.com/ACRYLIC-PLEXIGLA...742.m153.l1262

You can also use small pvc pipe or what ever you can get your hands on. I wanted to use the acrylic because it's almost invisible in the water. I got the sheet of acrylic from home depot for around $6.

[richhershey]

Looks great, I can't even see the structure. Thanks for sharing!

[aquawolf]

Looks like it worked out very well for you.

[Richard938]

Nice job!

[rxheaven13b]

I have just discovered that this technique is called "live framing".

[steveoutlaw]

I'm going to be trying the live framing on my 60g cube

[Doherty]

Nice job...... The gaps are probably a good thing will help with the water circulation through the LR structure.

How long did it take to build?