I absolutely suck at aquascaping

[cvrle1]

I was never artistic person, best I could draw was a stick man. Up until this point in my life it wasnt really too much of an issue, but I think it has finally caught up with me. I absolutely suck at aquascaping. Issue that I have is that I cant visualize what I can do with rocks that I have. I have a bunch of rocks, some small, some bigger boulders, all different shapes, but when I look at them I have absolutely no idea where to start and how to start creating aquascape with them. I kinda have an idea in my head on how I would like scape to look like, but have no idea how to take rocks that I have and mold them into what I want. I am afraid to just start randomly breaking, chiseling and cutting rocks as then I may break something I actually needed to be one piece later on.

Any help or pointers would be much appreciated.

Tank is 110G 5' x 18" wide x 2' high.

Thanks

[Frogger]

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2217633.

There is a ton of info on the web

[cvrle1]

Originally Posted by Frogger

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=2217633.

There is a ton of info on the web

I read that thread and similar one on R2R. My issue is the I just cant look at few pieces of rock and say if I chisel this off, break this piece here, turn this rock around like this, I get this sort of fixture. Thats my main issue. I have lots of ideas on what I would like my scape to look like, just no idea how to get there with rocks that I have.

[Ryan]

Aquascaping can take weeks. Play with it,look at it for a few days, change it, look at it for a few days. Take your time and dont rush. Until your 100% happy dont stop.

However also remember that in a yearor 2 it will be covered in so much coral you wont see the rock. So dont worry as much on how it looks, just worry more about maximizing placement for coral

[Frogger]

The only piece of advice I can give you is don't glue them down because if you need to get a rock out in the future because it has something growing on it yo don't like or want you won't be able to get it out.

[LifeIsGreat]

I found that playing around with the rocks on the floor helps a lot. Maybe stack the rocks as they are without breaking them and see what you can get. Once you have a design you like you can reshape as necessary. Sometimes gluing the rocks together can be easier than hammering them to fit.

[Ryancw]

Try for a space that's the size of your setup as well so you can place rocks as if you were setting them inside your tank. A Garage or spare bedroom if you have one.. that way its out of sight, out of mind, and you can do your daily visit to make tweaks over the course of a couple weeks until you nail it.

[Scythanith]

I second what Ryancw said. Play around with it and build out some fun shapes

[Ryancw]

There is also a couple YouTube videos put out by BRS on what to do/not to do that have quite a few good tips. if you haven't seen them i recommend checking them out.

[Dearth]

I did a mockup on my floor in the approximate dimensions of my tank I have a 95 gallon I had a 150lbs of dead rock had an awesome setup after about a week of resetting my rock in the mockup Found one I was happy with. Made sure it was all stable then put in my tank two weeks later my carefully laid out setup was thrown into the wind when I came into another 150lbs of rock this time it was live.

Ended up with a 300lb haphazard rockscape that I still have in my tank to this day 7 yrs later minus about 50lbs I’ve removed throughout the years.