Re-Aquascaping, bad idea?

[AquaKnight]

I'm really thinking of re-aquascaping my rock formation for a couple reasons. First, I need some more 'sand room' for my ever increasing LT plate which grows like an inch a day ;). Second, I'm hoping the change will spark (however unlikely) my mixed perc (true/false) clowns to host something, 2 months nothing, big LT plate, huge bubble tip anem, frogspawn, xenia...). Lastly, I never was happy with my current setup, it doesn't look very "reef-like" and have gotten some negative comments on it. I'm afraid the unreef look may be due to my rocks and not a whole lot I can do with it. I got the rocks from a buddy's teardown, there's about 52 or so lbs. in there.

So my questions, is it safe to redo the rocks? I thought I heard it could cause a nitrate spike? Maybe that's due to stirring the sand bed up? What if I try to leave the sand as much alone as possible?

Second, any suggestions as far as where to put what?? Lol, what I'm after is to have more open sand area to the right of the tank for the plate, and try getting the rocks up higher in the tank, they seem low.

Here's a bad pic from tonight to give an idea of what I'm working with;

http://xs512.xs.to/xs512/07093/DSC00164.JPG

[alan214]

Nah, go ahead, but try to do it in no more than 2 attempts. You really need to keep your hands out of the tank!

[sir_dudeguy]

go for it ;) I just did mine like 5 days ago and my tank looks way better now. Just dont stir the sand that much if possible. Thats where the nitrate spike can come in (stuff gets kicked up/uncovered/etc...)

If you're lookin for something to host your clowns, look into a toadstool leather (one bigger than the clowns). My clowns are both hosted by the leather, altho they are black ocellaris, and supposedly ocellaris dont host the same things as true percs. But if it doesnt work, oh well...you just got urself a cool coral lol.

[AquaKnight]

Well, it's a True Percula and Ocellaris pair, so I'm hoping the true (the female) will influence the male to host. Though he could be telling her "no, no, not that house" lol. Will look into the toadstood. I thought about them once, but I have tons of pink/tan corals, need some color.

I'm just not sure with what to do with the rocks, particularly those two vertical half folded rocks. I briefly tried it on my original layout and they look really bad on their sides and I'm thinking even worse as a support rock.

[sir_dudeguy]

I have a green toadstool. They dont just come in tans/yellows.

[drstupid]

i decided to redo my rockscaping a couple of weekends ago and 12 hours later was just piling things up in a stable fashion so i could put my corals back where they belong and go to bed. the system was still at 0 nitrates when i measured the next morning, and my live rock had a lot of detrius on it that got stirred up. i wouldn't worry about getting stuff stirred up, it's just an opportunity for your skimmer to do its thing. if you have a microsock arrangement (or a cannister or DE filter!), you can help it out a bit too.

i suggest wearing gloves and starting early in the day. oh, and having an idea of what you're trying to accomplish before doing it helps. i'd also clean your skimmer before starting, you will stir things up.