Live rock above water surface

[Halo_003]

Been doing some reading around, is there any issue with having some rock sticking out of the water surface? Are there any plants you could grow on them if so? That would be neat but not a big deal either way.

 

I imagine salt creep is a slight issue but anything else?

[paulrw]

i can't say first hand but i know there are a few on here that have rock above the water line. i would imagine anything alive in the rock would die off quickly once it's dry you might get a low tide smell for a day or so but if you started with dry rock you would probably have no issue. i think there is also a person on here that has a mangrove growing in the rock above water? i'll try to find their threads and post them for you.

[Halo_003]

i can't say first hand but i know there are a few on here that have rock above the water line. i would imagine anything alive in the rock would die off quickly once it's dry you might get a low tide smell for a day or so but if you started with dry rock you would probably have no issue. i think there is also a person on here that has a mangrove growing in the rock above water? i'll try to find their threads and post them for you.

Thanks, it will probably be just a small amount if any, I haven't decided yet if I want to. But I think it would be cool.

[Benny314]

The island look has become quite popular and if you go through a few build threads on here you'll soon find some amazing scapes that incorporate rock leaving the water.

One reefer is keeping air plants on his outcrop (that looks really cool), someone else has a waterfall down a large island and all sorts of algae's growing in the water flow, and yes I'm sure there's more than one with mangroves rooting into rock outcrops.

 

Good old goolge image search will turn up some corking tanks to get you inspired too.

[Benny314]

It's not this forum sorry, but I had to stick a link in to it, this is the water fall tank I was on about.

 

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1823130

[LongDoggy]

Would be pretty neat if you could simulate a tide also.

[Benny314]

Now that opens up a world of interesting options. Not sure if it would be a benefit or just a party piece.

 

My first thoughts would be a large (dependent on the size of display and the amount of water drop wanted) container that your could slowly drain water into over 5 and a bit hours and then after 45 minutes or so slowly refill the tank over another 5 ish hours.

Regulating the drain and refill would be a pain I suspect, but defiantly a cool project if you had a lot of time on your hands.

Thinking about it you'd need a floating overflow to follow the water level rise and drop, so simpler again would be a controllable adjusting overflow that slowly dropped an inch or so and then raised back up and an over sized sump to cope with the larger volume of water at 'low tide'.

You'd never be able to run a float switch ato with a system like that though.

[Psychosis]

I've toyed with the idea of simulating the tides alot, unfortunately it would come with considerable time and cost for what you're trying to achieve.

 

So far as an island, my current tank has one. It looks pretty cool, and I suspect I could throw some epiphytes near the top (which was the plan originally) however, I discovered that my rock wicks water, which then evaporates and leaves salt deposits on the exposed surface. I suspect this could be alleviated with careful manipulation of your top off system, but so far I can't be bothered. Version 2.0 will take a lot more planning than I'd thought originally.

[Benny314]

That is the risk with using live rock, perhaps if you found a piece of dense ocean rock to use at the top part of your structure. You'll still probably get a tide line of salt creep, but you shouldn't loose loads of water due to a wicking affect.