Finally have water, rock and sand in my 1st tank. SO EXCITING after several months of researching and staring at an empty tank. I had it in my mind, exactly what I wanted to do with the rock, and thought it would be easy, but with all of the rock piled in my tank, and so little room to work with, I didn't know where to begin or how in the world I was going to get it to look, the way I had imagined it. I tried several things that did NOT work at all, and then came up with what you see in my photos below. I will NOT be playing with my aquascaping because I'd NEVER get it back to the way I have it now. I'm totally happy with it!
I took the first picture before adding sand, because I knew that I'd be getting a big sand storm. The aquascaping looks much better in person, because it's hard to capture any depth in the photos. There's actually a nice large cave in the structure on the left with an overhang, and a smaller cave on the right structure.
I then added sand....and made mistake #1. Should have rinsed the sand!! What a mess it made. I expected the sand storm, but did not expect all the foam, and little particles of stuff floating, that you couldn't see when you looked at the sand. So...if you're debating on rinsing or not rinsing the sand....Rinse!! I let the sand settle for two hours (3rd picture below), and then turned on the
skimmer and pumps. The last picture, was taken at 10:00am the following morning. Storm was mostly clear, and now I'm slowly trying to clean the sand off the rocks with a turkey baster. Just blowing off a little at a time, creates quite a mini sand storm. Trying to do a little at a time, so that I don't get a huge sand storm and have it all settle right back down on the rock. I added 3 lbs of live sand, and I have my first life in the tank! Have a snail! Thought it was dead, but it moved a good 5" in the tank with a deep trail behind him. Don't seem him this morning. Think he buried himself in the sand. His trail just stopped. Maybe he's hiding from the sand storm. Let me know what you think.
A couple questions....
Do you test water parameters when the tank isn't totally clear after the storm (as in the last picture). Not sure how sand in the water column affects tests.
There's one rock that I'd like a little more secure. Can you use Aquamend or Superglue Gel or something else underwater to secure one spot of one rock to another?
Are there any good tutorials on fine tuning
skimmers? Directions with my
skimmer were very minimal and didn't talk about adjustments at all. I don't know anything about
skimmers, and how high the bubbles should be, how to make it skim wetter or drying etc.
Aquascaping on my 1st Tank before adding Sand: 
Mega Sand Storm: 
2 Hours after adding bagged sand, and 3 lbs of live sand 
10 Hours after adding sand 
