How can i organize my corals to make my tank look like a real coral reef? How can i make shelves for them?

I have a 30 gal saltwater tank, and i have a lot of live rock. But my problem is that i dont know what kinds of corals would make my tank look professional or really nice. I want to not see the live rock, is there any coral that would cover it. Please email me a vid of how to do it, or give me a how to with pics. Thank you for your helpHow can i organize my corals to make my tank look like a real coral reef? How can i make shelves for them?
if you want coral that covers your rock so you won't have to look at it you should probably get encrusting coral. some types of these are:


montipora


horn coral


clove polyps


cabbage leather coral


starburst polyps


they will eventually completely cover your rocks


yes you can make shelves a lot of people do this by tying or gluing their live rock to pvc pipe for a shelf or overhang. looks pretty cool too.


generally it takes a while to have a really cool looking reef (depending on money) mine took 2 years to really start to look cool.


just remember when you place your corals to leave some grow out room for them and be careful with your placement too (some coral will chemically or physically attack others)


good luck and enjoyHow can i organize my corals to make my tank look like a real coral reef? How can i make shelves for them?
thanks guys, and also are all corals sold on a piece of this concrete thing. i bought this really small coral and im not sure what is is called, but it hasnt been growing that big in a while. I know is is not dead because it shrinks at times and grows its tree like arms longer at times.

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How can i make my really small coral grow larger? And wii its calcium base always be stuck to this piece of concrete? i dont want to pull it off because it will die, but how can i hide this concrete square on the bottom? I also lowered the power fan in my tank, but the coral isn't growing.

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to make it look like a real coral reef, you would not have shelves. You would generally have live rock along the bottom, with corals growing facing upwards. Not a very popular style, though it's gaining fans.





I'm assuming you're talking about one of those patchwork tanks that just involve various corals thrown together for aesthetic purposes, but please do not think this is what a real coral reef looks like.





For something that covers live rock, you can look at green star polyps, various xenias, and various zooanthids. Corals are up to you, but be careful, as many LPS corals my throw sweeper tentacles, especially at night, which is quite dangerous in such a small tank. You may also run into allelopathy if you try to combine certain corals, like soft corals with LPS.