No, live rock is not stacked up against back glass accept at the very top. And believe it or not this is a tank that I started from scratch back in december, I know I went to quickly with all the corals but all is well and doing fine as of now. This tank had a quick cycle of 7-days, I started of with 120 pounds of carib. live sand and a couple of shrimp and everthing just took off, quickest I have ever had a tank to cycle. All the rock in the tank was just basically dead rock as I got it from a guy who had tore his tank down around a year and a half ago and all the rock was in tupperware containers, it is all fiji rock and is coming along great, I did add a few pieces of live rock when I started the tank up to seed the other rock. The rock is now starting to get coralline algae on it and is starting to look as well as the live rock I bought when I started the tank. I am super prowd of the way it has proggresed. I have been keeping saltwater fish only tanks for around 10 years now but this is my first reef tank I have ever started.