Reef Aquarium Information - Brett’s Reef

How to set up a marine reef aquarium

April 15th, 2008

In the world of the marine reef aquariums, it is often very easy to get confused.  One of the most confusing parts of this hobby is the set up.  Here is a step by step guide for the beginning reefkeeper.

1. Research:  The most important step in this hobby is to learn about what you are going to get into.  Figure out what exactly it is you want to keep in your aquarium.  If you want to just go with a fish only aquarium or a full blown reef aquarium. 

       Research on online forums about different tank sizes, fish, corals, inverts, sand, water quality, sumps and anything you can think of before buying a tank. Take into consideration your equipment choices and note them after you learn all about the pros and cons of them. 

        Realize that you will need pumps for circulation (powerheads or closed unit), a protein skimmer, synthetic sea salt, heater, filter, filter media, test kits, lighting, Ro/Di unit and foods.  This is the time to ask many questions and plan your tank.  Make lists during this time about the corals, fish and equipment you researched that would best fit your aquarium. 

2. Buy your equipment:  After much deliberation and scrutiny you should be on your way to buying your systems equipment and your aquarium.  Double check that you have the right sized protein skimmer and powerheads for your aquariums water volume.  Look into online stores if you can find exactly what you where looking to get at your local fish store. From my experience, online stores are far cheaper than the local fish store, even after shipping.  With the exception of the aquarium itself.

3. Assemble your equipment:  Once you receive all your equipment and your aquarium its time to start putting it all together.  Read all the directions and make sure you know how every piece of equipment works and what its function is. Make sure that you have all your parts to hook your equipment up, you don’t want to get everything together just to find out that you need a small part.  Ask your self questions like, do I need a small PVC pipe for this skimmer or do i need legs for my lighting?  Think about if you want to paint or color the back of your tank.

4. Test setup with freshwater:  Rinse your aquarium with freshwater, do not use any sponges or cleaners.  Rinse your filters, plumbing and sump, if you have one.  Once everything is rinsed place in your equipment and add freshwater to your aquarium and filters.  Plug in each piece of equipment one by one, you should be using a ground fault interrupter socket or extension to plug your equipment into to. Test out your lights, adjust flow with your powerheards or your closed unit, make sure overflows are running correctly if you are using a sump and that your return pump is returning water.

 5. Check for leaks:  While the system is running with fresh water, check everywhere for leaks.  If you are using a closed loop or running a sump those should be checked as well.  Make sure your heater is heating the water correctly and that it is adjusted correctly.  Notice if your tank’s stand is not sitting level or if your heater is not adjusted correctly or if a small connector is leaking somewhere, or if you don’t have enough water movement in the tank.  Now is the time to make adjustments.

 6.  Mix seawater:  Turn everything in your tank off and empty out the freshwater.  Now if you did your research right you should have bought a RO/Di unit and you should have hooked it up in step 3.  You can either mix the synthetic salt in the tank using Ro/Di water or you can mix it in a large bucket.  I prefer to mix it in the tank myself.  So fill up the tank with Ro/Di water and mix in the salt as per manufacturers directions.  Mix this seawater using your  powerheads or closed unit and keep everything in your tank on and running with the exception of the lights.  Let this seawater mix over night and test the salinity of it, for a reef tank the specific gravity should be between 1.023 and 1.026. 

7. Add Substrate:  So you have your seawater up to temperature and the specific gravity is set. Now is the time to add your substrate, if you are using any. Turn off everything in your tank and add your live sand and let the tank sit so that the sand can settle if you have a sand storm.  Add your live rock and aquascape the tank as you like it. Keep in mind the direction of flow, possible coral placement and fish swimming room.  Once the sand storm calms down and you aquascaped turn the power to your equipment back on.

8. The cycle:  After you have added your live rock and your sand you will want to wait for the tank to cycle.  The nitrogen cycle is when dead organics from the live rock and/or sand break down into ammonia, then bacteria break ammonia down into nitrite and then further into nitrate.  You will want to test your water with test kits, monitor and note your tests so you can see how far along your tanks cycle is.  Keep the lights off during this process so to avoid algae outbreaks.  You can do small water changes to try to save any life in the tank but it is thought to extend the cycle.  The cycle can last anywhere between one week to two months depending on how much dead organic matter was initially on the rocks.  This is the perfect time to think about your clean up crew.

9. Add a clean up crew:  By this point you should realize what, how many and what type of clean up crew you will need.  I personally like to use Astrea snails and blue legged hermits for the majority of my clean up.  People with sand beds may want to look into sand cucumbers and nassarius snails.  Cerith snails, mexican turbo snails and certain types of starfish, shrimp and sea urchins are other possibilities as well.

10. Start adding livestock:  You finally made it through.  Now you can start to add your fish and corals.  Remember  to quarantine new arrivals in a separate tank, look for signs of parasites or odd behavior.  Make sure you take time to properly acclimate your new fish or coral and don’t add everything at once otherwise you may start the cycle over again.