Our Beginner Reef Aquarium Build
My family and I recently started a new saltwater reef aquarium and wanted to share our build with the world. We’re about 3 weeks into cycling the tank, so there are no fish or corals just yet. We’ll outline all of the components we chose, and how everything came together. We used Amazon heavily to source equipment, and will try to include links to products where possible.
The Tank
We went with a Red Sea Reefer 170, which has a 34 gallon display tank and a 9-gallon sump, for a total system volume of 43 gallons. We were originally interested in the larger Reefer 250 because we heard larger water volumes are more forgiving for beginners. In the end we chose the 170 so it would have a smaller footprint in our Brooklyn apartment, and so that the 10% water change volume would be less than 5 gallons (making for easy use of 5-gallon water containers).
The Reefer series is popular, so there’s plenty of documentation in the reef forums and on YouTube to help beginners understand what kind of gear fits well with this system. It’s also a (mostly) complete plumbing system and stand, so everything goes together quickly and you can trust the engineering behind it for everything to work together seamlessly.
There’s a really great youtube series from Vivid Aquariums that follows a Reefer 170 build from the beginning. We’ve referenced it over and over again, and will continue to do so as our tank develops.
Last but not least, the red sea reefer looks great, with its rimless display tank, black rear wall, and clean lines and corners seamlessly combining the stand and display tank.
The Reefer can be assembled in under an hour. The stand goes together like an Ikea cabinet, but with heavy duty panels and cam-screws. The plumbing is all hand-tightened, so you don’t need much more than a screwdriver.
Reefers come with little rubber caps to protect and keep moisture out of the cam-screws, but there really isn’t enough room for them to keep themselves in place. We ended up using a hot glue gun to make sure they stay put.
We ordered our Reefer 170 from Bulk Reef Supply. It shipped via private carrier from Texas, and took about 4 days to get to Brooklyn.
Dry Rock and Sand
We used Carib Sea Arag-Alive 20-Pound Fiji Pink Sand, mostly because we saw them recommend it in this video by Vivid Aquariums, and a 20-lb bag was the perfect size to get around an inch of coverage in the Reefer 170.
For rock, we ordered 20lbs of Carib Sea South Sea Base Rock. Someone in a forum had recommended exactly this brand and weight for a 170, and we were able to use it all in our aquascape.
We used Instant Ocean Holdfast Aquarium Epoxy to build the aquascape. Before setting things up in the tank, we taped out the dimensions on a countertop and tried a few configurations. After getting it the way we wanted, we lettered each piece of rock and took photos, then carefully tried to re-create our test scape inside the tank.
Filling the Tank
We ordered an AquaFX Barracuda RO/DI filtration unit before the aquarium arrived, but hadn’t put too much thought into how/where we would produce water. Rather than try to fill a bunch of smaller containers, we bought a 30-foot length of tubing and planned to go directly from the filter into the tank.
The Barracuda comes with a really cheap adapter that goes from a garden hose spigot to the 1/4" plastic tubing. For the first attempt, we connected this adapter to the cold water supply in our laundry closet. It was missing a seal and leaked everywhere, and didn’t seem to have the locking fitting required to bite the tubing. The tubing would slip out after a few minutes, spraying water everywhere. The waste water tube also had to be run into the washer drain, and was prone to slip out. This was all further complicated by the fact that the water supply for the laundry machine was not easily accessible.
Plan B was to move the whole water operation into the bathroom. Filtering water in the tub gave us peace of mind… if anything went wrong, the water would all run right down the drain. I purchased a shower diverter (the kind you usually connect a shower wand to) and a couple of adapters to accommodate 1/4" plastic tubing. I only added water when I was home, and it took about 3 days to get the tank filled.
Return Pump & Heater
We chose a Sicce Syncra 2.0 return pump after seeing it recommended for the Reefer 170 in an online forum. I added hose clamps to make sure the return hose that came with the tank would stay put. I also learned that heating up the return line hose with a hair dryer and adding a little coconut oil helps get a tight-fitting hose over the pump output pipe.
For heating, we originally purchased 200 Watt Cobalt Neotherm, but returned it after reading a lot of bad reviews saying they were prone to failure and electrical issue. We ended up with the Hygger Titanium, which has a nice digital readout and a wired temperature sensor separate from the heating element.
Salt
We added Red Sea Coral Pro Salt directly to the tank once it was full. Our math based on the system’s total volume of 43 gallons said we needed about 13 pounds of salt. We added 12 pounds, weighed out on a kitchen scale, hoping to end up with low salinity and add more gradually to dial it in. When we measured it, it was right on the money at 1.026 sg. My guess is the math didn’t work because the 20 pounds of dry rock and 10 pounds of sand take away from the total water volume in the system. We got this affordable refractometer on Amazon to check the salinity.
Kick-starting the Nitrogen Cycle
We did the “shrimp method” of kicking off the nitrogen cycle, adding a shrimp from the grocery store to the filter sock for 72 hours. The water got cloudy and it smelled awful, but it seemed to get the job done, as ammonia was present within 24 hours. (We’ve been using the API Saltwater Master Test Kit)
We didn’t see the signature spikes of ammonia and nitrite that people talked about in their youtube videos on tank cycling. Nitrites went up around day 5 and have plateaued, and ammonia is on the way down.
We have seen some brown spots developing on the rock that resemble diatoms, but haven’t seen a “bloom” or much of anything nasty growing in the tank yet.
Lighting
For lighting, we picked the popular AI Hydra 26, which can be controlled via a mobile app and allows for fine tuning of colors and brightness. We stuck to the automated schedule to start, and will revisit customization once we have something living in the tank.
After reading bad reviews for the AI mounting arm, we went with the Kessil Mounting Arm. It’s tubular instead of rectangular, easy to adjust, and grips the back wall of the tank securely with two plastic thumb screws. It’s not designed to work with the Hydra 26, but with some slight modifications it works like a charm.
Red Sea Reefer tanks come with a knock-out on the weir cover to accommodate light mounting brackets but I used a dremel to make a custom cut. This looks nicer and will help keep water in the weir where it belongs.
Protein Skimmer
We went with the Reef Octopus 110-INT Needle Wheel Protein Skimmer. It was easy to assemble and fits well inside the Reefer 170’s sump. We’re still cycling right now so we haven’t turned it on yet, but it’s ready to go.
Auto Top-off
We’ve had to fill the Reefer 170’s 1.5 gallon auto top-off reservoir approximately ever other day. We’ve got a 5-gallon bucket of RO/DI water on hand, but have not found a good way to get the water into the reservoir other than using a small pot as a dipper. A siphon hose would probably help, but we’d like to move away from the buckets altogether in favor of a water container with a handle and spout/cap.
Anxiously Awaiting Livestock
Thanks for reading! Let us know if you have questions, comments, or suggestions. Everything we’ve read online talks about how patience is a big part of this hobby, and we’re doing our best. Hopefully we’ll be able to add some clowns and a couple of beginner corals soon. We’ll be sure to write another post when that happens.
