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Building A Budget Reef Aquarium: Choosing The Aquarium & Stand

I’m kicking off this Building A Budget Reef Aquarium video series by choosing the aquarium and stand. This is the first of 30 videos that will show how to build a budget reef tank. The series will cover all product buying decisions and show, step-by-step, how to set up the reef aquarium, cycle the aquarium, add the livestock, and test and maintain the reef aquarium. This tank will be in my office, but the same build could be a great addition to a home, or pretty much any place. I’m going to try and keep the budget for this 55-gallon under $1,300. This includes all the equipment, salt, etc. That may sound like a lot of money, but there are plenty of people out there spending much more. The rule of thumb for reef tanks is you should expect to spend $50 a gallon, which comes to $2,750 for a 55-gallon. Please note, this budget does not include the livestock.

When you're picking out an aquarium you have a lot of options. There are glass aquariums, acrylic aquariums, custom-built aquariums, pre-built aquariums, and aquarium kits to choose from. At MarineAndReef.com we sell aquariums, and we have some great choices for certain situations. We have a Coralife BioCube in this office and they’re a great choice for 16 or 32-gallon reef tanks. For the high end, we have the Red Sea REEFER Aquariums. I have a Red Sea Reefer in my home, and if you can afford one they’re a great choice.

But when it comes to a 55-gallon budget aquarium or any aquarium budget aquarium over 35 gallons, it is pretty much impossible to beat the price of the Aqueon glass tanks. Aqueon glass tanks are sold at pretty much every major pet retailer. This one we picked up from Petco. These go on half-off sales pretty often. In the last six months, I've seen at least three half-off sales. So, if you're patient you can get them half-off. We bought our 55-gallon aquarium for 70 bucks. That is an insane deal. We could not ship you this four-foot-long 55-gallon aquarium for 70 bucks. We couldn't buy this aquarium for 70 bucks. Petco is hoping that you're going to get other stuff from them. But let's face it, they're not reef aquarium people. They may be fine for freshwater stuff, but if you want to set up a reef aquarium it's good to go to someone who knows about reef aquariums to help you out with that.

You can break down the stand options into the material they're made of. There are metal stands, wood stands, and fiberboard stands. We decided to go with the cheapest wood stand we could find. Now the metal stands do work well, and I actually have some metal stands at home in my garage for some utility tanks I use for salt mixing and other things, but they're not something I think most people would want inside their home. They don't have that spouse approval factor. They don't look like a piece of furniture, so even though they're cheap I think a lot of people won't actually want them. As for fiber board stands you might as well just call them fall-apart-board stands. They do not last, and most likely within two to three years you're going to see some warping from water damage, and by five years you're just going to want to replace the stand.

For this build, we went with a pre-built option versus a do-it-yourself option or something custom-built because we know that's going to be the most approachable for people, and it's often one of the most affordable options as well. With that in mind, we went with the Aqueon Pine Aquarium Stand, 48” X 12” X 30”. They're available at pretty much any pet store, and they're the most affordable wood stands we could find. This stand is one of the more expensive options in this build. This was $250 whereas sometimes those fiberboard or metal stands are as cheap as $150. But I think you're going to be very happy with this in the long run because it is going to last a lot longer.

So, we have the tank picked out we have our stand picked out. In our next video/article we’ll cover some of the first tasks when setting up an aquarium: , choosing the tank location, painting the back of the tank, and installing a power strip and GF/CI.

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Building A Budget Reef Aquarium: Choosing The Aquarium & Stand

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