If you want to have and keep a reef aquarium functioning you first need to have and know a few things. Because of today's modern methods and knowledge of the reef, maintain a reef aquarium is available to anyone. Depending on the type of fish and coral you wish to hold in the aquarium, there are several steps and methods that you must use. The aquarium must contain some vital components that must imitate the conditions found in tropical marine waters. The aquarium is usually a regular glass or acrylic style that usually include internal overflow made of plastic or glass with holes drilled on the bottom. The holes are drilled to accommodate the drain and a return line of you reef aquarium. After this, water has to overflow into and down the standpipe into a sump.
This sump usually has some additional components like filtration and heating equipment. The filtration in you reef aquarium is vital to the survival of the wildlife in your reef aquarium. The first filtration method is the use of live rock, which is then supplemented by protein skimmers. This also houses a lot of species of macroalgae, that help keep the water clean and without any excess nutrients like nitrate, phosphate and iron. Also it is recommended that deep sand beds to be added to the bottom of your reef aquarium. Also very important is water movement. Depending on the type of coral, different water flow rates are needed. A good flow rate is about 10 gallons per hour x aquarium capacity in gallons. Also very important to the reef aquarium is lighting. There are many different lighting methods that are extremely good at imitating the natural sunlight and sun times that the everyday marine life needs.
