Reef Eco is a fairly new solutions provider to our hobby, started by a hobbyist with excellent design/maker skills and a sense of entrepreneurship. As a product development engineer, I am always enthused to meet like minds who share this reef aquarium addiction.  Reef Eco provided me the opportunity to try out their latest product.  I planned to re-aquascape a couple of my overgrown tanks anyways, and this was the perfect opportunity to try the NEW Coral Wall out.

The Coral Wall

Reef Eco created a novel acrylic solution simply called the Coral Wall. The Coral Wall has two variants: the aquascape option allows the user to mount coral rubble/rock, while the FragMax option allows you to vertically expand your frag tank capacity. The concept of mounting corals to the glass wall itself is not necessarily new. The “rock wall” concept of reef tank aquascaping was one of the earliest methods in the hobby.

This more efficient mounting solution supports the minimalist style that drives many aquascape designs today. Magnetic ceramic frag plug holders are the closest existing solutions I have encountered, and I personally have glued larger coral colonies to old power head magnets to achieve a similar effect. The Coral Wall mounting system extends the basic magnetic frag rack concept in a fresh new way. We all know how critical it is to control overgrowth and this allows you to remove pieces without dismantling a large aquascape down the road or pull out large frag racks for maintenance.

Some of my reasons to use this:

• Better use of space in a any reef or frag tank
• New aquascaping option
• Too lazy to clean the algae on the exposed back walls
• Coral overgrowth maintenance

Ordering process

ReefEco is like a custom shop provider and the online ordering form process will cater to your specific tank’s application. I appreciate the level of detail in attempting to get everything right the first time.  This is a customizable modular solution to meet your needs and the additional pump wall modules and adjustable mounting leg heights will provide a nice cohesive look. Ultimately this is a structural skeleton to expand your creativity.

My 2 Applications

The Coral Wall – I have a Fluval EVO 13.5 that I was going to re-scape after only 1.5 years of over growth. The torch coral I placed started shading out everything else.  The primary specimen focus on this tank was for my Harlequin shrimp while everything else was a secondary priority. This second time around I will just make the system lower maintenance with specimen with lower light requirements.  The tank is set up as a peninsula with the right side blocked by a cabinet with viewing from only 2 sides.  The new aquascape will allow more swimming space for the fish and reduce the need to keep scraping those rear/side surfaces that are not easily accessible.

The FragMax Wall will add additional mounting to the rear of my Deep Blue 80g Rimless Frag Tank, reducing the need to clean the rear glass and provide better utilization of the tank volume. The FragMax modules add an additional tier for lighting, less congestion on existing racks, and better utilization of flow in the tank.

Observations

The two kits are well built and function as advertised. Time will tell which variant the consumer market will gravitate to. I see value in both the aquascaping and frag tank applications. There are multiple options and price points available to the hobbyist.

Rubble Mounting – The arrangement of the rubble on the modules will be the biggest challenge for the user to try to cover up as much of the acrylic as possible for a more natural look.  The process I used was to pour out the whole 9lbs of Marco Rock Frag mounts and manually size and arrange what looked best on the modules first before identifying where to glue the frag plugs. Loose pieces with corals can also be placed in between pieces once they are in the tank to fill the remaining gaps.

Module Grip – I was surprised by how well the silicone inserts gripped the weighted plugs once I inserted them.

Retention Magnets – Another tip is to make sure all the correct matching magnets are mounted to the lattice pieces you are using prior to assembling the lattices. Be sure to know where they will be mounted on the tank, especially the ones that need to be submerged. Caution: Be very careful since these magnets are super strong.

Ultimately I am pleased to have these new mounting options expand the utilization of my existing tanks.  Sure the Fluval EVO 13.5 nano may not show the Coral Wall’s true potential compared to a larger tank surface area, but I believe the nano market has been the fastest growing segment in recent years and allows entry adoption of this product.  Having a scalable solution that fits all tank sizes will allow for deeper penetration into each market segment without any real design changes.

Check it Out!

Check out the Reef Eco YouTube channel and you will be amazed at what the owner has created for his own 900 gallon system. He will show you how the Coral Wall can really shine on a larger setup as corals populate it.

I look forward to seeing what other innovations Reef Eco has to offer in the future.