Featured Tank: Kraken Entrance Display | Kraken Corals

This is the first in what we hope is a series of tank features from our customers, our store visitors and from ourselves. We hope to provide you with the information on each tank from the equipment used, maintenance methods employed by the reefkeeper all the way down to the lighting schedules and livestock.

First up in this series is our very own Evolution Aqua eaReefPro 1800 mixed reef tank. So here's the breakdown of the equipment used in this display tank

Overview of the Equipment Used in the Sump

Tank: Evolution Aqua eaReefPro 1800 on a Jade Cabinet with custom decal artwork, the sump is standard with the exception of an egg crate baffle used to hold Aqualon Filter Wool just before the pump chamber. We have no socks or rollermat in this tank (trying to operate a keep it simple solution on this tank). It has custom decal artwork to the outside to reflect our brand (sorry this isn't standard)

Skimmer: We went for the reasonably priced Bubble Magus Curve 7 Skimmer, its quiet, large and budget friendly, before we opened the store this is the same skimmer that i used at home in our Reefer 450 tank and now its in use in our shop display. The skimmer has been placed in the first section of the sump with the inlet pipes.

Return Pump: Another budget friendly option, we are running the TMC Reef Pump 8000 on this tank. While we are not always wow'ed by TMC's hardware choices as a store there are some items which stand out for us and the Reef Pump is one of them, we have them in use all over the store and its been a great option.

Heaters: This tanks is warmed with two Eheim Jager 300w heaters, again taking the more budget option on this tank, there's no digital controller, just two whopping eheim glass heaters.

Ozone: We use the TMC Ozone on this system, its primarily used for water clarity directly fed into the skimmer. Keeps that yellow tinge out of the water and keeps the system nice and clear.

Additional Sump Media: 1x Marine Pure Large Block, this is situated in the central chamber of the weir, other than the filter floss its the only thing in there. Nice slow flow and a dark cupboard helps culture that bacteria.

Algae Reactor : ALR1, In the left hand cupboard we have an ALR1 Algae reactor, we probably for the size of the tank should have gone with the ALR2, but it turns out the ALR1 has been sufficient for our needs, its fed by a TMC Reef Pump 2000 from the first chamber on our sump through the ALR1 in the dry cupboard and then back into the sump. The photo period on this is approx 8 hrs, we don't run a complete opposite to the tank cycle.

While many people do use an opposite light cycle from tank to algar reactor or refugium, we are a shop, and because of this we like to show the customer the ALR in action and lit up so there's quite a lighting overlap.

Why didn't we go for a refugium in such a large sump? It comes down again to the fact we are a shop and wanted minimal maintenance on this tank. A light over a sump often leads to algae growing on everything in the sump, be it the skimmer, the baffles, you name it. This leads to more cleaning but customers are always peering in to see how our tank operates and they don't want to be looking at a green sump :) 

Dosing Pump: Yes this tank is dosed (more on that later) and we chose for our weapon of choice the Kamoer X4 doser. We got our doser before the D-D Range of dosers was available (almost manufactured by Kamoer). The x4 is still available to buy but i think because of its more compact size if we were to start over we would use one of the D-D H2Ocean Dosers.

What's in the tank?

The tank is the slightly older version of the Evolution Aqua eaReefPro 1800, dimensionally its 1800x600x600, the newer current version of this tank comes with an aluminium framed stand but in the several years we have now had this tank operational we haven't had any issues with the stand other than the usual rusty door hinges that most if not all reef tanks suffer from.

Substrate: Our substrate is approx 35kg of TMC Coral Sand AS2 Size, that's approx 1 to 1.2mm grain size, we prefer this size as its not super fine so holds its position quite well while still giving a nice small grain for gobies and wrasse.

Rockwork: This structure is not glued (try not to knock it over) and is marko rock simply balanced, its changed here and there over the years, rocks have been moved, a couple of times the rockwork has been moved backwards.

Powerheads: This tank has surprisingly low flow, im often amazed and confused with the amount of flow some people choose to have in their reef tanks. We have one Ecotech Vortech MP40 running on 100% with a random flow pattern. Its situated quite centrally on the left hand pane of glass on the aquarium.

The Tank has two outlets from the return pump so this contributes a lot to our flow, these are angled down behind the rockwork to try and keep the debris from settling.

Also in the tank in the top right hand corner positioned slightly forward facing is a Jecod SOW8, again like the MP40 its on full power and random modes. 

So while this doesn't sound like a great deal of flow for a 6 foot reef tank we actually find it more than sufficient, the rockwork is designed in column formation to allow maximum flow around the structures and the corals placed accordingly.

Lighting: Well for the first 18 months to two years of its life this tank had only three Aqua Illumination Hydra 26 HD Lights (now superseded with the new Hydra 32 HD) but after looking at one of our other displays (probably featured another time) we did add a fourth Hydra 26 to give a little more pop and coverage although this does not appear to have significantly improved coral colour and growth.

We run a Maximum photo period of 14 hours, its been changed from time to time but currently around 14 hours from the start of ramping up to the lights being completely off, and its a very very simple lighting schedule as you will see from the screenshot from our myAI app. At peak we have all the blues, UV and violet channels to max with a small amount of white and red channels active.

Maintenance and Dosing

Our primary nutrient export system is the ALR1 Algae reactor, its growing cheato, and well. Should out phosphates creep up we will use Rowaphos simply in a bag next to our return pump.

To compliment the nutrient export on the doser we are using the Aquaforest Component 1+ 2+ 3+ system, which like ATI Pro and Triton is an equal part dosing system. We keep an eye on the KH and dose all three of the containers (supplied as 3x5l bottles) accordingly, currently we are dosing around 180ml per day of each which is quite a lot and we wish that the system was a little bit more potent to make the bottles last longer (at the time of writing there is rumour that there may be a stronger version available soon). We like to try different methods on different tanks and we are very happy with the results this has produced.

Water Changes. Nope. We try and keep water changes to a minimum, we only do them after any possible treatments or just occasionally as we feel they are needed looking at the tank. We did a large water change the other day but only because we wanted the water from a tank with good nitrates for another tank in the shop not because the tank needed one. The combination of the algae reactor and the dosing keeps us nice and stable.

Testing on this tank is done weekly, with KH bi-weekly by hand with salifert test kits (or whatever other kits we are currently using for customer tests in store)  There is no apex, no seneye, no apex trident, no alkatronic or any other monitoring on the systems just hand tests and an eye for what the tank should look like on any given day.

Fish are fed lightly several times per day, it's easy for us we are here all day everyday feeding all the fish, coral feeding is more sparse with an application of benepets, reef roids and phyto possibly once or twice per week only.

Livestock

The Tank doesn't have a lot of fish, there's some blue green chromis which we have had for at least 4-5 years now, a regal and purple tang, yellow tang, yellow coris wrasse, a couple of anthias and a Bi-Colour blenny named "Hench". Clean up crew wise there's the usual suspects, a cleaner shrimp, some peppermint shrimps, a few crabs and snails dotted about. To be honest the tank has quite little in the way of clean up as we find they kept knocking off the corals.

Coral wise there's a vast array in this tank, its a full mixed reef with Softies such as mushrooms, LPS like our frogspawn garden (all grown from single heads of indonesian frogspawn) a huge indo bubble coral which is stunning. Then there's encrusting and branching montipora, a range of plating montipora and several acros dotted about the tank.

As an extra feature we added an empty bottle of Kraken Rum, the metal lid was replaced with a plastic one and the bottle filled with RO water to weigh it down, encrusting montipora was added to the lid to try and cover over the pepsi sign which is growing out and round the bottle nicely now.

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