Featured Tank: Mogsys Aquarium | Kraken Corals
This featured tank belongs to Mogsys Aquarium (Stephen Morgan) one of our customers, he is an avid reef keeper and despite his relatively short time in the world of the hobby he loves to share his experiences and hopes others in the reef aquarium community can learn from him so pop-a-long and have a look at his Youtube channel.
Lets take a look at his Red Sea Reefer 350 with a white cabinet.
Overview of the Equipment Used in the Sump
Tank: Red Sea Reefer 350 in white, currently everything including the sump and pipework is built as Red Sea intended with no modifications, however Stephen has plans to remove the sock holders in the future to install a Clarisea Rollermat.
Skimmer: For the skimmer Mogsys choose the Nyos 120 skimmer, he feels its more than adequate for his tank and its super quiet. Its not the cheapest skimmer on the market but it works fantastically for him. We have the same skimmer in another of our in store display tanks (a future featured tank) so we will explain more in depths what we found with that skimmer in a future post. Stephen has his skimmer installed just after the filter cups. It looks like he is feeding the skimmer with air through a CO2 scrubber. This essentially reduces the amount of carbon dioxide sucked into the skimmer which in turn helps increase oxygen in the aquarium and stabilize PH levels, a great way to help manage your PH if its a little off.
Return Pump: Like our last featured tank, Stephen has also gone for a budget line pump with the Jecod DC4000 pump, He's been running it for two years without issue so its very cost effective and supplies him with ample return flow to his aquarium.
Heaters: There's two heaters in the Mogsys Aquarium, the first is an Eheim Jager 300w connected to his ApexEL monitoring system which is set to turn off at 77 degrees F (25c) and a second D & D Titanium heater is connected and controlled by a D & D Dual heating & Cooling controller. While operating heaters like this could be quite costly it means if the apex or one heater fails there is a complete backup system in place to keep the aquarium temperature stable which is a great idea.
UV: Stephen us using a TMC Vecton v2 UV steriliser supplied in circulation in the sump by a separate eheim 1000 lph pump, with 6 month bulb change interval (we change all our bulbs in store on a 6 month cycle)
Additional Sump Media: For additional biological media Stephen has opted for the Maxspect Bio Spheres (another of our favorites at the moment) which appear to be under his filter cups, with the addition of the slim Maxspect Bio Blocks between the skimmer and return chambers, the bubble trap baffle arrangement here is a perfect spot for the additional media.
Media Reactors: A Nyos Torq Reactor has been added to this tank, its used to fluidize a regular 50g of Rowaphos to keep on those phosphates which is changed monthly. You can read more about phosphate control in our phosphate removal blog.
Dosing Pump: Like our Entrance Display tank, Mogsys has opted for the excellent Kamoer X4 dosing pump, hes been using it solidly for 18 months now with no issues. There are slimmer newer models on the market now but this is still and excellent reliable choice for your dosing requirements.
Montoring: Mogsys has added an ApexEL monitoring system to their tank, this is a slightly cut down version of the full Apex System and comes with less probes to make it more affordable, you can add the additional probes at a later date if you wish.
What's in the tank?
Stephens tank is a Red Sea Reefer V3, the sump and pipework on the V3 were redesigned over the predecessor giving a neater pipework layout and a sump with adjustable and removable baffles.
Substrate: His substrate is approx 30kg of Fiji pink sand which reaches 2-3 inches of depth in places but its stable and doesn't move around too much.
Rockwork: Rockwork is provided by Aquaroche from his previous system combined with around 25kg of additional Real Reef rock, like us hes chosen to balance the rocks rather than permanently fix them in position.
Powerheads: Three powerheads in Stephens system, first the ever quiet Ecotech Vortech MP10 quiet drive towards the back left hand side, near that is the Aqua Illumination Nero 5 (keep a look out for that in another of our in house featured tanks) and then on the right hand side the Glamorca GP03 powerhead, unfortunately the GP03 has just become defunct here in the UK soon to be replaced by the Maxspect Jump version of this. All three of this powerheads equal quite a large and varied flow throughout the Mogsys aquarium reef tank and all of them are on different power and modes during the course of the day.
Lighting: The tank similarly to ours has Aqua Illumination Hydra 26's and three of them providing ample light and spread over the entire tank using the D & D Hydra Slimline Brackets.
He uses a photoperiod of around 12 hours using high blue and UV channels for enhanced coral colours with no green or red and a very small amount of white during the peak hours.
Maintenance and Dosing
Maintenance is kept to a minimum for Stephen, daily cleaning of the glass to keep things sparkly and fresh. Rowaphos is used to maintain the lower levels of Phosphates and the large amounts of sump media help maintain a healthy environment.
KH, Calcium and other elements are kept at a constant level using Red Sea dosing materials through the Kamoer doser. Red Sea Calcium at around 15 ml per day, Red Sea Alkalinity at 60ml per day and Magnesium at around 4 ml per day. Stephen also used to dose NOPOX but has stopped doing this several months ago as the nutrient levels in the system are now very low.
Parameters are kept stable with approx 2 ppm Nitrate, 0.03 Phosphates 460 ppm Calcium, 8.5DKH alkalinity and 78.2 degrees F temperature.
No water changes or at least very minimal water changes are required other than when required when such treatments like chemiclean have been used. He used to do 20% water changes weekly but realised this did fluctuate his parameters so has chosen to do water changes only when absolutely necessary.
Fish are fed twice a day using mysis and optimum nutrition products, and coral are fed around twice per week using Reef Roids and Aquaforest Pure Food.
Livestock
The tank is moderately stocked with a mated pair of Saddleback clownfish, Yellow Tank. Brown Tang, 2 Anthias, 3 Blue Green Chromis a cardinal fish, a mandarin that's been in the tank now for 14 months and to finish it off a blenny named Roger.
Coral wise there's around 40 specimens including SPS LPS and Soft corals. Originally destined to be an LPS only tank Stephen got the SPS bug and switch to mixed reef and he couldn't be happier with everything growing out nicely.
Stephens Final Thoughts
"I hope you like the little run down on my tank. I've only been in the hobby for two years but during that time ive learned a lot of things from a lot of people including Youtube. I have a little channel called Mogsys Aquarium and try and put out a video one a week or if its something new an unboxing. Its just a little insight into the hobby nothing professional but its my experience in this wonderful but challenging hobby. You can also find me on instagram"
Want to have your tank featured?
Do you want your tank featured on our blog / facebook / instagram? Get in touch with some photos and details and we will consider you for our next Featured Tank :)
