The Lotus Mag from Eshopps is one of the more creative for a frag rack available in the reef aquarium industry. Like the Lotus before it, the Lotus Mag has unique appearance consisting of an arrangement of three ‘petals. that unfurl from a central point, hence the lotus name,
The original Lotus was simply placed on a flat surface but the Lotus Mag incorporates one of reefers’ favorite materials, magnets, to now affix the frags to a vertical surface. This increase the cost of the Lotus Mag but also adds to the versatility of placement inside reef aquariums and frag tanks, finding precious real estate on the walls of your tank.
We have to say that the box and packaging of the Lotus Mag is quite over the top, with the unboxing feeling more like a smartphone than a seemingly basic aquarium accessory. We’re not sure that this kind of unboxing ‘experience’ is necessary for such a pedestrian device, but hey, we’ll take it.
As expected, the Lotus Mag packs a ton of frag holding space – up to 13 per ‘petal’ – and with three petals in the assembly that’s just shy of forty frags simply hanging from your glass. You can place two petals on one level of the magnetic holder and one on another level, and two included risers give users the ability to separate each level by up to four inched for particularly tall frags or to allow more light and flow to reach each level.
We love almost everything about the Lotus Mag but it does have one glaring design oversight – all modern magnet-held pumps, pump mounts and the like have a simple layer of non-slip rubber to prevent them from going anywhere. The Lotus Mag somehow excludes this very simple piece of material and the central plastic magnets are smooth, meaning that they can move around or worse, tip over when not balanced.
If however you already have one or like how much real estate the Lotus Mag offers, it shouldn’t be hard to find a thin piece of non-slip rubber to cut to size and fit in between the magnets, at least the part the gets wet inside the tank. With a retail price of $49 the Lotus Mag does add a lot of extra frag holding space to any reef aquarium display or frag tank and we’ve already put ours to use supporting a nice haul of new frags from Reefapalooza in Orlando last weekend.
