Cobalt C-VUE 40 Build

[Woodster8297]

I am thinking of making it with two doors and some molding. Finished painting the stand and added the base. Going to order the IM leveling mat and hopefully get the tank wet soon. Trying to decide on lights. Any one have recommendations. Looking to light this tank on a budget...if possible lol

 

[Hella_Reef]

Alright I'm back with an update.

Finally hit the ugly stages on this build. 2 and a half months in.

I left a piece of shrimp in for a little too long and got some good hair algae. Not a big deal, I've since stabled out the po4 and no3.

Last week I got some Snail Mail from reef cleaners. Got a different variety of snails. Sand sifters, diatom and algae eaters, you name it they do it.

I've always liked having fighting conchs so I ordered one of those too.

No snail deaths, and the conch has been all over the tank doing work. Algae slowly but surely dwindling down.


As for fish, I'm not looking to acquire any until the 3 and a half 4 month mark. I want my rock to be out of the ugly stages before I start adding more nutrient imports to the tank.

Today I got my order of 5280 pods from algae barn. Looking forward to getting a good surplus of pods in my system before fish.

Here is some pictures.

 

[pelphrey]

Rocks turning purple already?

 

[Hella_Reef]

Rocks turning purple already?

They were already purple. They are the real life rock by caribsea.

Idk if they are leaching po4 from the bacteria the rock supposedly comes with shipped dry. or the purple coating, but everytime I've tested, even before getting hair algae, it came out to po4 being undetectable with the hanna ulr.

Something I will have to keep my eye on with these un-natty purple rocks. It could very well be because of the ammonia spike from cycling too and leaving a shrimp in the system. I'm leaning more towards cycle rather than rock itself.

 

[TheWB]

I just got that same pod order. Haven’t seen one of them since they went in. Hopefully they are all just hanging out in the Chaeto.

 

[Hella_Reef]

I just got that same pod order. Haven’t seen one of them since they went in. Hopefully they are all just hanging out in the Chaeto.

That and ur rocks probably. After a couple weeks with no fish eating them, I would assume we will see then on the glass.

Just gunna keep feeding my 5ml of phytoplankton daily for 2 weeks like the bottle says and hope for the best lol

 

[TheWB]

That and ur rocks probably. After a couple weeks with no fish eating them, I would assume we will see then on the glass.

Just gunna keep feeding my 5ml of phytoplankton daily for 2 weeks like the bottle says and hope for the best lol

Me too, there really isn't anything else to do.

 

[Hella_Reef]

Got some favias, cyphastreas, leptoseris, and montipora today. First corals in the tank.

Gunna hold off on sticks until the tank matures more.

 

[ImNotNemosDad]

Any update in your tank? I'm still deciding if I should put water on mine. Hehe

 

[Hella_Reef]

Not too much to update on, I have been dialing all my numbers in before loading up with coral.

Bought the Neptune dos to help with that.

I currently dos 100ml of calcium and alk a day.

I also have been running kalk in my ato too keep ph up. I run 5 tsp in a 5 gallon ato.

I'm not sure why my tank goes thru so much alkalinity with such little live stock. My ato only goes off 2-3 times a day. So water evaporates at a low level. But the kalk helps keep my ph above 8.1.

I highly reccomend the apex dos, it is the best doser I have ever owned. I have been locked in at 8.5-8.8 dkh every night using the hanna alk checker. SIDE NOTE HANNA ALK CHECKER IS A +3 TO -3 ACCURACY RANGE, this means I've been as stable as can be.

After getting the Apex el I noticed I was getting massive temp swings thru the am. So I added another heater. Now my swings are minimal. I believe this was the cause of my cyphastrea and Darth maul favia to bleach out. Things are looking better but we will see if they are strong enough to bounce back. All other corals are good and growing.

I decided to run this tank at 80-81 degrees. I have not noticed ich on my six line wrasse since switching over to higher temps 4 weeks ago.

I plan on adding more coral next month [emoji106]

 

[Hella_Reef]

Orange passion

 

[TheWB]

Looking good. How’d you make out with those pods? I’m pretty sure mine all died.

 

[Hella_Reef]

Looking good. How’d you make out with those pods? I’m pretty sure mine all died.

Hard to say, I havent gotten any new phyto plankton to feed them lol. I'm sure there is still some in my tank but not a lot

 

[Will W]

If you like the idea, I used the new Noopsyche LED light hangers for my ocean revive and it fit perfectly.

I cut the feet that come with the light and used them as a rod to tie both lights together so that everything was inline.

Looks alright. Perhaps a floating canopy will be made in the future. Perhaps not. Only time will tell.

 

[Hella_Reef]

If you like the idea, I used the new Noopsyche LED light hangers for my ocean revive and it fit perfectly.

Will I like that a lot better. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Hella_Reef]

Drove 210 miles today for some nice frags from another reefer.

 

[Hella_Reef]

So this happened

 

[Hella_Reef]

Some coral shots

 

[pelphrey]

Nice!!! Scored a trident!!! Corals looking great!

 

[REPOWER]

Alright I'm back with an update.

Finally hit the ugly stages on this build. 2 and a half months in.

I left a piece of shrimp in for a little too long and got some good hair algae. Not a big deal, I've since stabled out the po4 and no3.

Last week I got some Snail Mail from reef cleaners. Got a different variety of snails. Sand sifters, diatom and algae eaters, you name it they do it.

I've always liked having fighting conchs so I ordered one of those too.

No snail deaths, and the conch has been all over the tank doing work. Algae slowly but surely dwindling down.


As for fish, I'm not looking to acquire any until the 3 and a half 4 month mark. I want my rock to be out of the ugly stages before I start adding more nutrient imports to the tank.

Today I got my order of 5280 pods from algae barn. Looking forward to getting a good surplus of pods in my system before fish.

Here is some pictures.

Looking great! Following along.

How does the water level look in the rear sump? Are the side chambers water level constant and overflows into the middle return pump chamber? So essentially, the ATO sensor should be in the middle chamber because of water level fluctuations?

Thanks!