A Clown's Reef, Waterbox AIO 35.2g

[Clo]

I want to buy some rock flower anemones but I guess every seller has been cleared out with the black friday/cyber monday sales lol.
I might have to wait until after New Years to be able to stock my tank at this rate.

Goals for this time around are....
Ricordea mushroom, more rock flowers, more zoas, octospawn, frogspawn, hammers, and maybe some red ogo?
I'm not sure what my vision is, but I think I'm leaning towards LPS/softies rather than SPS. I might get one or two monti caps.

Also hoping to add back in some pom pom crabs and porcelain crabs.

Also considering some micro brittle starfish, sexy shrimp, and maybe hermit crab???

 

[Clo]

I've also considered the possibility of adding a nem again down the line, but instead of a BTA might try for a mag or a carpet. My only concern is that they will very quickly outgrow the size of my current tank.

 

[dvgyfresh]

I want to buy some rock flower anemones but I guess every seller has been cleared out with the black friday/cyber monday sales lol.
I might have to wait until after New Years to be able to stock my tank at this rate.

Goals for this time around are....
Ricordea mushroom, more rock flowers, more zoas, octospawn, frogspawn, hammers, and maybe some red ogo?
I'm not sure what my vision is, but I think I'm leaning towards LPS/softies rather than SPS. I might get one or two monti caps.

Also hoping to add back in some pom pom crabs and porcelain crabs.

Also considering some micro brittle starfish, sexy shrimp, and maybe hermit crab???

Micro brittle stars yes!!! You can order
From Ipsf, that’s where I ordered and now I have 100s. Sad about the rfa but they should be back soon it’s a fast seller usually

 

[Clo]

Micro brittle stars yes!!! You can order
From Ipsf, that’s where I ordered and now I have 100s. Sad about the rfa but they should be back soon it’s a fast seller usually

your little micros are so cute!!! I definitely want some now.

 

[Clo]

My thoughts on the Coral Vue Hydros:

So, husband bought one for me during the black friday sale as an early xmas gift.
It arrived today, so I went ahead and set it up. It probably took me 2 hours total for doing very small things, but I had to move around a bunch plugs yada yada.

First impressions were awesome! Great packaging, speedy delivery. Everything arrived in one piece, no missing pieces. Excellent!

Closer look? Oof.

I definitely wasn't expecting GHL level quality but I was kind of annoyed by CV's lack of quality control on the visual aspect of the controller. I was always under the impression that the controller had the labels of the ports under the plastic cover, but that wasn't the case. Which in and of itself is not a big deal. HOWEVER, the design of the Hydros was clearly intended with the port label piece sitting in a specific recessed/grooved area. My controller's label piece was clearly drunk, not sitting correctly or cut correctly or something.

Edge of port label sitting above recessed area.

The only corner where label piece is seated correctly

Gap between cardpaper label & grooved area.

Top left corner was the worst with the label sitting above and past the cutout area. It really annoyed me that the cardstock/board label piece was off center because THERE IS NO WAY FOR ME TO FIX THIS due to the punch outs for the port connections. (CV also saw this complaint posted on my IG but did not comment or suggest any solution to this even if it is cosmetic).

To add to this annoyance, one of the screws on my slim temp probe at the port connection part was partially unscrewed, and I tightened it with an eyeglass screwdriver.

Despite those annoyances, the rest of my setup process was fairly smooth. The controller & probes were very easy to set up, calibrating the pH port was very easy. It came with a pH 7 & 10 calibration fluid, no 4 but apparently CV recommends that you calibrate with all 3.

The longest part was pairing the powerstrip to the app. I learned the powerstrip does not do well with mesh networks. In my Eero, I had to temporarily disable 5GHz and only enable 2.4GHz so that the powerstrip would actually connected. I had power cycled the powerstrip by the 6th time before I finally found a resource online stating this fact.

Afterwards, I set up my devices without any issues.

The app was also very straight forward. It was the first result when searching "hydros" in the Apple app store. Account creation was also very easy. It provides the information from your Hydros controller in a very clean manner. The only thing I didn't like was having to select the input device I'm connecting and which port I'm connecting it too. I feel like that just adds additional room for error, and the device should be able to auto detect which port is connected. Maybe CV will add that in the future.

I plan to add my skimmer & carbon reactor to this powerstrip as well so that I can easily automate all pumps off for maintenance going forward!

Sometime this next weekend, I plan to sit down and do some major cable management. I can't think weekend because semester final deadlines.

Overall, 7/10 on the Hydros. I think most people should be able to set it up without difficulty. Troubleshooting is easy. Needs to improve on QC.

 

[Clo]

I will say, I don't have any experiences with other controllers and thus can't accurately compare to how quality or ease of use or setup is compared to say an Apex or Profilux.

But, I am not being compensated by CV, so those are definitely my honest thoughts on it.

 

[Clo]

Black Friday/Cyber Monday order from Algaebarn came it. It's temp acclimating now, I'll release the pods into the tank at night when the lights are off.

 

[dvgyfresh]

;PeekingUpdated fts?

 

[Clo]

;PeekingUpdated fts?

Will do this weekend after all my semester is finished

 

[Clo]

Ugly but a work in progress. gotta start somewhere

clown in top left is awaiting new home. He is one of the fish “returned” to me but was never actually one of mine. I don’t intend to keep him because it puts a bad taste in my mouth.

i did instead get a beautiful pair of onyx Picassos. I still haven’t named them yet though!!

Still a little ugly but there’s a lot to see in there.
Pod population is booming too. So might try for a Tanaka wrasse or a mandarin goby. Not sure. Mandarins are really popular

 

[Clo]

Stock wise we're looking at:

1 bangaii cardinal
2 clownfish
1 tailspot blenny
1 citron goby
1 red hifin goby
1 randall pistol shrimpus

also have
1 conch (michael! I did actually get him back)
3 hermits (new!)
3 pompom crabs (new!)

But im lowkey scared bcs none of the pom crabs have thier pompom anemone

Also, I ordered stomatellas & micro britttles from someone. The micros were fine, but all the limpets were dead. BOO.

 

[dvgyfresh]

Looks like a very nice restart! Pretty soon you’ll have hundreds of brittles ask me how I know lol I’ve never had Pom Pom crabs are they filter feeders ?

 

[Clo]

Looks like a very nice restart! Pretty soon you’ll have hundreds of brittles ask me how I know lol I’ve never had Pom Pom crabs are they filter feeders ?

Yea! I can't wait for hundreds of brittles lol.
And they're not quite filter feeders. It's like a scavenger, and they can use their pompoms to stun hunt from time to time but mine don't have their poms so

 

[dvgyfresh]

Yea! I can't wait for hundreds of brittles lol.
And they're not quite filter feeders. It's like a scavenger, and they can use their pompoms to stun hunt from time to time but mine don't have their poms so

Oh interesting! I’m sure if you feed them/keep healthy this will correct itself with a new molt, one of my emeralds regrew an arm haha. I like Pygmy wrasses and would do well with yr stocking

 

[Clo]

Oh interesting! I’m sure if you feed them/keep healthy this will correct itself with a new molt, one of my emeralds regrew an arm haha. I like Pygmy wrasses and would do well with yr stocking

I don't think it will! Their poms are actually a miniature anemone!

 

[dvgyfresh]

I don't think it will! Their poms are actually a miniature anemone!

Learn something new everyday that’s cool! Now I’m wondering if you could use majanos for new Pom poms lol

 

[commanderwho]

Stock wise we're looking at:

1 bangaii cardinal
2 clownfish
1 tailspot blenny
1 citron goby
1 red hifin goby
1 randall pistol shrimpus

also have
1 conch (michael! I did actually get him back)
3 hermits (new!)
3 pompom crabs (new!)

But im lowkey scared bcs none of the pom crabs have thier pompom anemone

Also, I ordered limpets & micro britttles from someone. The micros were fine, but all the limpets were dead. BOO.

Very nice stocking list!
maybe you can add a blue tuxedo urchin later on? Another great invert!

 

[Clo]

Very nice stocking list!
maybe you can add a blue tuxedo urchin later on? Another great invert!

Are tuxedos the ones that move stuff around? Cuz then it’s a solid no from me dawg

maybe one of the ones that won’t mess up everything in my tank

 

[commanderwho]

Are tuxedos the ones that move stuff around? Cuz then it’s a solid no from me dawg

maybe one of the ones that won’t mess up everything in my tank

Well you just have to glue your frags lol. But they are probably the smallest urchin you can get!

 

[Clo]

Well you just have to glue your frags lol. But they are probably the smallest urchin you can get!

I haven’t had the courage to glue anything down yet
The permanence intimidates me