Cobalt C-Vue 26 build

wfournier · Mar 5, 2018

I picked up the new Cobalt C-Vue 26 with stand during Drs Foster and Smith's Presidents day sale. It looked like a good alternative to a Red Sea or similar tank at a lower price point. My plans are as follows:

Lighting: 2x Kessil A160WE with 2x24 T5HO in a floating "hood" I am working on.
Flow: Icecap Gyre 1K
Skimmer: Tunze 9001 DC
Heater 2X Jager 50W
Rock 15lbs of Carib Sea Liferock

For livestock I am planning to move over the current residents of my Evo 13.5 (pair of red banded hi fin gobys with pistol shrimp and a pink streaked wrasse) as well as adding a few fish, leaning towards a pair of bangai and maybe another fish as well. Coral wise I am planning an SPS heavy tank, maybe not full on SPS dominant but definitely heavy on the SPS.

I received the tank last week and got to work getting things together. LanM's thread showing the build quality on his had me a little concerned, however mine was put together a good bit better than his. That being said the build quality is not the same as a red sea (based on the little I have seen) and hopefully it will get better with time. I suspect that the different construction Cobalt is taking with this tank (mitered corners mainly) is different enough it may be taking the factory a little bit to get used to. The corner seams are not even but what I realized is unless I am looking for it I don't notice it at all.

The stand is your typical Ikea style RTA stand. Seems reasonably solid, we'll see how it holds up long term. It does appear to be a vinyl wrapped finish rather than pained so that should help keep water out and make it easier to clean. The soft closing euro hinges are a nice touch.

I got the option glass cover as well to hopefully keep dust out of the tank and cut down some on evaporation. It seems nice but I will most likely be running it without the hinge strips and just moving he glass panes as needed. It is a very clean look with the lid on. We'll see how much condensation and salt creep there is to determine if it stays on long term.

I did an overnight leak test and then got to filling the tank, I have a single A160WE over it now until I finish the fixture. There are a couple piece of 8020 mounted to the back of the stand that I will mount the light to.

wfournier · Mar 5, 2018

There are two mods I have already made to this tank, first the overflows are loud unless you run the water level higher than intended.
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My work around for this has been to cut a piece out of a water jug to use as a ramp/baffle to cut down on the turbulence/noise. This video is me testing the theory with a piece of cardboard.
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The other issue is I found the water level ran about 1.5" below the rim and I would like it a bit higher so I cut a couple pieces of black acrylic to fit over the overflows (3in by .75in) and drilled/tapped a hole in it to fit a nylon screw. This allowed me to adjust the water level to where I wanted it (as shown in the pics in my first post, I'll get a pic detailing the mod later).

Edit: here is a pic of the overflow mod, I may source some black screws to make it all match better.

LanM · Mar 5, 2018

NICE! I'm glad one of the two of us is getting the lead out with the setup.

Nice mod on the overflow. It's interesting that they're that loud, did you see in the promo videos that Cobalt was marketing the "D" style sock design specifically because it was quieter? That sucks if it is louder, since they're $7.50 a piece instead of a couple bucks for standards.

The stand looks clean, and in their "signature" color.

Nice water level mod, I was thinking the same thing when I saw where they were...reduces the actual capacity even more without your mod.
Nice looking scape. Clean, balanced, interesting detail in the arch. Looks well seasoned. For your live rock setup, looks like that 15lbs is filling it out pretty well. Do you think it would be cramped with more?

I like the canopy plans, get that puppy setup! At first I was going to ask if you thought the 160 would be enough until I saw your lighting plan.

Keep the updates coming, I might be swayed to keep the 26...have to open the new one and see how its constructed. I'm heading out of town for a handful of days, so I have some time to think it over.d

I also like that you're going mostly SPS, because I'm going with a softy tank. It'll be interesting the see them mature.

wfournier · Mar 7, 2018

LanM said:
NICE! I'm glad one of the two of us is getting the lead out with the setup.

Nice mod on the overflow. It's interesting that they're that loud, did you see in the promo videos that Cobalt was marketing the "D" style sock design specifically because it was quieter? That sucks if it is louder, since they're $7.50 a piece instead of a couple bucks for standards.

The stand looks clean, and in their "signature" color.

Nice water level mod, I was thinking the same thing when I saw where they were...reduces the actual capacity even more without your mod.
Nice looking scape. Clean, balanced, interesting detail in the arch. Looks well seasoned. For your live rock setup, looks like that 15lbs is filling it out pretty well. Do you think it would be cramped with more?

I like the canopy plans, get that puppy setup! At first I was going to ask if you thought the 160 would be enough until I saw your lighting plan.

Keep the updates coming, I might be swayed to keep the 26...have to open the new one and see how its constructed. I'm heading out of town for a handful of days, so I have some time to think it over.d

I also like that you're going mostly SPS, because I'm going with a softy tank. It'll be interesting the see them mature.

Yeah I thought it was interesting how loud the overflow was given their talk about it in the videos lol. If you overfill the tank so the water level in the back is 3/4 of an inch or so it is quiet, I thought about extending the baffles slightly but then skimmer wouldn't fit under the cover.

The stand does look nice, better than in the videos IMO, I decided not to paint it as the vinyl finish I figured would not take the paint well, but it looks good so I'm not going to complain lol.

The rock is the painted Carib sea life rock that comes purple, it looks live but is actually dry rock. I kicked off the cycle with some ammonia a few days ago and today I see it starting to drop and Nitrite and Nitrate rising so it looks like we are in business. I will have to post updates on the canopy soon, I put it together and mounted the T5's. I have a plan for attaching the Kessil's, it's a little crude but should work. If I feel ambitious I'll see if I can get some pics up later.

As far as the quantity of rock the pieces I got were less dense than some others they had at the LFS so they might be "bigger" than their 15lbs would imply. Depends on what you want your scape to look like, I like something towards the minimalist side of things and honestly when I got this rock in the tank I was a little iffy on it, it looked bigger than I expected. I like the configuration I have now, I was able to get the top arch piece to sit lower on the right rock creating more of a left to right slope and lowering things in general creating a little less "symmetry" and creating more visual interest imo.

I'm liking the 26, I think actual practical volume is more like 22-23 and it would be nice if it was a little closer to the advertised volume but I do think you get a lot of bang for your buck (with the sale the tank and stand were something like $350). All that being said if I had a little more room I would totally have gone with either of the larger options, I particularly like the 3' (40?) size but once again space.....

wfournier · Mar 7, 2018

Ok I went ahead and attached the Kessil's for a dry run. With the current reflectors I have the "hood" mounted lower than I would like to keep it from being totally blinding when sitting on the couch but I'm sure with some tweaking I can make it work. This is a rough much wire management needed dry run so no judgement lol.

I took a couple pics with just the right and then the left Kessil alone to get an idea what the effect will look like:

Still a work in progress but I think it's got potential.

wfournier · Apr 2, 2018

Well a lot has happened in the last month or so so I figured I would give this a quick update. I was having some issues with controlling my Kessil lights so they were sent out to Kessil under the warranty, just got there today so hopefully it won't take too long for them to turn the around. In the mean time I've been running the tank on just the T5's and I have been surprised by how well the two 24w T5's are doing on their own. According to my Seneye most of the sandbed is hitting 100 PAR ish (+-20 or so). I'm impatient so I moved my coral over from the Evo 13.5 as well as the fish and added a couple more fish. This is moving a little faster than I would advise most people but I'm keeping an eye on the water parameters and things seem to be in check.

Alk 7.3
Ca 435
Mg 1365
Po4 .06
No3 4, maybe a touch higher

Corals are coloring up and looking better than they have since I got them so I'm keeping my fingers crossed and watching closely to keep things in check.

Stocking list for fish:

Pair of Bangai Cardinals
Pink Streak Wrasse
Captive Bred Flame Angelfish (I know this will probably not be a permanent resident and will need a bigger tank, for now it's a 1" fish)

Here is a lousy FTS, I'll need to get some better pics.

BigT · Apr 8, 2018

Dope tank! I'm setting up my first reef tank and it's a c-vue 45. Any tips to keep my water crystal clear like yours?

wfournier · Apr 8, 2018

BigT said:
Dope tank! I'm setting up my first reef tank and it's a c-vue 45. Any tips to keep my water crystal clear like yours?

Thanks, as far as keeping the water clear, keep the glass clean lol. I clean the inside every couple days. I also run some carbon in one of the filter socks with does help polish the water a little.

Ares1985 · Jun 3, 2018

Hi! Thanks for the post. I like your tank. Do you run Tunze Skimmer 9001 DC?

Ares1985 · Jun 3, 2018

Here is my tank. I am running the tank from the end of the Murch. Also thinking to get a Tunze Skimmer.

cojo8888 · Oct 30, 2018

Tanks looks awesome. I just love idea of having aio system but not lot of aio systems in the market are worth to buy..

vs innovative marine 30g long, which tank will you choose? you guys happy with current tank? does it have enough clarity on glass? sturdy? does it come with leveling mat under?
easy to custom back side?

how much was the tank with stand?

thanks
William

ramona · Nov 6, 2018

Great looking tank. Following along.

janmy7 · Nov 14, 2018

can you show me how the stand interior looks like? I wanna get one for the 40 gallon.

ramona · Dec 1, 2018

I just got the small one, the 18 gallon; to my surprise I noted that there is an 1/8 inch space between the tank's sump wall and the return chamber if I explain right; do any of you see any problem with this tiny space in the future? Getting messy, dificult to clean? Do you have that space I am talking about on the 26 gallon tank?

NY_Caveman · Dec 1, 2018

ramona said:
I just got the small one, the 18 gallon; to my surprise I noted that there is an 1/8 inch space between the tank's sump wall and the return chamber if I explain right; do any of you see any problem with this tiny space in the future? Getting messy, dificult to clean? Do you have that space I am talking about on the 26 gallon tank?

If I understand correctly, my JBJ has a similar gap. Has not been a problem.