High Tide Aquatics

kinetic Reefer 170

kinetic said:
That was the plan, but I decided against the H. Magnifica, so decided to just put the clowns in. Need some poop.
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Not necessarily different types of anemone just more of them. I mean at my peak I think I had 32 rbtas in a tank, which would have been great little condo complex had I had.multiple clowns... which I did get but then poof velvet rocked my system... which came from some dirty clowns
 
sfsuphysics said:
Not necessarily different types of anemone just more of them. I mean at my peak I think I had 32 rbtas in a tank, which would have been great little condo complex had I had.multiple clowns... which I did get but then poof velvet rocked my system... which came from some dirty clowns
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Yeah, no I got what you meant. I was actually going to get a large magnifica only, and hope that it would be established before adding clowns. But since I'm just getting BTAs, I figured with my luck they wouldn't host the ocellaris (at least not right away), so I could slowly collect them with the ocellaris already in the tank.

Also, sustainable aquatics came out with the exact combo I wanted, at pretty good prices, so I jumped on it.
 
About flow:

I never really noticed how strong the flow was, I was doing about 50x turnover, but watching my clowns swim for their lives, I felt kind of bad. In my ELOS I had way more turnover, but it was a bigger tank and so the clowns found a few good dead spots. In this one, the flow from the gyre is EVERYWHERE, so I think it's better to turn it down. I'm now at around 30x turnover and things look way better. Clowns are starting to swim out of the corner and explore a bit haha. Might also be why my anemone is sheltering itself in the only bit of shelter it can find, though I've had ones in more direct flow before...

I think 30x should be OK, even with SPS probably. I might bump it up once there's more stuff (corals) in the way to diffuse the flow.
 
Flagg37 said:
I have a couple BTA’s and a purple LTA that I’ll be selling when I break down my tank if you’re interested.
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Interested! I have a dune of 4" sand built up next to my rockwork from my flow, might be perfect for an LTA ;) When is your move / take down?
 
If you have other than red/rose, BTA I might be interested in what Art doesn't snatch up :D

I figure I'll make a dedicated BTA tank, and take my hand at throwing multiple colors in there... mostly red unfortunately :D
 
sfsuphysics said:
If you have other than red/rose, BTA I might be interested in what Art doesn't snatch up :D

I figure I'll make a dedicated BTA tank, and take my hand at throwing multiple colors in there... mostly red unfortunately :D
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Do it Mike! You should take his BTA's. Then when they all split we can trade! I'll try to collect a few myself that are hopefully less red as well ;)
 
kinetic said:
Do it Mike! You should take his BTA's. Then when they all split we can trade! I'll try to collect a few myself that are hopefully less red as well ;)
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Just need to be careful, old member Patrick tried to keep the higher end BTAs (super fancy named ones $$$) in with common ones and didn't have much luck, like there was some infighting even within the same species. Of course the less desirable ones all lived :D
 
Gablami said:
How did you like the sigma 105 macro? I've been looking for a deal for a used one on eBay. Haven't pulled the trigger yet.


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I went with the Sigma 150mm macro love the lens use it more than my canon 100m L


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Gablami said:
How did you like the sigma 105 macro? I've been looking for a deal for a used one on eBay. Haven't pulled the trigger yet.
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Image quality is pretty good. Mine is a really old version, and the autofocus is a joke. I usually, with macro shots, prefocus and just move my camera back and forth until the subject is in focus, so it isn't a problem. I don't know enough about the new ones though. My 105mm was from 2005 I think.

sfsuphysics said:
Just need to be careful, old member Patrick tried to keep the higher end BTAs (super fancy named ones $$$) in with common ones and didn't have much luck, like there was some infighting even within the same species. Of course the less desirable ones all lived :D
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Yeah that's not great. I've seen a lot of tanks with plenty of bta's smashed up against each other temporarily, and sometimes in larger permanent systems. I wonder, though, if most of them are just splits rather than totally different ones.
 
ashburn2k said:
Since when did sigma makes quality lens over canon? [emoji57]
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Actually, starting about 4 years ago. Sigma upped their game big time with the "ART" series of lenses. Performed better or as good as the Canon/Nikon counterparts, at 1/4 of the price. It was pretty incredible, and great because Canon and Nikon had to up their game. Competition is great for consumers, and actually for innovation in general. Other than my super old Sigma Macro, I don't own any Sigma, but I've shot with them and have professional friends who do too and they're really good now a days.

Gablami said:
What do you guys think about 105vs150 mm for reef photography?
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For reef photography, you'd probably only need a 105mm. In fact, you could probably get away with a 60mm macro as well. 1:1 magnification is what you want for perfect closeups. "Perfect" is what the human eye sees when something is super up close. You can get even higher magnification with specialized lenses or even extension tubes with the macro, which gets into the whole microscope look. Just know that handholding and shooting a 105mm is going to be tough unless you shoot with a shutter faster than 1/250th of a second or better. Every small movement of your hands creates shake, and the longer the focal length, the more that shake will be amplified. 60mm means you'll probably need to get closer to the thing you're shooting for 1:1 magnification than a 150mm. But with a 150mm you'll have to stand pretty far back, and not being flush with your tank glass will create distortion.

If I were to get a macro specific to my tank, I'd opt for a 60mm probably at this point. But that's just how I shoot, and my tank isn't that deep. I can get 1:1 mag for things pretty far into the tank. Right now I just use my Sony RX1R2 for most macro shots, it doesn't get 1:1 macro magnification, but it gets close enough in "macro" mode.
 
Day 2: only aggression is towards the Vivid Fancy, which is probably as big as the male mocha gladiator. The male mocha is chasing him around quite a bit. I think he sees him as a threat. The other tiny dudes are ignored. I'll keep watching, but might have to send the vivid fancy off to another home and get a smaller guy to replace him.
 
kinetic said:
Yeah that's not great. I've seen a lot of tanks with plenty of bta's smashed up against each other temporarily, and sometimes in larger permanent systems. I wonder, though, if most of them are just splits rather than totally different ones.
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Well I know at the academy they have a big field of RBTAs with some green smoothed in. Granted that's a MUCH larger tank so makes me think any problems might be chemical rather than physical, so maybe run carbon? But ultimately you can't really go by what's done in a tank of that size and try to replicate that in a much smaller tank
 
Good news: the SA Vivid Fancy is now in a new home and the aggression is gone in the group. There's a lot of posing, but no more chasing. The fancy white extreme is pretty bold and tries to face off with the female constantly, who just ignores him. It's pretty adorable. That guy was just too big. I'll try replacing him with a small 1" instead. We'll see what I can find.

And then there were 5!
 
I don't know what is wrong with my house, but now my tank water is super cloudy (kind of like how my betta tank was cloudy, if you guys followed that thread).

Tested my params:
  • 0 ammonia
  • 0 nitrites
  • 5ppm nitrates
  • 0.02ppm phos
The cloudiness looks just like how my betta tank looked before I got a UV light.

The only thing it shares is, well, the water. I'm using RO/DI with new filters, two different TDS meters show 0 coming out. I tested the RO/DI water for phosphates, 0 ppb.

One thing is, I used an aquaclear sponge (a brand new one) to stop my herbie from making vortexes and sucking sounds. That's the same type of sponge I used in my betta tank. I wonder if that could cause some weird bacteria bloom? But otherwise it's the only thing that was shared.

Of course, it may be totally unrelated, just super strange.

I did two 30% water changes the last two days, it just got worse.

I am no longer dosing NoPox, no longer dosing Live Phyto, and feeding about the same. My copepod population, however, has exploded. I got pods everywhere, all over the glass, rocks, in the sand. And that's in the daytime, I bet at night they all come out to play.

I guess it's hard for anyone to guess, but I'm pretty sure it's just bacteria bloom of some sort. Or maybe even the phyto growing out of control in the water column? My skimmer is skimming stuff, but it's kind of wet and not that much. I clean the cup and body every 3 days because a lot of gunk builds up.

I think I'll try a 9watt UV (Green Killing Machine) and see if that helps.
 
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