Cali Kid Corals

Derek's 225g - Magnifica / SPS Reef

CaseyP said:
Those macro shots and colors are looking good!! Was that with post processing? I use a Tiffen 85b filter as well. With my camera (Fuji X-T20), there's a kelvin scale I use to manually adjust the white balance with the filter on to get it as color accurate as possible. Anything similar with your camera?
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I have not done any post processing yet, still focused on just learning the camera stuff.

My camera has 3 options to manage white balance:

1. I can choose an image to use as "custom white balance" where apparently you shoot a grey or white card and then assign that pic. I have tried this but it comes out way, way too orange. I have tried both grey and white cards, not sure how the camera is supposed to know which (they both obvi look pretty blue in the pic) but needless to say I haven't had much luck this route.
2. I can adjust the Kelvin like you said, up to 10,000k
3. I can adjust individual color balance (magenta, blue, etc) to fine tune whatever the above gives me.

So far the best result seems to be going with 10,000K, using the 85b filter, then actually adding a couple ticks of blue back in to move the balance back to the cooler side.
 
derek_SR said:
Everything looking good, yep. Everything is in my frag sump, will post more pics when I make room in DT and start mounting stuff. @Turkeysammich is putting together a frag tank for me.

Here’s your bank for now, @iani :

View attachment 57853

Thanks for all the frags and for letting me hang around with your awesome tank this weekend!
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nice, most interested to see how the rainbow splice does. Do you see any red at all in that piece?
 
iani said:
nice, most interested to see how the rainbow splice does. Do you see any red at all in that piece?
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I didn’t think so at first but I think there are some little spots of red after all:

RH5A0974.jpeg


Took a pic of one of the pink lemonade frags while I was down there too:



RH5A0975.jpeg


Acros in my sump always have really good PE…often better than in the DT. Strange
 
Coral reefer said:
Maybe more food down there?
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I had this thought too - especially since removing my filter roll, I imagine a lot of particulate ends up down there. Along with maybe the slower flow it creates for a stronger feeding response over time?

I wonder too if extreme PE isn't always good. Like the polyps are reaching because they're lacking something - food, oxygen, whatever. But if having extreme PE is wrong I don't want to be right. I just wish I knew how/why!
 
Hey @derek_SR , the pics are looking amazing man. Much better than what I'm putting out. Makes sense considering the equipment you're using now too! Envious of the camera...tank...livestock... :p

I am not sure if you're currently making adjustments using your custom functions and saving everything to a preset. I'll have to go back to see which body you got, but you should have at least 2 custom functions on your dial to play with. If you are not utilizing one of those yet, I'd start learning how to save settings to a custom function (CF) setting so you're not always having to reset stuff. You can create a couple so when you're lights are at "X" setting, you use CF1. When you're running all blues, you use CF2. Make sense?

As for the color temp, the Tiffen 85b is basically a 2300K adjustment. So if you're camera is at 10k, with the filter, the adjustment makes it a 7800K image. That's just a general and basic baseline way to think about it. Remember, your LEDs are pushing out multiple color temps, and you're trying to make it all a "balanced" image. The only way to truly get a balanced image is individual channel adjustments. Off the top of my head, I can't remember how much customization can be done through the camera menu. It is possible though to do some general post processing in-camera so you don't have to do anything in the computer.

Are you getting hung up on the post processing because you think it is a taboo thing? Or is it because you just don't want to waste time doing/trying to fix it? Post processing is one more aspect of photography you'd have to learn and it can be a tough.

There's so much more we can converse about with this, but I'll have to get back to you later about it. Maybe a video call or something might be a way to help too.

The more all of you guys talk about SLR imagery, the more it makes me want to get my stuff out... I haven't upgraded equipment in many years though. So I must admit that technology has got much better and I'd need to refresh myself on the Canon capabilities.
 
ReyDeFarts said:
Hey @derek_SR , the pics are looking amazing man. Much better than what I'm putting out. Makes sense considering the equipment you're using now too! Envious of the camera...tank...livestock... :p

I am not sure if you're currently making adjustments using your custom functions and saving everything to a preset. I'll have to go back to see which body you got, but you should have at least 2 custom functions on your dial to play with. If you are not utilizing one of those yet, I'd start learning how to save settings to a custom function (CF) setting so you're not always having to reset stuff. You can create a couple so when you're lights are at "X" setting, you use CF1. When you're running all blues, you use CF2. Make sense?

As for the color temp, the Tiffen 85b is basically a 2300K adjustment. So if you're camera is at 10k, with the filter, the adjustment makes it a 7800K image. That's just a general and basic baseline way to think about it. Remember, your LEDs are pushing out multiple color temps, and you're trying to make it all a "balanced" image. The only way to truly get a balanced image is individual channel adjustments. Off the top of my head, I can't remember how much customization can be done through the camera menu. It is possible though to do some general post processing in-camera so you don't have to do anything in the computer.

Are you getting hung up on the post processing because you think it is a taboo thing? Or is it because you just don't want to waste time doing/trying to fix it? Post processing is one more aspect of photography you'd have to learn and it can be a tough.

There's so much more we can converse about with this, but I'll have to get back to you later about it. Maybe a video call or something might be a way to help too.

The more all of you guys talk about SLR imagery, the more it makes me want to get my stuff out... I haven't upgraded equipment in many years though. So I must admit that technology has got much better and I'd need to refresh myself on the Canon capabilities.
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Thanks for taking the time! Yes - I am using the C1, C2, and C3 presets. Very handy. I have C1 set up for a fast shutter, bright white light, shooting fish. I have been working on C2 for deep blues shooting macro shots of coral.

The individual channel adjustments are like this:

UG-03_s0760.png


So I am setting Kelvin very warm, using the 85b filter, and then tweaking the above channels to get it to look right. Nice thing is that I can tweak live while looking at the LCD to see how things look and match it to my eye. I think I just need to tweak until I get it close enough and be done with it.

As far as post processing goes...I have played around with trial periods of both lightroom and affinity, and had an even harder time getting color balance right. I decided I just didn't even want to mess with it, I'm having better luck with the camera. I'm sure there's a learning curve and post processing is the "right" way to do it, but I don't have the time or desire to invest in that yet as I am still just learning the camera. "Close enough" is good enough for now. I'd love to make a couple prints for the walls some day, but that's a long way off. For now I just want to be able to share cool pics online and with my family and document my reef for fun.

Get the camera out and take some pics!
 
Not much to report. Iodine came back pretty high, likely due to dosing Isol8:MT similar to @JVU . I paused the dosing of that, so not dosing any trace at all right now - will see if the 2.5g daily water changes handle trace or if I start to notice a degradation anywhere. Still not running a filter roller, and still haven't seen a change in nutrients. Been many weeks now.

Tank is kinda grumpy, not sure what's going on. No major problems, just not the usual growth I'm used to seeing. I have been away from the tank a lot lately so maybe it's simply that I've been feeding less. I have also been dipping a few corals here and there looking for flatworms after seeing some bite marks a few weeks ago, so that probably has things grumpy too.

Couple recent FTS - evening mostly blue lighting with iPhone+orange filter:

IMG_2285.jpg



Still cramming in more SPS, added a couple additional rocks for real estate:
IMG_2288.jpg

IMG_2287.jpg
 
A mantis shrimp and CBB together in the same reef tank photo - not a pic you see every day!

IMG_2300.jpg


Had time to get a couple (only slightly better) pics with the real camera before my leopard wrasse gave him a hard bite and sent him back into hiding. They were all kind of squabbling over that piece of frozen food stuck to the green acro:

RH5A1245.JPG

RH5A1249.JPG


This guy has been in my tank since I started it - 14 months ago. I think he mostly just eats frozen food.
 
Having sung the praises of the Ecotech Versa in various threads, I am now encountering some issues. I am using 5 total:

Lanthanum (Very low daily doses, short tubing runs)
Alk + Ca (Medium size daily doses, short tubing runs).
AWC SW + Wastewater (large daily doses, long tubing runs).

Strangely - one of the long run pumps stays perfectly calibrated, as does Calcium. But the Alk, SW, and Lanthanum start to drift pretty significantly in as little as 1-2 weeks. I am currently calibrating all 5 every 2 weeks and 3/5 are always off by as much as 20%.

I am going to complain to Ecotech but will probably eventually just switch to Hydros pumps in the next few months. Our Coralvue rep told me there's an AWC pump getting released soon, sounded like Q4...
 
derek_SR said:
Having sung the praises of the Ecotech Versa in various threads, I am now encountering some issues. I am using 5 total:

Lanthanum (Very low daily doses, short tubing runs)
Alk + Ca (Medium size daily doses, short tubing runs).
AWC SW + Wastewater (large daily doses, long tubing runs).

Strangely - one of the long run pumps stays perfectly calibrated, as does Calcium. But the Alk, SW, and Lanthanum start to drift pretty significantly in as little as 1-2 weeks. I am currently calibrating all 5 every 2 weeks and 3/5 are always off by as much as 20%.

I am going to complain to Ecotech but will probably eventually just switch to Hydros pumps in the next few months. Our Coralvue rep told me there's an AWC pump getting released soon, sounded like Q4...
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That sucks that it loses its calibration so quickly. And consistently between a couple heads, sounds like a manufacturing issue. I have to say, I've been happy with my cheapo manual Jebao 4 head doser. Although, I will be the first to admit that I'd much prefer to make dosage changes via an app. I am currently using all 24 available dosing times throughout the night. Making a change to each one manually absolutely sucks.
 
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