New to reefs, the club, and keeping a journal
- Thread starter Corallus
- Start date
Geneva
Guest
Just curious how / why you decided on 81? I keep mine at 78 so was just wondering.....
Enderturtle
Guest
Nav
Guest
I have this whole kit but I mostly use Orange. http://www.cokin.co.uk/pages/colour.htm
@Nav - that's a cool idea, never thought of boosting the color using a filter. Wonder if you could get similar effects with post-processing, even though most people consider that cheating 
Now I need go to back and look at some of your pics again!
@Geneva - Temp was one thing I thought a lot about. It's a small tank, and my apartment can get pretty warm so I was worried I wouldn't be able to set it up without a chiller, which may have kept me from setting it up at all. Then I spent some time combing through forums, and saw quite a few posts where people run at temps in the low 80's. It sounds like one risk is warmer water holds less oxygen (or any dissolved gas for that matter), so in the event of a power outage, you've got less time before fish are gasping at the surface. I only have 2 fish, and plan on adding maybe one more (if I can find the perfect royal gramma!) so I'm hopeful that risk is minimal. So far, everything looks to be doing pretty well. And when it gets good and hot at my place, the tank should only go up at most by a couple of degrees. There was a good discussion about temps a couple weeks back, if I could only remember the thread...
Now I need go to back and look at some of your pics again!@Geneva - Temp was one thing I thought a lot about. It's a small tank, and my apartment can get pretty warm so I was worried I wouldn't be able to set it up without a chiller, which may have kept me from setting it up at all. Then I spent some time combing through forums, and saw quite a few posts where people run at temps in the low 80's. It sounds like one risk is warmer water holds less oxygen (or any dissolved gas for that matter), so in the event of a power outage, you've got less time before fish are gasping at the surface. I only have 2 fish, and plan on adding maybe one more (if I can find the perfect royal gramma!) so I'm hopeful that risk is minimal. So far, everything looks to be doing pretty well. And when it gets good and hot at my place, the tank should only go up at most by a couple of degrees. There was a good discussion about temps a couple weeks back, if I could only remember the thread...
aqua-nut
Supporting Member
@Nav - that's a cool idea, never thought of boosting the color using a filter. Wonder if you could get similar effects with post-processing, even though most people consider that cheating
No way is post processing cheating!
Ansel Adams didn't make prints without manipulation. One of my favorite quotes from AA:
“Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships.”
There is no reason you should have to live with what came out of the camera.
I guess I should make sure to clarify, I meant "cheating" in sarcasm... Anyone who's played with their camera long enough, trying to capture things as they really see them, realizes it just isn't going to happen. And for what we're doing, from where I sit, that isn't really the point. What I want is a nice picture that shows off what I like about my subject. Tips, like what Nav suggests, are great because it's a lot easier than spending an hour in Lightroom or Photoshop trying to get the same effect. Our eyes have a larger dynamic range of both color and brightness (2 stops as I recall) than any commercial camera sensor, so we need to be creative when trying to capture the range of both subtlty and contrast that we see when we look at something.
Probably a better topic for the photography forum, but I want to make sure I don't give anyone the wrong idea I do appreciate the comments and suggestions, and I also hope the photography workshop idea happens, I would love to attend and learn what folks are doing!
Probably a better topic for the photography forum, but I want to make sure I don't give anyone the wrong idea
I do appreciate the comments and suggestions, and I also hope the photography workshop idea happens, I would love to attend and learn what folks are doing!I suppose it's time for a update... Just realized it's been far too long since I took pics of my tank, and, for me, looking back to when I first had it up and running in Feb, to now is fun to see.
FTS...
The light green birdsnest at the top was my first sps, and I brought a couple of good size pieces of it to the swap yesterday. I also brought a piece of the bird of paradise to the left of it.
I have 2 pieces of this little hysterix. Not sure what it is, but I've really come to like it. Sometimes, I bump into it when cleaning the glass, that's why there's little broken tip hanging off in the middle of the pic...
This dark green BN in the back is a DBTC piece that I'll be taking a few cuts off in not too long. Grows nice and compact.
Cool mushroom that I picked up at CA Reef Co a little while back. It kind of moved off the plug by itself and left a baby behind, which you can see to the left.
Cool pink palys that I picked up at the frag swap yesterday. I had no idea what they would look like until they opened.
Gratuitous zoa shot
And another...
I'm having A LOT of fun with this tank, although it's not without it's problems. My RBTA is still in a very unhappy looking bleached out state. I've been feeding it a couple of times a week, but it hasn't really changed at all in a few months. Also, it's tough to see from the pics, but I have quite a bit of some sort of turf algae growing in several places now. Nothing really seems to want to eat it and its very difficult to remove. Clove polyps... Ugh, would not mind having those gone. And there's a hollywood stunner chalice, middle height, right side of the tank that at a certain point started sending out serious sweepers - like ~5" long - that chewed up my green trumpet kind of badly. I moved the trumpet, which is improving, but the chalice has to go - my tank is too small for things to not be good neighbors. Pulling that one out is not going to be pretty.
Aside to that, it's getting full! I emptied the little frag rack I've got in there, and already need to prune some more. I imagine I'll need to do this pretty regularly going forward.
Thanks for looking!
FTS...
The light green birdsnest at the top was my first sps, and I brought a couple of good size pieces of it to the swap yesterday. I also brought a piece of the bird of paradise to the left of it.
I have 2 pieces of this little hysterix. Not sure what it is, but I've really come to like it. Sometimes, I bump into it when cleaning the glass, that's why there's little broken tip hanging off in the middle of the pic...
This dark green BN in the back is a DBTC piece that I'll be taking a few cuts off in not too long. Grows nice and compact.
Cool mushroom that I picked up at CA Reef Co a little while back. It kind of moved off the plug by itself and left a baby behind, which you can see to the left.
Cool pink palys that I picked up at the frag swap yesterday. I had no idea what they would look like until they opened.
Gratuitous zoa shot
And another...
I'm having A LOT of fun with this tank, although it's not without it's problems. My RBTA is still in a very unhappy looking bleached out state. I've been feeding it a couple of times a week, but it hasn't really changed at all in a few months. Also, it's tough to see from the pics, but I have quite a bit of some sort of turf algae growing in several places now. Nothing really seems to want to eat it and its very difficult to remove. Clove polyps... Ugh, would not mind having those gone. And there's a hollywood stunner chalice, middle height, right side of the tank that at a certain point started sending out serious sweepers - like ~5" long - that chewed up my green trumpet kind of badly. I moved the trumpet, which is improving, but the chalice has to go - my tank is too small for things to not be good neighbors. Pulling that one out is not going to be pretty.
Aside to that, it's getting full! I emptied the little frag rack I've got in there, and already need to prune some more. I imagine I'll need to do this pretty regularly going forward.
Thanks for looking!
Enderturtle
Guest
Damnnnnn look at all those fruit loop zoas!!!!!
Thanks for the kind words!
@wpeterson, actually, that would be awesome! I've been ready to toss mine out for a while, just wasn't sure what to replace it with, and one of the Remora's would be great to try. I'm PM you... Thanks for offering!
Those fruit loops are funny, they didn't really spread like my other zoas. They grew a nice little patch and then just started popping up out of holes in the rock, and spreading from there - the mat must have grown through the rock. I'm going to try to frag off a few some day soon and hope they take.
@wpeterson, actually, that would be awesome! I've been ready to toss mine out for a while, just wasn't sure what to replace it with, and one of the Remora's would be great to try. I'm PM you... Thanks for offering!
Those fruit loops are funny, they didn't really spread like my other zoas. They grew a nice little patch and then just started popping up out of holes in the rock, and spreading from there - the mat must have grown through the rock. I'm going to try to frag off a few some day soon and hope they take.
That's a pretty good question, and one I thought about as the tank aged. I went with the 350 because I figured I could keep it closer to the water's surface and avoid, like you mention, too much light spilling into the room. I wanted a circle of light to fit just within the edges of the tank, so knowing the angle the light outputs and remembering a little trig from high school, I came up with a distance from the surface of the water to hang the light. Ended up being a around 4" as I recall. In hindsight, probably not the best move. It gave really nice surface coverage, but the shadowing towards the sides was very pronounced because of the rather steep angle that the light entered the tank. Long term I would probably need a bowl-like 'scape to spread the light around, and most things would still be lit very strongly from the side if they weren't dead center in the tank. If you went with the narrow version, you could hang it a bit higher, and get a more downward direction to the light, which would be nice. You may need to run at a slightly higher intensity because of the distance, but I never ran mine more than ~60% on each channel anyways.
On a tangent, I kept wanting to try to rig some sort of reflector to bounce the light reflected by the water surface, back into the tank. When I look at this one, and then look over at my new tank with MH's and reflectors, there's a lot less light on the wall behind the new tank - even though PAR readings are higher (and yes, both tanks are up and running right now...).
It'll be cool to see what you try!
On a tangent, I kept wanting to try to rig some sort of reflector to bounce the light reflected by the water surface, back into the tank. When I look at this one, and then look over at my new tank with MH's and reflectors, there's a lot less light on the wall behind the new tank - even though PAR readings are higher (and yes, both tanks are up and running right now...).
It'll be cool to see what you try!
Hehe, I'm embarrassed to post a pic of it now because I'm in the (slow) process of moving everything over to a larger tank!
I would post a pic of yours empty, it'll be fun to look back on it when things are growing in later on - plus folks here may offer advice to help avoid any setup issues you may have overlooked (I had plenty...)
I would post a pic of yours empty, it'll be fun to look back on it when things are growing in later on - plus folks here may offer advice to help avoid any setup issues you may have overlooked (I had plenty...)
Baykes
Supporting Member
Haha... trig jokes
. But seriously, thank you for your response and your tank is really something of an inspiration for me especially since I have very similar dimensions. Honestly I think shadowing is almost unavoidable with LEDs. Maybe if it became a problem, I could always add a supplemental strip.
I do have a second question though, what kind of powerhead of you have. Right now I am running 2 SunSun powerhead, but I feel like the flow the have is too targeted and not spread out enough. Do you have any tips for flow in this size tank?