High Tide Aquatics

So what's the point of?

scuzy

scuzy

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I notice that there are some corals selling for hundreds of dollars and you can only see the color in blue actinic. Without it it just looks like blah. I don't get it. I don't run my tank ever in such blue colors. Just wondering not so busy day today at work.


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I do love some of the colors you see on the internet, but in my experience, corals change colors to whatever the conditions. Lower in the tank, higher, more flow, etc, etc.

I always say a healthy coral, is a beautiful coral. I have several $10 frags from Neptune that are now beautiful corals.


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Kmooresf said:
I do love some of the colors you see on the internet, but in my experience, corals change colors to whatever the conditions. Lower in the tank, higher, more flow, etc, etc.

And lighting spectrum!

I always say a healthy coral, is a beautiful coral. I have several $10 frags from Neptune that are now beautiful corals.

Doesn't that make them even cooler than expensive ones? Does imo


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Really depends on what you like. Kessils ALWAYS have blue spectrum so the corals will always fluoresce.




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I tried to respond to a couple things in your post but just added my two sentences into your quote. My bad.
Lighting spectrum influences colors a good bit along w intensity and flow. I feel like flow might effect growth form more than color, but wtf do I know? Not that much...
 
ONLY blue will make the fluorescent colors pop the most because the visually reflected light won't have much of an impact. Sexy sells, yes even in corals, doesn't matter if the sexy has a massive girdle on that holds everything in the perfect proportion that you want, once you get that hom... ok I'll stop with the analogy :D

Eric had some nice pictures to show this effect with the "Walt Disney" coral in one of the threads.

But the bottom line is your light would be unique to someone else, so there's no way they can make it look "Just like your tank" and everyone's tanks at the same time.
 
I have bought many corals online that looked worse in my tanks. I have also bought many at LFS that looked better in my tanks when I got them home. At most LFS I ask if they will allow me to adjust the lights if they are using Kessils to view the corals.
 
After awhile, you'll get an idea of which vendor to frequent especially those running lights that are similar to yours in terms of spectrum. Mike referenced the WD earlier that I posted in another thread, but here's another one.

292679


The above is the JF homewrecker. You can search online for it if you want to know what kind of price it commands. That supposedly is a "daylight" shot from the person that it came from and I'm pretty sure there's some voodoo magic involved during the post processing of the pic (channels are blown).

Here's a frag of that piece from another online vendor.
image-jpeg.315170


This one looks like it's under pretty heavy blue lighting as well, as you can tell by the background, tongs used, as well as the frag disk and epoxy.

I bring this one up since it's pretty heavy in demand still but most of the time all you see is the coral taken under heavy blue lighting, actinics, or in some instances black lighting for UV fluorescence.

I received a lineaged piece of this one from a friend of mine and I don't run blues much at all (1 hour before I get to work and 1 hour when I'm never around at the end of the night). It's a decent looking coral, but depending on what lighting you run, it will never look like the above.

Sideshot from the side of the tank.
tris_homewrecker_side_032717.jpg


Top-downish when most corals looks better...
tris_homewrecker_032717.jpg
 
Nicely said ibn. Yeah after spending countless hours post processing my amateur photos, heavy handed color adjustments can be pretty obvious. But subtle adjustments can be impossible to detect. Like your first photo, they took the saturation slider and slid it all the way over. Unnatural color transitions and strange looking color blobs are hints. The second photo looks more natural and there may not be postprocessing, just heavy actinics as you mention, but there's no way to know for sure.


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While I have been quilty of spending more than I should have there are just some I've stayed away from. I personally like to look at my corals much more when the blues are the only lights on.
 
Eh, it's a demand driven market. Unfortunately like many hobbies there always are some whales that screw it up for everyone else.

I mean I have always been skeptical of "lineage" pieces, and when "Tyree LE" corals popped up I just roll my eyes. But then it got ultracrazy where it seemed every store had their own "limited version" of some coral they got through a wholesaler that happened to look nice. How many different types of "Watermelon" chalices have their been? (yeah our LFS are very guilty of this too). But what can you say, it's a business and they're selling a dream.
 
Should sell them with proper names. Its like I keep seeing jf pieces and most of them look like any other pieces available.


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@Ibn you should just send those pieces that don't look good under your lights my way!

I'm sure my Kessils will show them off properly! Lol.

I have no problems with coral colors. They almost always look as advertised in my tank.


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My eyes do see ghost images after moving away my sight from the tank. I am wondering if that is because blue light hurting my retina.

I use pinkish led light in sump. Same thing happen to my eyes there.
 
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