Cali Kid Corals

Tank Journal(s) - 40b17g. 10/2 Pics

finalphaze987 said:
sweet set up...i like the look of the LEDs...how are they performing for you?
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They do the job but are nowhere near as intense as I thought they would be/they were hyped up to be. The color is great, the look is great, no/little heat transfer to a nano is also great...However, the spread of usable light is pretty small. Probably not an economical choice for anything over 20g, with a preferred tank size of less than 10g. Maybe my expectations were off but they seem weak, at least with 60* optics in, which IME, is the spread you'd need to prevent a really bad and ugly spotlight effect. I have 40* optics and while I'm sure the PAR was better, I couldn't get over the spotlightyness....disgusting IMO. Yeah, they're spotlights but didn't expect that effect over such a small tank. I have zoos and yumas at the bottom of my tank, no more than 5" away from the bulb and they are stretching. I've never seen a yuma stretch in any tank... I don't have a PAR meter so I don't have the numbers but my opinion is based on what my tank is telling me :)

They're perfect for a 5.5g SPS tank :D
 
Hmm thats good to know. I've been contemplating a 20g setup and was leaning towards that exact lighting setup.

Beautiful tank though! Nice job.
 
Not all PAR38 LED bulbs are built equally... would help the reader to know which brand you used :D
 
20KK or the 14KK models? (sorry if this has been stated earlier, I'm under the weather and not feeling like searching)
 
GreshamH said:
20KK or the 14KK models? (sorry if this has been stated earlier, I'm under the weather and not feeling like searching)
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No worries - There are 2 20k and 1 14k. I played around with different combinations of both and wound up with this. Really like the color put out by the 20k's. All 14k's was too yellow for me. Surprising how big a difference one little LED makes.

*Another thought - I like seeing the coralline grow on the bottom of a BB tank.
 
Update...

Noticed my female clown acting a little funny today. No idea what in her behavior tipped me off but I noticed a nice little batch of eggs between my anemones! 'There's billions of them!' :D Anyways - Pretty cool to see. First pair of any fish that mated in my tanks. My male clown won't eat - I'm assuming this is part of the protecting the eggs phase. The batch of eggs looks like they've been there for a while - Two little eyes are distinctly visible to the naked eye.

As for everything else - Coming along well. The frag of Miami Hurricane is almost covering the whole plug. Also fragged my Pink snakeskin chalice and the other chalice pictured in this thread which will both be coming to a DBTC near you...

Also ditched the 12k par38 lamp and put in a 20k, so they're all 20k now. Swapped out 10k Ushios on my main tank for 20k Ushios and wow, corals DO have color after all :)
 
Upload/update for the World Champ SF Giants! :) Had my camera out after the series and popped the macro on. No edits to them because I'm lazy. These pics came from my extra long 50/50 reefbrite only tank. New-ish additions. Cheers :beer:

A chalice..That has/had a name but I forgot it. It's getting huge for this tank, probably 6" diameter. Might be coming to a DBTC near you.
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Gold Assessor..One of my newfound favorite basslets. Looking for a blue one but these guys seem hard to come by.
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Pink snakeskin chalice. Super cool and growing like mad.
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Some random chalice that seems to be recovering in my tank as well which is a good thing :)
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Update for BP ROY. Coming home to this is nice so I snapped a quick pic and thought I'd share.. Cheers :beer:

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Tank thought of the day...I love rimless tanks.
 
This was probably my first intentional photo shoot...Maybe ever. I'm usually pretty pull it out/whatever about taking pictures but I thought I'd try my hand at non P&S type stuff. Pulled out the macro, took the camera off auto pilot and played around with the settings. I grew up surrounded by photography..Ansel Adams to Peter Lik, Nikons, Bronicas, Canons and a dark room in the basement but implementing all the terms is another mountain to climb and is definitely only in the infant stages of learning.. ISO/SS/f stops... Yeah, it all means nothing if you can't utilize them.

Short rant...I hate it when people go: 'oh, now that I have a xxxx, I can take nice photos'..or 'you have which camera? Oh! That's why your pictures are so nice'..etc.etc. To that, I say - A camera is nothing without the eye of a photographer. Not claiming to be great or even good or close to either of those but I am able to recognize it in others. Incl. some of you :) Thanks for the inspiration.

If you have advice or how to do what I was trying to do...Feel free :) One problem I had was getting enough light on moving objects/avoiding blur and bumping up the ISO enough but avoiding the grain. Doesn't help that I was shooting through curved glass...=

Here are some pics as promised... -100mm Cnn/ No edits. :beer:

Osci eggs.
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The mother.
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Star Wars coral - Coming soon to DBTC.
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Potter and Setosa frag at ~6 months


My PT.
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I only get 1/2 his attention...
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p. mccoskeri.
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