180 Gallon Reef Tank build!

[Itaysworld]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14739684#post14739684 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by thechad21
Itay! You're back! I was wondering where you went. Been a long time.

Chad! Thanks for your note ~ been a while! I'm going to take a long time catching up on all the threads I used to read.... how are your 180 and 225 doing?

I brought home a canister filter from my LFS today and plan to suck out some of the dying hair algae tomorrow.

Itay.

 

[Itaysworld]

It looks like the weeks of stable carbonate hardness and polishing with the canister filter the hair algae is finally losing the battle.

I just picked new IceCap 14K bulbs and will be replacing my 20K XMs. I'm looking forward to the new, less blue look.

I think later this week I'll be ready to take out the camera and post some updated shots, minus the SPS frags of course, since they didn't make it.


Before I introduce more fish into the aquarium I've decided to remove the foxfaced rabbitfish. I really like him, but he's grown so much that he's by far the most aggressive and dominant fish in the tank and I fear for any new introductions.



Water parameters as of 4/5/09

Temp: 79.5F
SG: 1.025
pH: 8.4
Alkalinity: 10 dKH
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Phosphate: <0.1
didn't test for Mg and Ca


My snails are still not doing great.... Not sure of what may be causing this. Any ideas?

More to come soon...

 

[Mr. Brooks]

Hey Itay,

I haven't updated my 225 build thread in a while. I hit a bunch of set backs and didn't feel like telling the world lol. Things are back on track though. I'll be updating soon. I kind of want to start a new thread though. I'd hate to have someone read the start of my thread and copy one of my bad ideas. Though the mistakes are the valuable parts of a build thread I think. I also had a lot of equipment problems, I hate to bash the manufacturers. Already did lots of that on other threads. My 180 is still sitting empty. Haven't had time to get the 225 to 100% let alone the 180.

Looking forward to some picture updates.

 

[Itaysworld]

Trying to kick the algae

Trying to kick the algae

I just made a post in the general reef discussion folder, trying to get a handle on my algae situation, in case anyone can help with ideas: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=14831756

thanks!

 

[Itaysworld]

OK - time for an update.

I am still battling the hair algae problem, and I seem to be making a tiny bit of progress.

For the last 2 weeks I have not used actinic lighting. I just checked and my new 420/460 nm bulbs are on the FedEx truck for delivery! YAY.

About a week ago I installed the new IceCap 14K bulbs. I really like the look.


On Sunday I added a Sea Hare and 10 more conchs. There is definitely a difference in the sand (a lot less diatoms visible) and on the rocks - wherever the hare passes.

I am still running GFO in a fluidized reactor and may be changing media again soon.


I feel like my thread has gone far too long without pictures, in large part because of the algae problem, but I managed to grab a few yesterday. They aren't the best, in terms of lighting and focus, but I wanted to get some images back on here.


The Acan continues to grow nicely. I wonder if it will "spill over" to the rock its on. I don't know how much more it can grow, but would love to see it spread

Various Zoanthinds:

....continues

 

[Itaysworld]

.... continued



Sea Hare at work!

Yuma Ricordeas

Xenia

The I-can't-believe-how-fast-its-growing RBTA

Frogspawn, which has grown a lot, too

Here are a couple I need help IDing. I don't recall what they are:

And finally... I tried to put a montipora frag in again, cautiously after my previous experience with montipora eating nudibrachs. It has been well over 8 weeks since I had motiporas in my tank, and I thought for sure they had starved and died. But I'm seeing what looks like their damage on this frag I put in a couple of days ago

Best,

 

[ReefEnabler]

Hi Itay, nice pictures!

To my eye, the long stringly algae in the pictures - particularly the first zoa pic - doesn't look like hair algae. It looks like dinoflagellates.

 

[Itaysworld]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14912636#post14912636 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefEnabler
Hi Itay, nice pictures!

To my eye, the long stringly algae in the pictures - particularly the first zoa pic - doesn't look like hair algae. It looks like dinoflagellates.

Thanks Ryan - I'm still struggling with my old canon - I can't get rid of the noise and my poor 100mm macro is crying for better hardware


It may very well be dinoflagellates. I've had them before and given my constant loss of snails I wouldn't be surprised if I still have them, but that's on top of the hair algae issue. Just pile'em up! LOL.


Do you know if the hare will eat it? Is it toxic to them as it is to snails?

Thanks!

 

[Itaysworld]

Montipora....

Montipora....

This is what the frag is looking like.

Last time I had montipora eating nudibranchs I could see them on the coral and this time I can't find any.

Could this frag be dying because of something else?

This frag took a 30 minute bath in Tropic Marin Pro Coral Cure before entering my tank (as do all my frags)


Any info? What does this look like to you?

(by the way - this is a macro shot - I took a tiny frag to test out the waters - no pun intended - its the size of my thumb nail at most)

I have it in a little dish and I don't see any movement..

 

[Itaysworld]

Good news on the red montipora - the RTN seems to have stopped. I think having looked at it closely that the deltec putty must have come in contact with the edge that was clipped off the mother colony at the LFS and the exposed tissue had a bad reaction to it. I'll continue to monitor it closely.

The sea hare is chomping away at the hair algae. I've also decreased my feeding drastically, which has finally gotten the tangs and rabbitfish to start nipping at the algae.

I finally got the new actinics 420/460nm installed and here are a few shots with actinics only using a custom white balance - its a bit tricky with this light and I'm definitely feeling the need for a better camera. The sensor is just not good enough to get the shots I want. Too much noise at anything above 200 ISO and I can't get long enough exposures even with pumps off.

In any case, I can manage to get some pretty good shots. Here are some of the best ones from tonight.

I also decided to stop uploading my images to photobucket because I noticed a significant decrease in quality when stored there. They must be compressing the images so much that it always messes with the colors, even if I embed the color profile on the image.

 

[Itaysworld]

 

[Rhodes19]

Wow, What a nice tank. I just started my 180 build and can't wait to get it up and running. Thanks for all the pics and details.

 

[ReefEnabler]

nice actinic shots. I forget, which method of custom whitebalance are you using? separate RGB level adjustment in photoshop??

 

[Itaysworld]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14924995#post14924995 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Rhodes19
Wow, What a nice tank. I just started my 180 build and can't wait to get it up and running. Thanks for all the pics and details.

Thank you Rhodes ! At times its been quite trying, but its a lot of fun - I'm sure you'll love your 180!

Good luck on your build - I'll be sure to check out your thread.

Best,

 

[Itaysworld]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14925004#post14925004 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefEnabler
nice actinic shots. I forget, which method of custom whitebalance are you using? separate RGB level adjustment in photoshop??

Hey Ryan - thanks! I am in pain with my camera - I can't get a crisp noise free shot, even at 200 ISO... but its what I got for the time being

As for custom white balancing, with my Canon Digital Rebel 300, I take an unfocused photo of my sand bed. I then select 'custom white balance' mode and then 'view' the image on the camera LCD and have the camera use that as the 'reference image'.

I get pretty good results like that. I still go in with photoshop and manage the levels a little bit, as well as shadows and highlights and unsharpening the mask.

I'm also trying to despeckle the image to get rid of some noise, but it end up looking like its blurry. This is the best I can do until I can get a camera that I can shoot at higher ISOs and faster shutter speeds.

Regards,

 

[ReefEnabler]

Hmmm. I use the same trick with my Canon 50D (shooting something blurry and white as custom AB), but it seems like the white balance still maxes out with the sandbed appearing very blue-purple. I have to use photoshop to get the levels to show the sand as white.

 

[Itaysworld]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14925206#post14925206 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefEnabler
Hmmm. I use the same trick with my Canon 50D (shooting something blurry and white as custom AB), but it seems like the white balance still maxes out with the sandbed appearing very blue-purple. I have to use photoshop to get the levels to show the sand as white.

Camera Envy Alert!!!

...drool...

Are you shooting in RAW? Because that definitely happens to me in that mode. I would really like to shoot in RAW but there is no way for me to get rid of the purpleness - not in Photoshop, not in Apple's Aperture.

I decided to take photos in JPG for the time being and white balancing seems to work better in that mode.

 

[ReefEnabler]

strange, I dont see any difference in the apparent color from RAW to JPEG (mine is set to take both every time).... it just seems like the camera really maxes out at around 10,000k even with the custom option (also the manual wb maxes out at 10000k also).

When I import as RAW the kelvin slider is not terribly useful... it maxes out at 50,000k and for some reason going between 20-50 doesn't do much and even 50,000k looks too blue. So I am left with adjusting 'levels' but selecting to only adjust 1 color channel at a time. usually just need to bring the red way up and the greens slightly up (like this link http://www.bairarteditions.com/pages/tutorials/photoshop/cblevels.html , the part about RGB sliders acting as CMYK adjustments made things click for me )

 

[Itaysworld]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14925589#post14925589 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ReefEnabler
strange, I dont see any difference in the apparent color from RAW to JPEG (mine is set to take both every time).... it just seems like the camera really maxes out at around 10,000k even with the custom option (also the manual wb maxes out at 10000k also).

When I import as RAW the kelvin slider is not terribly useful... it maxes out at 50,000k and for some reason going between 20-50 doesn't do much and even 50,000k looks too blue. So I am left with adjusting 'levels' but selecting to only adjust 1 color channel at a time. usually just need to bring the red way up and the greens slightly up (like this link http://www.bairarteditions.com/pages/tutorials/photoshop/cblevels.html , the part about RGB sliders acting as CMYK adjustments made things click for me )

Don't know Ryan - seems to work for me.

That's a useful link. I'll give it a good read and see what I can learn.

I'm not sure what I may be doing differently, but seems to work for me.

I sometimes end up touching up the levels a bit - and like you say - doing it channel by channel.

A great trick - which you may already know - is to click on the black and white droppers in the levels screen and tell it what black and white are in the image.

Do you do this? the image doesn't always let you pick good black/white spots depending on the subject/framing... but most of the time I can get one or the other at least and that gives me a great starting point.

Have you tried just JPG and using the unfocused sand as the reference for WB? It may be a wild shot - but try it out.

I'd be shocked if my 2003 Digital Rebel can do it and you're amazing camera can't!

 

[Itaysworld]

Earlier today I was doing my morning walk around of the tank and saw a couple of batches of eggs.

My guess is that they are nassarius snail eggs. The turbos have been pretty much slowly dying off and I don't expect them to be mating and laying eggs.

Here's what they look like:

I'll be monitoring them to see if how they develop.

Any guesses on what they are?