A Splash of Color - My SPS Peninsula Reef

[glaukos]

Mike's spooky reef (awesome), shadows/highlights and auto color, contrast and tone. i know the colors are not right and better in real life Mike but i didn't touch the colors because i have no idea what they look in person.

If you don't have CS download the freeware program paint dot net as it's like a little brother of CS5. Go to adjustments - levels and move those sliders to fill in all the dark drab spots and remove the over exposed ones - same thing as shadows highlights in CS. You'll also notice all the other adjustment controls that you can play with to improve your pics if you're interested. Paint dot net is a very powerful image processing tool for freeware imo.
I'm not talking about picture stuff anymore. :reading:

Can't say much about that buddy.....just:love1::love1:
Thanks and i'll try your photo advice:beer:

 

[markalot]

Love the coral shots, need more! Even your sulky corals look better than most.

 

[aggie13reef]

Thanks Nick, wasn't the green favia was it - looks like a lily pad. :reading:

Fish are good for your nutrient levels so as long as you have the water under control a few more fish won't be a bad thing. :beer:

Yep thats it the green favia. More fish will come along for sure, just need to figure out which ones. Another wrasse could never hurt :spin3:

 

[mhucasey]

Thanks Nick, wasn't the green favia was it - looks like a lily pad. :reading:

Fish are good for your nutrient levels so as long as you have the water under control a few more fish won't be a bad thing. :beer:

I think this is going to be really pretty, might be A. abrotanoides but if anyone has a better ID let me know. I'd call the color a deep pinkish brown which also seems to fit - it's sulky and not growing ever since i took it out of the water a few weeks back. :reading:

The fluoro table is hard to show, this is pretty close.

Yep thats an Abro, They need a ton of light and as much flow as you can direct at them...and they still will sulk for a while. They can be spectacular when they finally hit their groove...

 

[biggles]

I cannot wait to do the LFS trip with you and Kevin, but I'm not sitting next to him he was giving me weird vibes the other weekend - definitely looking forward too it though, we can start doing some acro and fish planning for the new tank!!

I'm glad to hear you got the pH running right again! I think you're selling yourself short too when I visited! Even though the colours were a little off, I could still see everything for what it should have been! Seeing such health and colour really was more inspiring than you think mate! It's reefer's like you and what you do for your tank that truly inspire me, something that very few can do now that I'm wising up a little bit more lol
The tank looks fantastic with the acro-saber goodness running over it! Even you have to admit to enjoying that POP you get with a little blue led lovin' haha

Hey Dom, our LFS expose will be memorable, i can promise you that buddy :thumbsup:
Thanks for the kind words mate, appreciate them a lot. I need to go to Jaycar and get a dimmer for the LED bar because i want to run it just not at full power. Nothing wrong with LED's if you use them carefully i think.

I love your veggie scaping and the sand is perfect! Great update!

I will have to check CS5 or paint dot net out and play with some of my photos.

Thanks Josh, i hope you do take the time to make a few simple tweaks to your pics mate. So many SPS tanks on here are way better than they are being shown in the pics being posted which is a shame imo.

Can't say much about that buddy.....just:love1:
Thanks and i'll try your photo advice:beer:

I hoped you wouldn't mind me using your display as an example Mike, you have a really unique scape that we all want to see in detail so have a fiddle with your pics.

Love the coral shots, need more! Even your sulky corals look better than most.

Thanks Mark, i had just blue plus tubes on and used the flash in a top down to see what i'd get.

Yep thats it the green favia. More fish will come along for sure, just need to figure out which ones. Another wrasse could never hurt :spin3:

Definitely look at the wrasses Nick, awesome splashes of color darting around the display

Yep thats an Abro, They need a ton of light and as much flow as you can direct at them...and they still will sulk for a while. They can be spectacular when they finally hit their groove...

Thanks Matt, Abro it is. The axial tips are stark white when it's growing as in many acros so you can see how shut down it is by the colored tips lol. It's getting medium light on its little island but once i change over the 250W for another 400W Radium i'm confident it will take off. It's copping high flow from the RW-20 so we can tick that requirement off. :beer:

 

[gavinsepanik]

awesome flouro, i heard they were a good beginner sps, is that true?

 

[Wrangy]

Hey Dom, our LFS expose will be memorable, i can promise you that buddy :thumbsup:
Thanks for the kind words mate, appreciate them a lot. I need to go to Jaycar and get a dimmer for the LED bar because i want to run it just not at full power. Nothing wrong with LED's if you use them carefully i think.

It definitely will be! I have no doubt about that :jester: hopefully we don't get ourselves banned from anywhere :hammer: haha
Not many in this hobby I admire as you and your tank so the compliments are all yours lol
I do agree, there is still some good to be had in LED's even if I do prefer the Radium so much more lol but the pop you can achieve with LED's is still unbeatable!

 

[cugly]

Great job Andrew like the sand better. And like the photo corrections as well . The placements of the acro are pleasing to look at.

 

[Oldude]

Nice Andrew!! I can see sand - yippee ki-yay! Now that is more like it. The reef looks fabulous.
Also in my opinion you nailed the A.abrotanoides ID.

 

[cFloor]

Your tank is really coming along quickly. Those recent shots are looking really nice. I love the low lying rock work. Good stuff biggles

 

[sahin]

Yup, I'm glad you've done a switcharoo and got sand in. Mike, if you are reading this, please down put sand back in next week...it will only mean Andrew will switcharoo out with the sand. :facepalm:

Andrew, overall how do you rate the acro colours compared to the awesomeness that was in the "ol 65G Rainbow tank"?

 

[biggles]

awesome flouro, i heard they were a good beginner sps, is that true?

Hey Nick, I wouldn't personally class A. aculeus as a beginner acro as they can be pretty finicky about placement imo. Radiums are an awesome bulb for stimulating fluoro pigments so i've never had a prob getting fluoro stuff to pop - it's the bulb not me lol.

It definitely will be! I have no doubt about that :jester: hopefully we don't get ourselves banned from anywhere :hammer: haha
Not many in this hobby I admire as you and your tank so the compliments are all yours lol
I do agree, there is still some good to be had in LED's even if I do prefer the Radium so much more lol but the pop you can achieve with LED's is still unbeatable!

Hi Dom, Kaos Koala might get himself banned but i think we'll be ok mate. :beer:

Great job Andrew like the sand better. And like the photo corrections as well . The placements of the acro are pleasing to look at.

Thanks Dan, i'm glad i have some sand back in there but i still need about 20lb more. It's already sand dune city

Nice Andrew!! I can see sand - yippee ki-yay! Now that is more like it. The reef looks fabulous.
Also in my opinion you nailed the A.abrotanoides ID.

Thanks Greg, gotta have sand I'm glad you agree on the ID, i don't think it could be anything else. It's a bright claret color under all the lights so it's already one of my favs lol.

Your tank is really coming along quickly. Those recent shots are looking really nice. I love the low lying rock work. Good stuff biggles

Thanks mate, i've been fiddling a bit more but i'm pretty happy with how things are now. I put a lot of time and thought into what look i wanted when everything was in so i'm glad you like it buddy

Yup, I'm glad you've done a switcharoo and got sand in. Mike, if you are reading this, please down put sand back in next week...it will only mean Andrew will switcharoo out with the sand. :facepalm:

Andrew, overall how do you rate the acro colours compared to the awesomeness that was in the "ol 65G Rainbow tank"?

I'm ready to sand siphon at a moments notice Sahin..........

I'd say the colors now are just getting back to how they were at the end just before i transferred everything over. The 250W Radium bulb on the left side is almost 12 months old and can't cover the spread out wide that the 400W does up the other end. Everything on the right half is eye poppingly bright and colorful but the left island is suffering from the off spectrum and lack of PAR.
I have another 400W ballast coming any day so there will finally be 2 x 400W Radiums running and that will quickly sort out the issue.

The sand has blown into the middle......

I made a short vid so you can see what's what and get a better idea how i have corals situated in relation to each other. Yesterday i spotted the small male perc hovering over the hammer and today he's at it again, every now and then he ever so slightly brushed his belly on the polyps. The female just hangs around up high in the water and couldn't care less.
I went the hack on the left island and removed all the stags from up top which was a stupid idea for placement. It made the pump placement on the overflow wall a pain and they were also badly shading the acros under them. Once i started things got out of control as usual and i moved just about everything lol.....

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lfgXoUg-hyg" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

This is what 150ml of skimmate looks like in the water after lights out.

<iframe width="854" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vNj2lhjKRf0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

[nemodan]

Andrew, can you explain me about " skimmate feeding". I saw it for the first time in your post with the vid. Did a fast search on Internet and most say that will not be good at all.

Can you please tell me what you do ?

Thanks.....Daniel

 

[biggles]

Andrew, can you explain me about " skimmate feeding". I saw it for the first time in your post with the vid. Did a fast search on Internet and most say that will not be good at all.

Can you please tell me what you do ?

Thanks.....Daniel

Hi Daniel,

I use the skimmate because i see the exact same polyp response when using reef roids or polyp booster - very enriched foods. I like using the skimmate simply because it is pulled back out of the water very quickly, typically over night after dosing. I do it after lights out because my acros are feeding with maximum PE at night a couple of hours after darkness. The algae that would utilize the skimmate also is pretty much dormant in regards to nutrient uptake after lights out compared to when you have full lighting on so i make the water nutrient rich after dark and the skimmer removes the dose along with its normal nights production from my observations.
Don't do it unless you have your water under control and high nutrients are not an issue in your system. I dose 150ml every three nights in a total system of 180gal actual water volume.

I would recommend to anyone who is thinking of trying it to use 1/3 of the same dose for your system. It's not a wonder cure, i use it merely to saturate the water with stuff that i am confident i can control much more than any other form of food i use. You don't see tank crashes after your skimmer goes nuts and over runs 3-4 days skimmate back into the water, things get poopy for 24hrs but that's about it.

 

[rodneyri]

Nice! So you literally scoop out some skimmate and pour it into your display?

 

[mhucasey]

Biggles Skimmate Has a logo:

 

[biggles]

Nice! So you literally scoop out some skimmate and pour it into your display?

It's a lot more scientific than that Rodney, my SC1455 has a drain hose attached to the collection cup. I drain - not scoop into a measurement cup and then pour the whole lot into the display at the far end away from the overflow. I don't adjust or turn off the skimmer or anything else. Sometimes when i feel like a workout i take the lid off the cup and swirl the liquid to mix it all up prior to draining the cup.

Biggles Skimmate Has a logo:

'Soylent green is Acros !!!!' :hmm5:

My 2nd 400W ballast came today - biggles reef just got a tad brighter :dance:

 

[DiscusHeckel]

I have enjoyed watching the latest videos Andrew. I get a better appreciation of your tank dimensions with video clips than looking at pictures.

You may consider crowning your videos with a good choice of sound track. It is a personal thing. The soundtrack in this video is my all-time favourite. It goes well with the movement inside the tank me thinks:

https://youtu.be/pOawZ_ULXAg (Tank thread is here)

 

[plyle02]

Andrew, great videos, I was sort of expecting a nice melody in the background, seems as if I can only enjoy your beautiful tank with my eyes, lol... For real though, I love the skimmate idea, the polyps are visibly going for the food source, another spot on moment Biggles... We may need to collaborate to find you a good hide out spot, as to keep you safe from the companies that make "night time food" for corals Great job on those beautiful acros mate!!!

 

[gavinsepanik]

Just noticed that kevins tank thread made it to 50 pages:xlbirthday:. What reflector did you go with?