Blue Tanks: I started keeping corals 15 years ago. Still don't get it.

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I like to have my tank mostly white, but I also enjoy the hour or so in the evening when just my blue lights are on and the house is dark. I get to see an entirely different tank!
 
keep in mind, this thread was started by a reefer with a barebottom tank (perfectly natural).
 
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I don't know. ......looks pretty natural to me. ;)

Hahahah what a waste of a thread

It's your tank and your choice, but it looks like you dropped a lot of Tidy Bowl in the tank. FYI, Tidy Bowl is not natural in the aquarium or the toilet. If you like it that is what matters but let's not call it natural, it's so overly blue you can't tell what color the corals actually are. To each his own but understand not everyone likes that look. :-)

It's no different than someone starting a thread saying they don't understand the 10k look.
 
It's your tank and your choice, but it looks like you dropped a lot of Tidy Bowl in the tank. FYI, Tidy Bowl is not natural in the aquarium or the toilet. If you like it that is what matters but let's not call it natural, it's so overly blue you can't tell what color the corals actually are. To each his own but understand not everyone likes that look. :-)

It's no different than someone starting a thread saying they don't understand the 10k look.

It was a joke ! I had all my blue LEDs only on.

Here's a better pic of my tank
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That's a little better but hard to get a feel for the color on my phone. Personally I like the 10k with actintic look but am enjoying the 150 watt Radium (which isn't very blue) with VHO SuperActintics. For me it is just blue enough without being overbearing.

If anyone thinks they will change anyone's mind on what color to run a tank, understand it may not happen. I am glad we all have different tastes.
 
If anyone thinks they will change anyone's mind on what color to run a tank, understand it may not happen.

not true ! my GF bugged me for months to change all bulbs to white LOL it happened and now I have a much whiter reef lol power of nagging :P haha :celeb1:

but on serious note,
but my corals look better after the change and growth took off even better.

after the change, I realized that nutrients also get used much more efficiently this way. whiter light, higher growth of corals, which in turn means higher take up of nutrients, so less for algae or cyano to use ...
 
Here are some pics pictures taken from different reef around the world. They are untouched. I will describe them in the next post. Basically the pictures all have a blue or green hue to them. They vary in depth from 5 feet to up to 60 feet.
 

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The first picture is from Phuket, Thailand in about 10 to 15 feet water. Green hue. The second and third picture are from Koh Tao, Thailand. One has the flash on. It was taken in about 20 feet water. The forth picture was taken in Cozumel, Mexico in about 50 feet of water. It has a blue hue. The picture on this reply was taken in French Polynesia in about 3 feet of water. It has a little bit of a blue hue, but mostly white. Most every coral I have seen in their natural habitat is usually brownish looking. There are blue and pink corals. Nothing has ever looked liked the corals we keep in our tanks. Clams on the other hand look the same to me. I would also like to remind all these pictures were taken with the same camera at the same settings and are untouched. This is my opinion from my experiences.
 

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Haha good point , his thing he calls a tank is absolutely horrid. Please post more pics of blue tanks
And the winner is :beer:

It's sort of a pet peeve of mine to disregard or worship the opinion based on an individual's tank, but there is a special exception for posters like Gwhatever who have objectively asinine posts only to incite the community.

Go back to diving and poor tank. This site clearly isn't for you.

:headwally:


Also, as an aside, I feel that a lot of tanks with LEDs are not photographed correctly (difficult apparently) and appear MUCH more blue than they are in person.
 
That's like saying you hate that people like cheeseburgers

Cheeseburgers, I despise people who like cheeseburgers, and if they also like pickles, I won't speak to them.

I started growing corals 15 years ago. I have over a decade of oceanography experience under my belt. I have seen reefs in the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, multiple sites in the Pacific. And I don't mean dive site reefs.

I have been diving since 1970 and have also seen corals all over the world. I use my boat and my equipment. I also have been keeping corals since the day they were imported, but I don't know exactly what the rant is about. Because if you dive, you are aware that everything under the sea after about 50' is blue. No matter what color it may seem when we shine a light on it, it is blue at depth.
I took this in Bora Bora off Tahiti and as you can see, everything seems blue.
These are SPS corals, yes all blue.



This I took on the same reef with a flash and everything out of range of the flash is blue.



I don't personally keep my tank blue looking but if it were a real reef, and if it were deep enough, it would be blue as everything is in the sea.
But you have a right to rant about it if you like. :beer:

. Basically, my personal problem is everyone being a bunch of followers with either no idea what reality looks like,
Well, not everyone. I didn't follow anyone as I started in the hobby before it was a hobby as I started SCUBA diving before most people knew you could even buy equipment. So not "everyone" here is a follower and I do know what the undersea reefs look like.

I try to keep my tank as natural looking as I can. And I do mimic the sea, but a shallow part of the sea.
 
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While I understand that the use of very blue lighting is popular, I was under the impression that a significant portion of the "too blue" pictures posted are due to improper white balancing. My tank is lit by 4xKZ new generation (~14K), 1xfiji pink, and 1xKZ super blue. This combination presents a nice "crisp" white color in my opinion, but when I shoot my tank, the picture will be very blue prior to processing. Since I shoot in raw, I can adjust the white balance post acquisition with relative ease, but I know others struggle with accurately representing their tank color. Here is a quick example with the first picture I could find:

Pre-processing
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Post-processing
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The second picture is a significantly more accurate representation of what I perceive my tank to look like (note: I picked the photo and processed in a hurry because I'm in the middle of cooking dinner right now...).
 
Paul your my hero you made a great point, I think when the op goes diving he means snorkel and mask In the kiddy pool he obviously hasn't seen a reef In 100 feet of water
 
If you were a real diver, you'd know better. I'm a Divemaster, and have been to depths of 150'. Really blue... And the crazy part, when you shoot a fish somewhat deep, it bleeds green. For the exact same reason it gets BLUE! I posted the info for you, as you are obviously ignorant to the information you so aggressively attempted to feed us incorrectly. I also free dive, and its not blue, bacause it's still shallow. Makes me think you went on vacation, took the overpriced snorkelling trip for tourists, and now think you have a clue. If your going to talk sh#&, know what you're talking about, and don't bust out your "dive experience" to back it up. Many of us dive, and know better. BOOM! (This is where I drop the mic and walk out for effect)



"The question is the depth of the object (blood) from the surface. The perceived color of objects changes based on the "ROY G. BIV" order of the spectrum. The deeper you go, the more blue in appearance heading toward indigo/violet. The water is acting as a giant filter, the sun/daylight is your light source. This is gradual and overlapping, so when the "red is gone" that doesn't mean its now orange, and so on. For example, at more than 10 feet, most red is gone, some of the orange and yellow are gone as well. The website here: http://www.underwaterphotography.com/Underwater-Video/Lighting/Color-Underwater.asp
gives a good indication of some of these changes from a photography perspective. Many objects below about 30 feet will appear dark green, dark dark blue/indigo, to black."
 
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