Mark's 150 gallon

[kevlow]

Everything looks great. It is hard to pick a favorite photo.

A lot of times people's dark pics do not look that great but your's look exceptional. The last photo in post 1376 is impressive. Reminds me of a dark fantasy landscape. Possibly off an album cover from "Yes" in the 70's. I am showing my age.

I like the Lucid Dreams colors and it's growth. Cousin It looks like it is on steroids.

 

[slavetonet]

Very nice macro photos.

 

[DiscusHeckel]

Spectacular.

 

[markalot]

Thanks all for the very kind words.

There is an acro in this fish pic.

3 1/2 years, 2 tanks, but just one rock called home the entire time. A Midas Blenny is an awesome fish who sometimes gets lost in this big tank.

 

[reefmutt]

Agreed. Cool fish. Blennies in general are a neat fish..
By the way, I'm still loving that pale rider dragon.

 

[Alfrareef]

Hi Mark,
Love your pics. Great colors. I only wish I had that at my tank.
Right now I'm leaving the 50th shades of brown to entering the 50th shades of white. I'm losing one acro per day....
Forgive me for asking again but how do you control the NO3 and PO4?

 

[stonecold]

Often times, there will be thread(s) asking what will happen when SPS touches one another. Your pic of the Cyphastrea and Digi (I think) would be a great example. Perhaps, you could keep track and take monthly/quarterly pic to see the differences.

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

 

[markalot]

Agreed. Cool fish. Blennies in general are a neat fish..
By the way, I'm still loving that pale rider dragon.

Thanks matt.

Hi Mark,
Love your pics. Great colors. I only wish I had that at my tank.
Right now I'm leaving the 50th shades of brown to entering the 50th shades of white. I'm losing one acro per day....
Forgive me for asking again but how do you control the NO3 and PO4?

Thanks.

PO4 controlled via 4 drops of PhosphateRx daily.

NO3 controlled by a Phosban Reactor (the larger one) filled with Seachem Matrix plus additional Matrix in the return chamber of the sump.

Often times, there will be thread(s) asking what will happen when SPS touches one another. Your pic of the Cyphastrea and Digi (I think) would be a great example. Perhaps, you could keep track and take monthly/quarterly pic to see the differences.

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Thanks, happy holidays to you and yours as well.

Funny you should mention the digi. I had a branch break and knock over a birdsnest. Branch is on the sandbed doing fine but a day later another branch started to die from the top down. I let it run it's course for a few days but the necrosis started gaining speed so I lopped the entire branch off and tossed it in the woods. Not sure if it was a stress reaction due to the cyphastrea attacking the base or what.

1000 years from now someone digging in the woods is going to be confused when they find numerous coral pieces.

 

[nemodan]

Hi Mark

It has been several weeks I have not been in the forum. I am not sure what is going with me. But, nevertheless I am VERY HAPPY to open your thread and see all those colorfull pictures.

Cheers my forum friend !!!!

Daniel

 

[markalot]

Hi Mark

It has been several weeks I have not been in the forum. I am not sure what is going with me. But, nevertheless I am VERY HAPPY to open your thread and see all those colorfull pictures.

Cheers my forum friend !!!!

Daniel

Daniel! Very nice to see you around, thanks for stopping by.

Hopefully you will update us on your tank.

 

[Chopper65]

Just oogling your pictures again Mark, very nice!

 

[drawman]

Very nice photos Mark! Acros are looking great

 

[Wrangy]

Wow Mark, just wow! I'm not sure what's more awesome lol how good the tank and it's lively inhabitants are looking or how kick a$$ your pictures are!! :inlove: seriously amazing mate!

 

[markalot]

Thanks Dom, I really appreciate the compliment. I still sucj at photography though. :mad2:

Lowered the lights by an inch, increasing PAR by about 40 or so.

PAR map

... and then I made some executive decisions. Booted a few under performers to the sandbed and moved some into much higher light to give them a chance to color back up.

My latest artwork is this makeshift pedestal to lift the Palmers Blue milli up to 525 PAR. I won;t be discussing the two goofs that knocked the biggest branches off the green digi. :facepalm:

This guy gets moved into the light. The front side is in better shape and has encrusted down onto the plug, but I wanted to keep it turned similar to the frag rack so I get to look at the ugly side for a while.

For all I know that is another SSC like but we'll have to wait and see. I moved this next one a few months ago. It was in worse shape but recovered nicely once being put under higher light. Under Radiums this was a pink with green and yellow mixed in.

 

[markalot]

Palmser's Blue Milli

The A. horrida showing some intense light blue when the polyps blow out of the way.

Montipora capitata 'blueberry'

A couple of blurry side shots just to mix things up.

 

[FloformAustria]

tank is looking good Mark and i can´t see why you should suck at photography?

keep those pictures coming!

Cheers

 

[kevlow]

Love all the photos and posts. It was very informative that you had continued to post and document the tank when it had issues. Then continued posting right through the recovery. It is probably worthwhile for me to go back and reread it all again.There is a lot to learn watching a reef keeper navigate out of a valley to mountain top.

In your last photo [the side shot] what is the yellow/orange looking piece sitting almost dead center of the pic? Can you post a pic of that if you have not already? Thank you.

Also, do you think think that the Hybrid light that you had made has been a significant part of your color development?

Thanks again.

Kevin

 

[reefmutt]

There is no sucking at photography here, Mark! And you are demonstrating your skills with a reef as well with these latest shots. The tank is looking so rich and good!
I love the section just right of the gully. So many nice colorful acros budding out everywhere.
I'm still watching your success with the lanthanum very closely.

 

[Alfrareef]

I love the tank and the pics are way better that what I can take!!! The corals are also nice... [emoji41] eh eh

 

[markalot]

Thank you all.

Love all the photos and posts. It was very informative that you had continued to post and document the tank when it had issues. Then continued posting right through the recovery. It is probably worthwhile for me to go back and reread it all again.There is a lot to learn watching a reef keeper navigate out of a valley to mountain top.

In your last photo [the side shot] what is the yellow/orange looking piece sitting almost dead center of the pic? Can you post a pic of that if you have not already? Thank you.

Also, do you think think that the Hybrid light that you had made has been a significant part of your color development?

Thanks again.

Kevin

Hi Kevin,

the yellow orange is the SSC looking coral. It's more yellow/green and red but with the side shot blur I guess it makes orange.

I do think the Nanobox LED's add to the coloring, they are fantastic looking compared to the early generation LED's and even some newer ones. With a dedicated cyan/blue channel plus a Lime channel I can tune it to give a nice blue/white color with no hint of purple that most LED fixtures create.

---

So you ever have one of those evenings where you are going to do one thing and everything goes wrong? I mean to tell you a quarter of my glue welds failed while trying to slightly move one rock. It took over an hour to fox everything and the Horrida is still carefully placed in the sandbed for now. :headwally:

I also broke the top off one of the better blue stag pieces. :angryfire:

One good thing is that as I was wrapping up I noticed the Palmer's blue was wobbling in the flow. Good grief, the base had broken and was coming off the plug. Had I not been futzing around in the tank I might have lost it overnight.

This failure is my penchant for piling rocks to make a scape rather than carefully posting and gluing. For now everything seems to be stable, very stable, but I don't have a spot for the horrida. Going to figure that out tomorrow.

Oh, and the not so pretty milli that I moved to the bottom middle of the tank glows 14 karat gold with the blue lights on. Spectacular looking ... but still very drab with all the lights on. Silly thing. Yea, I broke a small branch off it as well. More 2 part epoxy and super glued hands are in my future.