Mhucasey's SPS obsession
- Thread starter mhucasey
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mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
I'm not sure how far back you have read, but there are actually two tanks in the system, a 120 gallon shallow SPS reef with almost all the rock made of resin and a starboard bottom, and a 96 gallon "flubber reef" which is where all the love rock is, that tank has a shallow sand bed. Overall the amount of liverock in the system is a bit on the low end but it is more than capable of processing all the Nitrate when working with the AIO bio pellets. From time to time I've had to add nitrate to keep the system from taking the nitrate value to zero.
The bioplets and skimmer are where the export is happening for sure, the live rock just processes the ammonia down to nitrate then nitrogen gas
Sorry I am interested in your 120g, which appears to be more minimalistic. I am trying to study those who appear to run or do the least.
I skim read through some in middle of a tired night, but have to go back to read full thread.
OMG, this is another thing I wanted to research, alternative to the really real rocks. Did you make the resin rocks yourself or bought them & any links?
I skim read through some in middle of a tired night, but have to go back to read full thread.
OMG, this is another thing I wanted to research, alternative to the really real rocks. Did you make the resin rocks yourself or bought them & any links?
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
I bought them from eBay, they are pretty awesome. You can glue them all together with epoxy and basically move the whole structure very easily. If this was the only tank I would have staged live rock in the sump, since I feel that live rock is pretty essential to a reef. Some have done this with Siporax but I don't have experience with that limerick replacement, though it seems to work really well. Check out Leo's reef: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2321471
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Ah,
maybe I need some of that love rock to really step to the next level.
Tanks and coral colors looking fantastic, still happy with 2 purple per fixture?
Love rock costs extra:inlove:
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Ah,
maybe I need some of that love rock to really step to the next level.
Tanks and coral colors looking fantastic, still happy with 2 purple per fixture?
Oh and yep, the two purple/4 blue in each fixture are staying, though I run all the blues for 10.5 hours a day and the purples for 6.5 hours.
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
Thanks Matt, I've had a busy day at work so I haven't been able to watch too closely, but I've seen some color change this week alone. I'm pretty excited about that:celeb1:
Sweet colors!!!
Do you have to adjust the iphone for the shots or use some trickery to avoid pictures appearing too blue?
I found some really cool resin rock, but still not exactly the tall & multi plated & branching ones I had envisioned in my mind.
http://stores.ebay.com/Atlantis-Aquarium-Online?_trksid=p2047675.l2563
Do you have to adjust the iphone for the shots or use some trickery to avoid pictures appearing too blue?
I found some really cool resin rock, but still not exactly the tall & multi plated & branching ones I had envisioned in my mind.
http://stores.ebay.com/Atlantis-Aquarium-Online?_trksid=p2047675.l2563
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
I use a camera app for the iPhone called "manual" that allows some adjustment of speed, iso, and white balance. Then I clean up the pic in iPhoto or snapseed. I generally raise the brightness, bump the saturation a tiny bit to compensate for the brightness, then adjust the color temp toward warmer and the tint a bit toward greener.
That resin rock is the same stuff I used. I bought several pieces and then epoxied them together
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
I adjust sharpness and definition in iPhoto but I haven't played with them in Snapped. The feature I like the most is "Ambiance" - turning that down goes a long way toward removing the blue haze that comes in with the pictures.
reefmutt
Active member
I really like the ambiance setting as well.. I find it can lighten things up a bit, though. I usually drop the brightness after using ambiance..
Oh, I just re read what you said.. You reduce it to bring down the blue.. Interesting.. Since I pull my photos off of my camera (which is already set at 10k) I'm using the ambiance to fill in shaded areas..
It's amazing what the photo editing apps can do these days..
Oh, I just re read what you said.. You reduce it to bring down the blue.. Interesting.. Since I pull my photos off of my camera (which is already set at 10k) I'm using the ambiance to fill in shaded areas..
It's amazing what the photo editing apps can do these days..
mhucasey
Acros & wieners, oh my!
In the interests of full disclosure I'm having a strange issue that I'm trying to address. I love the Purple and blue bulb combo and color wise and growth wise, the corals love it too. Im seeing easily verifiable growth that is quite good. For example, visible day to day spreading of coral bases, cut branches healing over and growing in 4-6 days, etc.
Before I started the increased blue regimen, however, I saw a darkening of growth tips. The corals are certainly growing, and doing well but the bright colored growth tips were just vanishing. On some corals, that's a big problem - like the "surf and turf", where the beauty is in the blue tips. After a week plus of the higher blue light schedule, the tips are still trending that way. I'm a bit baffled as to what is missing to cause this to occur. I attempted to increase the intensity a bit by lowering the lights but I haven't seen any changes from that.
I read a while back that the blue tips were a response to high levels of irradiance, especially UV. Since the tip is growing quickly, the coral is low in zooxanthellae at that location and the pigmentation is used to protect and encourage proliferation at the tips.
I've spent a lot of time looking at the Spectrums of blue plus and superblue bulbs and comparing them to the AquaBlue Special bulb. I've looked at the AquaBlue for comparison because that bulb has produced growth tips within a day or two of adding it for me before.
In the blue/violet area, there is a peak around 400nm that is reduced in the blue plus, as well as more output in the ~485nm area. Obviously there is a big green spike and spikes in the yellow, orange and red wavelengths. Since I use the Purple bulbs that supply the reds, oranges, and yellows, the combined spectrum of the blues and purples should be very similar. In fact, when I use the spectrum simulator, other than the UV at 400, the only significant differences are the green spike and a wider red peak.
ABS put out more lumens and look brighter because of the green peak, but supposedly the 550nm light has no effects in corals. The real world and calculated par is almost identical between a combo of 4ABS and 8B+ and 8B+ and 4Fiji Purple. So I'm bait baffled as to what the missing ingredient is. I will start with the UV by swapping out 2 blue bulbs and replacing them with 2 super Actinic. After a week I'll see if there is a change.
Before I started the increased blue regimen, however, I saw a darkening of growth tips. The corals are certainly growing, and doing well but the bright colored growth tips were just vanishing. On some corals, that's a big problem - like the "surf and turf", where the beauty is in the blue tips. After a week plus of the higher blue light schedule, the tips are still trending that way. I'm a bit baffled as to what is missing to cause this to occur. I attempted to increase the intensity a bit by lowering the lights but I haven't seen any changes from that.
I read a while back that the blue tips were a response to high levels of irradiance, especially UV. Since the tip is growing quickly, the coral is low in zooxanthellae at that location and the pigmentation is used to protect and encourage proliferation at the tips.
I've spent a lot of time looking at the Spectrums of blue plus and superblue bulbs and comparing them to the AquaBlue Special bulb. I've looked at the AquaBlue for comparison because that bulb has produced growth tips within a day or two of adding it for me before.
In the blue/violet area, there is a peak around 400nm that is reduced in the blue plus, as well as more output in the ~485nm area. Obviously there is a big green spike and spikes in the yellow, orange and red wavelengths. Since I use the Purple bulbs that supply the reds, oranges, and yellows, the combined spectrum of the blues and purples should be very similar. In fact, when I use the spectrum simulator, other than the UV at 400, the only significant differences are the green spike and a wider red peak.
ABS put out more lumens and look brighter because of the green peak, but supposedly the 550nm light has no effects in corals. The real world and calculated par is almost identical between a combo of 4ABS and 8B+ and 8B+ and 4Fiji Purple. So I'm bait baffled as to what the missing ingredient is. I will start with the UV by swapping out 2 blue bulbs and replacing them with 2 super Actinic. After a week I'll see if there is a change.
afernandez
Never Quit!!
I have to agree, Pictures can be altered so easy now a days . I simply use the windows version to "fix" the pictures (take off the blue glare and straighten the image ) i have a tripod yet I'm lazy to take it out lol.
Great simple pictures btw . Noobies are looking good , not that I was expecting anything less
Great simple pictures btw . Noobies are looking good , not that I was expecting anything less
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