Mhucasey's SPS obsession

[mhucasey]

That pink milli with blue tips is sweet. :beer: I need one of those.

There were so many pink milies to choose from and I almost went into meltdown. The pink one I originally was going in for was pretty nice but this one was even better:loll:

 

[mhucasey]

Wooow!!!!
That place is huge!!
I am jealous.
Nothing like that in Montreal for sps.
That Mille should be amazing!

That store is AquaSD, they have a pretty strong online store as well and the owner is super nice. When i first went there about 2 years ago they were giving LEDs a shot over their holding tanks but their display reef had Radiums Shortly after that they switched back to 400Watt Radiums exclusively over the SPS frags. They use Hydras over the LPS tanks down the center of the store. This shipment of colonies they just got in caused them to have to use some of those tanks too
I am pretty excited to get a new tanks going so I can get more from them.

Oh and I saw the red Acro that won't be available til March. It is red-orange and unlike anything I have ever seen. Its gonna be pricey though. I could have taken it home yesterday but its expensive and I want to let it grow in their system for a while before that.

 

[mhucasey]

Wow,
Just got done reading your thread, and I find it very inspirational, can clearly see your love for living creatures, and your skills and passion for the hobby are refreshing. Keep up the great work, your tank is amazing and your coral colors are insane! Thanks for the information regarding your tank. Your doggies are also really cool too
Regards,

Thanks so much! The tank is more than just a hobby for me, I have been hooked on Corals for a good portion of my life and I intend to keep on learning and growing in this hobby for the rest of my life. And I love me some wiener dogs too! Lots of animals in our house!

 

[trueblackpercula]

Very Nice milli with blue tips, i have had no luck with them ever and have had it four times already, Thank goodness they are cheap, By the way what do they charge for there frags at that place? I am spoiled I get full blown mini colonies Maricultured pieces for $30 bucks so I purchase 6 to 8 at a time LOL

Very nice score on the milli I hope it does well for you.
Michael

 

[mhucasey]

It really depends on the coral as to how much frags are. They have some as low as 10 bucks but I'd say most are in the range of 30-50 dollars. In this area with the cost of living and the cost of electricity that is a very good price range. Rare corals go for more, usually they top out at 100 bucks.

They usually only sell frags that have encrusted the plugs but I have had them cut a fresh frag off a larger colony a couple of times without issue.

I haven't had the best success with red corals, especially pink ones in the past. The Pink and red corals are growing and coloring great these days and I think the tank is in prime shape right now, so I hope it stays pink!

 

[mhucasey]

About a year ago I was finishing up an attempt at Zeovit on this tank. I was never able to get it to work to keep phosphate low without having Acropora go into sudden STN. One of the corals that STNd was this beautiful "Sapphire Mille":

I was able to save the end of one branch and kept it alive through the past year, splitting it a couple of times to expand the one branch into a colony. Its really starting to grow now and its going to be a beauty, if a little bit different color:

One thing about this hobby I love is being able to re-grow a coral from the smallest piece. I was in my LFS a few weeks ago and saw the remnants of a blue tabling acropora The owner let me take it to see if i could save something. It was in bad shape:

I was able to make three small frags and I put them on the bottom of the tank, fed them and otherwise let them recover. Two frags are doing very well, one of those frags went up onto the reef proper to replace a GREEN granulosa. Its more brown than anything now but it should be a lovely blue once it colors up:

The de-greening of the reef continues!

 

[mhucasey]

And for all you fellow wiener dog aficionados:

Bendy Wieners:

 

[markalot]

Great update, love the acro success and the doggies.

That pink one you are attempting to rescue ... no matter what I've tried acros with that kind of polyp structure always die on me. Not sure why, or even if it's variety related.

 

[mhucasey]

I haven't had a lot of success with them in the past either - luckily it was free. It is really hard to get an accurate picture of it, it is really more of a light brown than pink, and most pictures pick up a blue fluorescence near the tip that makes the picture all blurry. This pic was the best of a bad bunch.

 

[glaukos]

wow,great job saving that mille's last breath buddy!
Awesome recovery!
Like the new one too
Dogs are really cute

 

[echopiece]

Nice save on that Acro! I really need to start "de-greening" my tank as well

Love the wiener dogs!!

 

[mhucasey]

wow,great job saving that mille's last breath buddy!
Awesome recovery!
Like the new one too
Dogs are really cute

Thanks, I'm loving the process of recovering some of these remnant frags
I love me some wiener dogs!

 

[mhucasey]

Nice save on that Acro! I really need to start "de-greening" my tank as well

Love the wiener dogs!!

Thanks! I'm surprised how many green pieces I ended up with, for a while I couldn't resist the green glow - that and I kept buying Yellow pieces that turned green(cause they were just bleached green pieces):facepalm:

 

[chema]

Congratulations for your tank!. A great project very well achieved and showing amazing corals.

I like a lot your photographs. Would you mind sharing the settings in your camera, white balance, etc?

 

[mhucasey]

Thanks! All my pictures are taken with an iPhone 6, in standard picture mode(Not HDR). I then use post processing software to reduce the extra blue. I use "Auto Level" in the software then raise the blue level until the picture matches what i see with the eye, then reduce saturation a bit if its still too strong in some of the colors.

I have an even better way to do this now, with my change to the light fixture I can turn all the blue bulbs off and leave 3 white and a purple on. The pictures come out under this white mix looking the same as the tank looks to my eye with all the lights on. Then I don't need to remove any extra blue.

 

[reefmutt]

Which app? Snapseed, by any chance?

 

[mhucasey]

No I have a Mac, so the pics are already on my laptop after I take them because of photo stream. I open them up in "Pinta" which is the Mac Version of the freeware "Paint.net" which in itself is a clone of Photoshop. The same "Autolevel" and other corrections should be in all three photo editing solutions. I used to use an app that allowed me to change the white balance and/or directly lower the blue in the picture but it isn't made for the newest IOS version.

Biggles did a nice little primer on how to fix the blue using this software:
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23332879&postcount=116

 

[reefmutt]

Thanks I'll check'em out.

 

[chema]

Thanks a lot: I'll check them out too. I have a terrible time trying to take photos of my tank. I have a hand made LEDs fixture and all the picts are very very blue, no matter I take them with my iPhone 4 or the Canon EOS.

 

[mhucasey]

Try turning all the blues down before taking the picture - the camera over-exposes blue light so while the tank will look much less blue to you, the camera will end up compensating. Also I have found with the iPhone that when the picture mode first turns on the shot is less blue, after a few seconds the sensors warm up or something and the blue level goes way up. I pint the camera and get the shot lined up, then switch to video mode, then switch back to picture and immediately take the shot. If its quick the camera doesn't get so much blue.

I took a picture last night with just the 3 white bulbs and one fiji purple bulb on, no blues. Its amazing how much blue is there that our eyes don't register. This is the raw photo: