Taqpol's 220 gallon custom Miracles tank!

acbaro said:
Any updates of this fabulous tank? Love the led setup by the way, and the whole canopy and stand is excellent craftsmanship! I hope to achieve something along these lines once my wife and I seperat from the military and purchase our first home! Then the craziness will begin!
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No real updates. All the fish are doing extremely well. All the established corals seem to be growing really well, but most new (albeit maricultured corals) I've been adding do fine and then rapidly succumb within three weeks. I'm having some serious problems with my skimmer that I might make a more detailed post about if I cant figure out whats going on. Thanks for the compliments!

andyvalk said:
Love the Christmas Wrasse and the Mandarin
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Thank you!
 
Underwater Cameras

I know many people that follow this thread have used or own their own waterproof underwater cameras, and I would like to directly ask their opinions about waterproof cameras. I have a waterproof "bag" for my DSLR, but it is bulky, cumbersome, fogs up, and enough moisture got in the bag while we were in Bora Bora to ruin the battery grip. I am now looking for a fully waterproof point and shoot. Some features I want are:

-Takes decent video and can auto-zoom/focus while recording

-Can take good photos on land without being too bulky or too distinct from a regular point and shoot. Our current point and shoot is breaking and I would be looking for a replacement.

-White balance adjustment

-Ability to stand saltwater to a decent depth

-And obviously, good picture quality.

I love Canon's, and it appears they have to good models out right now, the D20 and the less fancy D10. I'm pretty sure I heard that Fuji also makes good point and shoots. Basically I am open to any and all suggestions.
 
Taqpol said:
Underwater Cameras

I know many people that follow this thread have used or own their own waterproof underwater cameras, and I would like to directly ask their opinions about waterproof cameras. I have a waterproof "bag" for my DSLR, but it is bulky, cumbersome, fogs up, and enough moisture got in the bag while we were in Bora Bora to ruin the battery grip. I am now looking for a fully waterproof point and shoot. Some features I want are:

-Takes decent video and can auto-zoom/focus while recording

-Can take good photos on land without being too bulky or too distinct from a regular point and shoot. Our current point and shoot is breaking and I would be looking for a replacement.

-White balance adjustment

-Ability to stand saltwater to a decent depth

-And obviously, good picture quality.

I love Canon's, and it appears they have to good models out right now, the D20 and the less fancy D10. I'm pretty sure I heard that Fuji also makes good point and shoots. Basically I am open to any and all suggestions.
Click to expand...

I have a panasonic Lumix which is water proof to 40' and has a reef setting that does a pretty good job with correcting the white balance. Its small and takes great pictures. When my wife and I went to Maui last summer I researched this allot. The underwater Lumix had the top rating for underwater point and shoots. Some pics I have taken with mine.

By the way your photos are incredible! Wish I had skills like that

new6.jpg


Hermit1.jpg


P1010806.jpg


P1020007.jpg


reef055.jpg


P1020553.jpg
 
drummereef said:
What's the deal with the skimmer? What's it doing?
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The freaking thing either doesn't skim at all or it overflows. I have the twist valve thing wide open and seemingly randomly it will start skimming so crazy it will fill my Avast skimmate locker in minutes and shut off the skimmer.
 
Taqpol said:
Underwater Cameras

I know many people that follow this thread have used or own their own waterproof underwater cameras, and I would like to directly ask their opinions about waterproof cameras. I have a waterproof "bag" for my DSLR, but it is bulky, cumbersome, fogs up, and enough moisture got in the bag while we were in Bora Bora to ruin the battery grip. I am now looking for a fully waterproof point and shoot. Some features I want are:

-Takes decent video and can auto-zoom/focus while recording

-Can take good photos on land without being too bulky or too distinct from a regular point and shoot. Our current point and shoot is breaking and I would be looking for a replacement.

-White balance adjustment

-Ability to stand saltwater to a decent depth

-And obviously, good picture quality.

I love Canon's, and it appears they have to good models out right now, the D20 and the less fancy D10. I'm pretty sure I heard that Fuji also makes good point and shoots. Basically I am open to any and all suggestions.
Click to expand...

kalgra said:
I have a panasonic Lumix which is water proof to 40' and has a reef setting that does a pretty good job with correcting the white balance. Its small and takes great pictures. When my wife and I went to Maui last summer I researched this allot. The underwater Lumix had the top rating for underwater point and shoots. Some pics I have taken with mine.

By the way your photos are incredible! Wish I had skills like that

Hermit1.jpg
Click to expand...
Thanks for the reply! I love that picture of the hermit! were there any other features about the panasonic that made it stand out to you guys? Any features you wish it had, or that you didnt know it had but now you can't live without? Do you still have any links to the rating sites you used for underwater point and shoots?



Also, anyone else have opinions?
 
Taqpol said:
The freaking thing either doesn't skim at all or it overflows. I have the twist valve thing wide open and seemingly randomly it will start skimming so crazy it will fill my Avast skimmate locker in minutes and shut off the skimmer.
Click to expand...

Remind me what skimmer you have again? I seemed to have a problem on mine a while back where the intake tubing connects to the volute, a small amount of salt creep would build up in that connection causing the skimmer to freak out and overflow. It wasn't in the tubing, it was in the short nipple that the tubing connects to. Might want to take the volute apart and give it a thorough cleaning.
 
Taqpol said:
Thanks for the reply! I love that picture of the hermit! were there any other features about the panasonic that made it stand out to you guys? Any features you wish it had, or that you didnt know it had but now you can't live without? Do you still have any links to the rating sites you used for underwater point and shoots?



Not being much of a photographer (compared to you) I cant really say if there were any other features that made it stand out photo quality wise. What made it stand out to me was the customer ratings, the depth it could withstand, and durability to drops and what not. My wife and I do allot of hiking and I really just wanted something near indestructible. I know my under water pics are not so good but I am willing to bet someone like you could do some amazing things with the manual adjustments. Being that's its a very small camera and allows for some relatively close focal lengths it could be really nice for reaching into those impossible to get to areas of your tank with an SLR.

Or maybe im just blowing smoke. lol

I will say one feature if there was one I could not live without was the sunset mode. I feel like I got some pretty killer shots in Maui. I wont post them here so as to not clutter up your thread but would be happy to PM them to you with some more links about the camera.
Click to expand...
 
drummereef said:
Remind me what skimmer you have again? I seemed to have a problem on mine a while back where the intake tubing connects to the volute, a small amount of salt creep would build up in that connection causing the skimmer to freak out and overflow. It wasn't in the tubing, it was in the short nipple that the tubing connects to. Might want to take the volute apart and give it a thorough cleaning.
Click to expand...
You are a genius. I have a MSX250A, the same exact skimmer as you, so when you said this it got me thinking. I used to suck RO water into the pump of my Euro-Reef by just sticking the sucking end of the air tube in a glass of RO water because it would help erode the salt creep that would build up at the air water interface. The moment I unplugged the air tube from the silencer the water instantly dropped a good four inches and the bubbles must have at least doubled in size, without even having to wash out the interface. I took off my silencer and looked at it, and a whole bunch of carbon from a pre-filter I had made awhile ago had gotten sucked into it and lodged in all the tubes. It was still sucking air because when I covered the intake holes the water level in the skimmer would crash, but something about the way it was sucking the air must have made the skimmer overflow.

Now that I think about it, you keep the silencer off your skimmer anyways, right? Any reason to do that?
 
Taqpol said:
You are a genius. I have a MSX250A, the same exact skimmer as you, so when you said this it got me thinking. I used to suck RO water into the pump of my Euro-Reef by just sticking the sucking end of the air tube in a glass of RO water because it would help erode the salt creep that would build up at the air water interface. The moment I unplugged the air tube from the silencer the water instantly dropped a good four inches and the bubbles must have at least doubled in size, without even having to wash out the interface. I took off my silencer and looked at it, and a whole bunch of carbon from a pre-filter I had made awhile ago had gotten sucked into it and lodged in all the tubes. It was still sucking air because when I covered the intake holes the water level in the skimmer would crash, but something about the way it was sucking the air must have made the skimmer overflow.

Now that I think about it, you keep the silencer off your skimmer anyways, right? Any reason to do that?
Click to expand...

That's right, skimmer twins! :D Glad you found where the "clog" was. I've noticed the same thing with mine, if I let enough salt creep build up in the silencer it will start skimming funny. I also used to suck warm RO through the intake tubing but when that didn't do the trick I took apart the volute and found a salt rock in the volute nipple. Just one of the weird intricacies of that particular skimmer I guess...

I used to keep the tubing disconnected from the silencer because my system was so clean it was the only way to keep the skimmer from skimming super wet all the time. I have a height issue under the stand so the skimmer was as high in the water as I could get it. Now that the system has been running a while I'm able to get a nice foam head and keep the tubing on the silencer. I even have to close the riser pipe some to dial it in. My bio load is heavier since I've added some fish and it really started to settle in when I started using filter socks. Guess the gunk the socks pick up puts extra load on the skimmer.
 
Hey Alex, I know you were looking into getting an underwater camera... RB has an underwater camera shootout on their site right now. I think it's the latest post. Might help you make a decision. :)
 
Does your Hawk ever harrass your fish? I also got an arc-eye who has been causing problems lately. he was fine for 2 years though, then all of a sudden. maturity?
 
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