I will gladly take you up on that offer! I think people are sleeping on this coral.. Red with Yellow polyps? Sounds like a great color combo to me.
Which area of So Cal are you in?
Through the Looking Glass
- Thread starter watchguy123
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I will gladly take you up on that offer! I think people are sleeping on this coral.. Red with Yellow polyps? Sounds like a great color combo to me.
Which area of So Cal are you in?
watchguy123
New member
Only if I can see yours
It actually is in midlevel
Would love to see your peach dragon, sounds awesome. I haven't seen much of white polyps on many spsGreat new pics. I have a completely peach version of a dragon, with white polyps, but it grows fast and does look nice. Mine glows orange under blue LED which adds to the understated beauty of it.
Still, I wanted a red one.
I am in the west San Fernando "Valley".
so I just took a few pictures of mainly new frags. Seems no matter what, there is always room for something. I was gone for a week of vacation. My power went out on the tank for 20 hours--yikes, always on vacation. Couple casualties but not too surprising. I did have a surprise RTN event on a few pieces. Everything looks happy and parameters all great. Kind of feels like some of these guys got a virus, flu bug. Anyway, best I can tell everything is normal minus the few casualties. Just love sps and the surprises they present.
I got some oldies from a good reefing buddy, pretty amazing stuff.
Who doesn't love the RR Canada/USA Jawdropper. Its small but growing
RR Canada/USA CJ Pinky When I got it, it was pretty pale, this is it coloring up now. Had it for a few weeks i believe.
RR Canada/USA Godzilla (not RR Asia or TGC)
watchguy123
New member
Thank you. It's really nice to know there is some interest in my pictures
Another new frag, when it looks this colorful as a frag, you know you have a winner (sarcasm intended)
Or this beauty
Then there is this handsome one
Or this sweet one
Or this maybe
Or perhaps
We all look at these little frags and hopefully see something special in them. I'll try to first keep these alive and if successful with that then share their growth and color development. It's always fun getting a known commodity but sometimes it's fun and challenging to see what a crap shoot may turn out to look like.
It is, some of the nicest SPS I had were browned out imports. The only SPS I've lost probably had the best color of any wild coral I've ever tried... Stupid snail knocked it onto an acan colony at night.
watchguy123
New member
A little purple monster:
Purple Monster
Purple Monster
watchguy123
New member
Ever since I got rid of my angel fish, polyp extension is really great. I didn't quite figure out the brightness or exposure on this picture, but at least you can see a very happy oregon tort. Nice polyp extension and brighter blue growing tips on the larger branches
Oregon Tort
Oregon Tort
watchguy123
New member
I saw "them" munch on my sps polyps, I had three, a regal, emperor and majestic angel. In fact, I think they taught my yellow tang and powder blue tang and majestic fox face to nip at sps polyps as well. I caught them all doing that one day to my dismay. I had the yellow tang, powder blue and majesty fox face for years before I added the angels. I love the incredible beauty of angels and so I convinced myself it would work out. Well it didn't. I trapped and removed all six fish. I then repurchased a yellow tang, in fact I got two, and one powder blue. I guess fish teach bad habits to each other. Everyone was pretty well fed but I presume sps polyps may be tasty, if you are a fish. It took a few weeks for the polyp extension to come out during the day. Nightime polyp extension was and is crazy. I don't quite understand how invertebrates apparently learn protective behavior such as withdrawing polyps during the day. It certainly seems they learned that there was no more danger of "munching" and returned to day time polyp extension in a relatively short time.
reefmutt
Active member
Love that pe on the ot.
I had a mitratus butterfly that I added to my tank on impulse. Gorgeous fish but he did shut down the pe on my sps. Unfortunately/fortunately, it got ich and died.
I've also had a dwarf golden angel forever who is now quite bold and loves to pick hard on my sps.. I love the fish but I also love my pe.. not sure what I will do about him..
Can't wait to see your 'sweet one' in a couple months. That frag looks like it will be a ball of molten lava.
I had a mitratus butterfly that I added to my tank on impulse. Gorgeous fish but he did shut down the pe on my sps. Unfortunately/fortunately, it got ich and died.
I've also had a dwarf golden angel forever who is now quite bold and loves to pick hard on my sps.. I love the fish but I also love my pe.. not sure what I will do about him..
Can't wait to see your 'sweet one' in a couple months. That frag looks like it will be a ball of molten lava.
watchguy123
New member
These pictures were shot with all lights on, MH, T5 and XHO
JF Flame
And right behind it is my purple monster
Purple Monster
JF Flame
And right behind it is my purple monster
Purple Monster
watchguy123
New member
forgot I had taken some pictures last week.
TGC Inferno
check out the chalice below and to the side, it is looking happy. Love old school chalices, bight colors and equally bright contrasting eyes (spots) that look good even under good old fashioned metal halides.
Reef Raft Canada Shazam
I had all the lights on, MH, T5 and Xhos's. the xhos really made the lower portion of that colony glow blue. The colony is in the middle of my reef and the xho's are way over on the rim so the light spread was just to that lower rim. Kinda cool looking
TGC Inferno
check out the chalice below and to the side, it is looking happy. Love old school chalices, bight colors and equally bright contrasting eyes (spots) that look good even under good old fashioned metal halides.
Reef Raft Canada Shazam
I had all the lights on, MH, T5 and Xhos's. the xhos really made the lower portion of that colony glow blue. The colony is in the middle of my reef and the xho's are way over on the rim so the light spread was just to that lower rim. Kinda cool looking
MichaelW
New member
forgot I had taken some pictures last week.
TGC Inferno
check out the chalice below and to the side, it is looking happy. Love old school chalices, bight colors and equally bright contrasting eyes (spots) that look good even under good old fashioned metal halides.
Reef Raft Canada Shazam
I had all the lights on, MH, T5 and Xhos's. the xhos really made the lower portion of that colony glow blue. The colony is in the middle of my reef and the xho's are way over on the rim so the light spread was just to that lower rim. Kinda cool looking
I would do very bad things for that shazam! Its incredible
watchguy123
New member
Thats funny.
Here is one of my favorites although anything that lives is one of my favorites. I have no fondness for deceased coral. Although it doesn't look like it, this colony is about three inches across or so
Z's Yellow Eyed Jawdropper
slavetonet
New member
Very nicely composed photos.
Keep them coming.
Keep them coming.
watchguy123
New member
I started reefing with power compact lights. That was a long time ago. I graduated into metal halides and now use a light fixture with both metal halides and t5s. A year or two ago I added reefbrite xho's for dawn/dusk effect and to enjoy that pop at least for a short part of the day. My goal has always been to get both good growth and good color under metal halides. I guess I am old enough, and have reefed long enough, that I just have always thought of metal halides as the best of lighting. Certainly over the years, LEDS have continued to progress in terms of both their popularity and success at growing and coloring sps. Although, I would like to switch to LEDS to save the expense of electricity and the incredible heat of metal halides, I am just so set in my ways. Although, hopefully at some point I will transition to LEDS perhaps like G4 Radions or some type of Kessil or who knows what plus t5's. One of my many concerns is how to get good photography, accurate color rendition out of LEDS. When I look at friend's tanks lit by leds, the colors can be truly amazing. Much more vivid and fluorescent than metal halides can ever show. I have tried and tried to take photos of my corals just lit by leds but really have not been very successful at it. I tried some different methods today and have been a little more successful in my opinion. So I thought I would share some photos under just blue leds and I think perhaps these are close to what they really look like under that light. In Lightroom, I had to increase the exposure a significant amount because the pictures were otherwise dark. I set the temperature to 20 k on each of these photos but I always do that with metal halide pictures as well. Some pictures came out looking oversaturated so I reduced the light on those. So that was it in lightroom, 1) temperature adjusted to 20 k, 2) exposure increased substantially, and 3) some pictures had the "lights" reduced. This is far from perfect but I am getting closer to capturing the blue LED lighting "look" of these acros. Some of the pictures came out terrible, so I did not include those but regardless of what lighting I use, there are always photos that come out as poor representatives of what is actually seen. I hope you enjoy my blue LED pictures.
This coral looks good under any lighting but certainly with LEDS, there is much more vividness to the acro (Is vividness really a word)
TGC Inferno
RR Asia Ray's Rainbow
I think these are really fascinating pictures. I have more to share but I will wait for tomorrow
This coral looks good under any lighting but certainly with LEDS, there is much more vividness to the acro (Is vividness really a word)
TGC Inferno
RR Asia Ray's Rainbow
I think these are really fascinating pictures. I have more to share but I will wait for tomorrow
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