IPT
11/17/2009, 12:51 PM
I recently went back to NY (where I was born and raised) and talked my parents into going out to the Atlantis Aquarium in Riverhead. I had seen the thread about that huge hammer coral and decided that the next time I was “home” I’d go and check it out. Well, let me just say that I was NOT disappointed! They have a 20,000 gallon reef tank! Never have I seen such amazing mature colonies, huge fish, or really anything like before. Even my parents were amazed at how long they just stood there watching things (okay admittedly I was pointing things out to them that they were missing).
I remembered from the thread that one of the main guys there was named Joe. Well as luck would have it they did a feeding of the reef while we were watching. Afterwards two men came out from the back and were watching the goings on. One looked sort of like what I remembered from the thread so on a whim I asked him if his name was Joe. In deed it was. We got talking some and he learned that I was there for my sister’s wedding and had just flown in from Alaska the night before. Amazingly he offered to take my parents and I to see the top of the tank and the equipment. The skimmer had to be about 10 feet tall and ran off a 5HP pump! I think it has like 20,000 watts of Halide lighting too. He was happy when I told him that I frequented Reef Central and I asked him if he minded if I shared this story there. He had no problem with it and even said he may join in on the thread. So, thanks Joe for putting the icing my trip back to NY (and the wedding was Great too – congratulations to my sister and her new husband!).
Now the disclaimer…all these shots were taken with my mom’s dinky P&S. Let me also add that I took about 300 images so this thread will soon be full of them! I did not want to bothered with my gear so left it home (and if I would have known what this place was like I would NOT Have done that). No tripod, no RAW, no Macro lenses, no nothing really. I color corrected as best I could so be a little forgiving when looking at the quality of the images. I had a pretty severe handicap!
I put the thread and Pictures in the SPS forum here:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16037758#post16037758
I remembered from the thread that one of the main guys there was named Joe. Well as luck would have it they did a feeding of the reef while we were watching. Afterwards two men came out from the back and were watching the goings on. One looked sort of like what I remembered from the thread so on a whim I asked him if his name was Joe. In deed it was. We got talking some and he learned that I was there for my sister’s wedding and had just flown in from Alaska the night before. Amazingly he offered to take my parents and I to see the top of the tank and the equipment. The skimmer had to be about 10 feet tall and ran off a 5HP pump! I think it has like 20,000 watts of Halide lighting too. He was happy when I told him that I frequented Reef Central and I asked him if he minded if I shared this story there. He had no problem with it and even said he may join in on the thread. So, thanks Joe for putting the icing my trip back to NY (and the wedding was Great too – congratulations to my sister and her new husband!).
Now the disclaimer…all these shots were taken with my mom’s dinky P&S. Let me also add that I took about 300 images so this thread will soon be full of them! I did not want to bothered with my gear so left it home (and if I would have known what this place was like I would NOT Have done that). No tripod, no RAW, no Macro lenses, no nothing really. I color corrected as best I could so be a little forgiving when looking at the quality of the images. I had a pretty severe handicap!
I put the thread and Pictures in the SPS forum here:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=16037758#post16037758