3 year old skimmerless 40G.

[eros]

Originally posted by Shiandy
but I would love to see a FTS without the need to photoshop the background to make the corals pop out more.

Really...?

[Mr. Brooks]

Doesn't look photoshoped to me..

[pwoller]

Originally posted by Shiandy
Absolutely stunning tank, thanks for sharing

The only part that looks odd to me is the background, it does not look right, it pop's out too much. I see a few questions asked if its back lit, and how do you keep it so clean.

To me it looks photoshop'd, I'm not trying to take anything away from your stunning looking tank, but I would love to see a FTS without the need to photoshop the background to make the corals pop out more.

Why does this always happen?

This tank is awesome, period!

[Aquabucket]

Originally posted by Zoanut
Looks good but a bit 6800k to me but thats just personal preference. What kind of t5's are you running?

I am running one of each: UVL superactinic, ATI blue plus, ATI aquablue special and a GE 65000K daylight.

I think the tank has more of a true 10000K look. 6800K would look considerably more yellow. You would have to really see the tank in person.

Originally posted by justinpsmith
I only have a Yellow Tang and two clowns. I doubt either would harm one. I do have a Arrow Crab that would though. My Arrow actually eats red bugs too. He has cleared the tank out.

Do you think a Coral Banded Shrimp would harm one? I doubt I will get one anyways but I am curious.

I don't know as I am still worried of my watchman a bit. I think a coral banded would be a high risk though. The arrow crab might mistake it for a worm and you know how they like those bristle worms.

Originally posted by miwoodar
That pipe is awesome!

I've always wanted one but was worried about their track record in captivity then I heard about the success many where having with the dragons so I finally ordered one when they became available.

Originally posted by DLANDINO
I can only say, WOW! Impressive. How about TOTM nomination?

That would be quite an honor! Thank you!

Originally posted by thechad21
WOW!

I agree, TOTM.

Thanks! You guys are being quite kind by giving my tank that kind of consideration.

Originally posted by Shiandy
The only part that looks odd to me is the background, it does not look right, it pop's out too much. I see a few questions asked if its back lit, and how do you keep it so clean.

To me it looks photoshop'd, I'm not trying to take anything away from your stunning looking tank, but I would love to see a FTS without the need to photoshop the background to make the corals pop out more.

Actually that's quite a compliment for you to think its shopped. What you are seeing is a camera's limited depth of field. The glass is kept clean with a razor and a magfloat. Its not all that difficult to achieve on a 40 especially since all the rock is basically stacked in the middle of the tank. The back wall has easy access. I clean it religiously, just ask anyone who has seen it in person. While many reefers spend time messing with equipment I spend more time keeping my tank and its components clean. Another thing to consider is I have the 6500K daylight bulb in the back for the macro algae. This contributes to the illusion of the tank being backlit I guess.

[JustinReef]

Doesn't look photoshopped. Jeez...someone always has to go there...

I also clean my glass religiously. Its not that hard to keep a tank algae free. I hate coraline on the glass!

[Zoanut]

Originally posted by justinpsmith
Doesn't look photoshopped. Jeez...someone always has to go there...

I also clean my glass religiously. Its not that hard to keep a tank algae free. I hate coraline on the glass!

I'm with you I hate coraline on the glass as well. I like a nice clean looking tank like this one but like I said I personally would have it a bit more blue in it.

[CaptainCoral]

I think that mixing that bulb combo creates a well mixed spectrum. I'd go so far as to call it ideal for most reef tanks. The colors look accurate. The reds, pinks and oranges pop nicely and a blue background complements a 10k look well.

[2_zoa]

If you have photo shopped your tank the you would spend all your time changing up the photo. I mean come on you have posted this and the other 30G tank for some time. I think you have spent your time cleaning.................not trying to lie and dissolute the world. Maybe some should do a little research and look at the dates when things are posted, Follow the attached links........etc.


TOTM.....I would vote it for sure.

[Aquabucket]

Again I appreciate all the great comments!

Originally posted by justinpsmith
I also clean my glass religiously. Its not that hard to keep a tank algae free. I hate coraline on the glass!

I think it takes away from the illusion of depth by bringing the background to the foreground when you have spots of coralline on the glass.

Originally posted by Zoanut
I'm with you I hate coraline on the glass as well. I like a nice clean looking tank like this one but like I said I personally would have it a bit more blue in it.

I like the blue look too that's why I run my daylights 7 hours a day and my "blue" actinic mode for 5.

Originally posted by CaptainCoral
I think that mixing that bulb combo creates a well mixed spectrum. I'd go so far as to call it ideal for most reef tanks. The colors look accurate. The reds, pinks and oranges pop nicely and a blue background complements a 10k look well.

It seems to be a great combo for both growth and color.

Originally posted by 2_zoa
If you have photo shopped your tank the you would spend all your time changing up the photo. I mean come on you have posted this and the other 30G tank for some time.

That's pretty cool that you traced everything back to my skimmerless 30 gallon that was set-up in the summmer of 2004. All the LR and several corals are in this tank.

Well the little guy made it through its first day just fine. I spent a lot of time watching him making sure things went OK. The thing is when you add a small and fragile creature like this one you are forced to search the tank for him every time you look at it.

[2_zoa]

That is where I came up with the questions for you I wasn't sure where you were at with all the equipment. I guess I can't say that, how about the lights. I admire this/your tank and I am going to try to come close to your achievements in my 20L project. I really like the minamalist approach and the so called under stocked look of the tank. It just feels like most try to do or put to much in their set ups. JM2C, I am not trying to offend so folks please don't take it that way.

[YE||0W TA|\|G]

Beautiful tank Aquabucket

[joeycadre]

Originally posted by Shiandy
Absolutely stunning tank, thanks for sharing

The only part that looks odd to me is the background, it does not look right, it pop's out too much. I see a few questions asked if its back lit, and how do you keep it so clean.

To me it looks photoshop'd, I'm not trying to take anything away from your stunning looking tank, but I would love to see a FTS without the need to photoshop the background to make the corals pop out more.

you can see artifacts and halos at most of the edges of the images. it has been touched up for sure. i spent years as a photo retouch artist and this is touched up without question.

and no i'm not trying to start anything, just look at the edges where there is a high contrast.

[Aquabucket]

Originally posted by joeycadre
you can see artifacts and halos at most of the edges of the images. it has been touched up for sure. i spent years as a photo retouch artist and this is touched up without question.

and no i'm not trying to start anything, just look at the edges where there is a high contrast.

Total BS. Whatever halos you are seeing must have been created when the photo was re-sized and compressed for faster web downloads. Look at the file sizes you can see that they where compressed. This is not the first time people like yourself have accused me of this. What exactly do you think is fake? The corals and their colors or my background? Is the polyp extension and overall health of my specimens shopped as well?

BTW I took these photos with a Cannon Powershot A630 @ 3264 x 2448 pixels. The pictures are cropped, re-sized and compressed using IRFANVIEW the software recommended by this site and other forums.

Whether some of you think the photos are shopped or not does not really matter because the tank looks better than the photos anyway.

[nanO352]

Wow!!!! That is a colorful and extremely pretty tank.

[JustinReef]

Originally posted by joeycadre
you can see artifacts and halos at most of the edges of the images. it has been touched up for sure. i spent years as a photo retouch artist and this is touched up without question.

and no i'm not trying to start anything, just look at the edges where there is a high contrast.

Not trying to start anything...LOL!

The problem is, your claiming something as "for sure" when you are not in any position to say that. Besides, the people who have seen this tank in person already confirmed it is nicer than the pics

Just keep your ridiculous comments to yourself. Or don't try to claim your not trying to start anything!

[GoBigOrGoHome]

I see a person accusing spike of photo-shopping as jealous. I was there the day he took the pics, and he projected them on his wall right next to the tank, and we compared the two. To be quite honest, I thought it even looked a bit better in person, as most tanks do. This guy's tank is absolutely unbelievable. I've been watching his tank, and trying to model mine after his methods for a few years now, and he does exactly what he says he does. His set-up is minimal, and he is diligent. These pictures have not been modified in anyway, GUARANTEED. Why can't some people just admire something for once, without being so critical? You think you're so great at analyzing pictures? You just made a fool of yourself, because while the size of these pictures has been modified, the quality HAS NOT. Stop being so critical, sit back, and enjoy the discussion and exhibition of spike's absolutely gorgeous tank.
also, have a nice day.

I'll be stoppin by soon to see it again, Spike, can't wait to see the pipefish. As always, beautiful tank.

[Aquabucket]

Thanks Kyle!

joeycadre ~ I just blew up one of the pics in IRFANVIEW and can see some halos on a couple of pics where the blue backgound meets the corals. I do not see them on my originals. Something must be happening when I go to re-size/compress the files. Here are the steps I take in IRFANVIEW:

Sharpen and crop image, re-size image, save as progressive JPG with the slider bar @ 75%. That's it.

I guess I am guilty of sharpening the image before cropping. I could always use the sharpen mode on the camera before snapping pics but never experimented with that setting yet. I really don't consider sharpening the image to be misrepresenting my tank and corals. Its basically sharpening the focus of the camera am I right?

At 3264 x 2448 pixels the pictures look blurry but really look good when reduced. I always thought that if you take the pics at the largest size and reduce them they turn out better.

I do nothing with the program to enhance the color of my corals or tank so can we all just move on from this.

On another note the pipefish perched on my huge candy cane and stayed there all night with sweeper tentacles all around him. I guess this type of pipefish is not susceptible to getting stung very easily. I have also seen one perched on a candy cane in another reefers tank.

I have been keeping my moonlights on at my lowest setting all night so he has a bit of light and I can keep an eye on him. As soon as the lights came on this morning he hopped right down to the sand bed in front of the tank again and is feeding on pods.

[2farNorth]

I don't know, I thought the colors of the corals look pretty natural. I have a couple of those exact color Frogspawns and Zoas, and they look just like your pictures. I think alot of the disbelief comes from people trying to take realistic pictures of their tanks, and never coming out like the tank actually looks. I say congrats on your Photography skills, (and lighting skills of course!) and your ability to keep the back so clean!!

[bwoody62]

you can see artifacts and halos at most of the edges of the images. it has been touched up for sure. i spent years as a photo retouch artist and this is touched up without question.

and no i'm not trying to start anything, just look at the edges where there is a high contrast.
Nice quote joeycadre...you obviously were FIRED for being a very poor "Photo Retouch Artist"....I'm sure Wal-Mart misses you!! I have seen this tank about 15 times, and each and every time I see it I am AMAZED!!!!!! I can tell you that these pics were NOT shopped as you claim, as I stated before, If any of you doubters get in the area stop in and see this AMAZING tank in person. It does look better in person than in the pics. Sorry for being sarcastic, but I think it was deserved!!!

[JustinReef]

I work with photoshop quite often. I do not touch up photos but I can usually tell when something is touched up...most people can.

joeycarde-I wasn't going to say anything earlier but it really bugs me when people claim things they could not possibly know for sure. Why not ask instead of accuse?

You SHOULD know this but apparently not. Many programs (ie. Lightroom which many people use for photography) are not good for resizing or exporting. They will often leave a very apparent "halo" type artifact around hard contrasty edges. They can get noticeable with things like white text against a black background. In this case its the high contrast between the corals and blue BG. Sharpening a resized image will actaully make this halos a bit more apparent This is why resizing and exporting in photoshop is always the best unless you are working with an image that does not have hard transitions like these. Scaling and sharpening in photoshop will not cause the halos.

Aquabucket-If you can figure out how to sharpen the image on your camera, you can then scale the images down without as much halos. A lot of it comes from sharpening the image (nothing wrong with that BTW) and then scaling.

But I would just keep doing what your doing

[Aquabucket]

OK now that we got that settled here is another pic I took today.



I guess the little guy can handle the stinging from LPS corals alright.

[caranjim2]

Awsome looking tank! Ive always liked the 40g breeders..

[kmacartney]

Put me down for TOTM as well. T5s are awesome!

[dickhordishay]

Originally posted by justinpsmith
Doesn't look photoshopped. Jeez...someone always has to go there...

I also clean my glass religiously. Its not that hard to keep a tank algae free. I hate coraline on the glass!

Yeah, coraline was taking over my tank. Everywhere I read people were saying how great coraline was.

Well, I finally ordered a scraper, and scraped the crap out of the back of the tank (and front). I think the blue background looks 1000 times better than the coraline.

[bullitr]

thank you very much for sharing and proving to some of stuck up people here that there is more ways to keep very successful reef without their conventional method. thanks again