Mike's 200g

[plyle02]

And that efflo is just Badas*!!!

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by markalot

Wowsa, I 'd hate to see a good picture of that! Beautiful.

I put my Nikon in shutter priority, 400 ISO, White Balance Cloudy and move the little dot the right to customize it a bit. I usually have to adjust the exposure on the camera to -2 or so otherwise a log of corals will be over exposed. Hopefully that's a good start anyway.

Thanks for the tip.. I tried a few tonight with the Nikon couldn't get anything to show any kind of color...except washed out blue. Most the time camera said "subject too dark". Im guessing because its later in the day and the lights were winding down... its a shame because that's when colors look best!

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by biggles

That's a beautiful tank Mike, the way you have it in the house is beautiful. Mine is on raw unpainted 2 x 4's so from where i sit you're a bit of a flash harry showoff.........

That blonde naso tang - can i have one of those, yours looks stunning - how long do they get mate, less than the humpback whale i recently added i hope

I'd be really happy with the colors on that Selago too if i were you Mike, that thing is beautiful. And you have grown all these acros under the Radions alone ?

Cheers for the kind words Biggles and thanks for stopping by. The naso gets a good size but not like that freaking huge Vlami... whale tang of yours. right now hes still small enough but he sure does like to swim so as he gets bigger im not sure the 6 foot will even be enough for him.
Yeah I have only ever had radions, both on the 90 and now here. I know how you feel about them though! there is a learning curve and I think them being so controllable and being able to do so much is where people may get in trouble messing with it too much. I did struggle in beginning but I found that when I lowered intensity, changed to wide angled lenses (120 degrees) and put more than the recommended amount of fixtures over the tank things got better and provided a much more uniform looking coverage. I just didn't want the heat and bulb changing issues of halides. having said that I have been thinking about retrofitting a few t5's

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by sahin

Tank looks great. I really like the built in look. Following the thread with interest.

Cheers Sahin nice of you to say. I love your tank 2 been reading about it for a while now.
Having it look built in was very important to the Wife and I and it took a long time finding a chippy who could do it and not quote some nonsensical $5000 dollar price! MUPPET!! Told him that's more than 4 times the cost of the tank!
Im originally from Brighton England and moved to London when I was 16, all before I started reefkeeping. Now live Near Seattle. I go back and visit my parents every now and then and last time I was there they mentioned they had seen a fish store and took me to it. It was basically a pet store that had a small section with about 1 emaciated yellow tang and 3 hammer corals! so having seen your tank I know there must be some good stores around but are they pretty rare or do you have a fairly good selection? im wanting to visit a few next time I am back.

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by agcneves

Beautiful tank! Building really clean and effective.

Please Sump photo with more details.

Shooting an aquarium are really boring to do, but I liked it.

Your A. Efflo is spectacular.

Keep us posted please!

Thank you, I will.

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by lcj2046

Looking good. Nice clean setup

Thanks for the kind words

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by rburns24

-
How high off the water are the Radions and do you run them at 100%? Very nice SPS.
-

I have the radions a good 13 inches from bottom of fixture to surface. I use the wide angle lenses and have more than the "necessary" amount of lights to cover the area (very important in my mind, they simply do not cover evenly the area they say they can).
No I do not run close to 100% I think its like 65% but im actually thinking about dropping to 60%. for my tank 100% would be way too much.. but every tank is different.

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Very nice looking acro!
Great color and pe!

Thank you. Very nice of you to say.

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by plyle02

Mike,
I love the setup, clean, organized, quality, and most importantly, your corals look awesome! I am looking forward to this one growing out! Bravo

Thanks. Its nice to hear these comments from People whose tanks I have enjoyed.

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by plyle02

And that efflo is just Badas*!!!

I love the efflo. I got it as a large wild piece that had no color at the LFS. BUT it was a large freaking efflo and I thought I could try and do something with that! It has colored up a lot but still can go further. its getting more green in the body and the purple rim is great. Recently I have been really happy because some of the tips of growth through the body have started to turn a little but purple so it looks like it has little purple spots all over it.

[MichaelW]

OK if someone can let me know how to reply to people all in one post with quotes I would appreciate it instead of a new post each time!

[tomae]

***!!!!!!! stunning!

[MichaelW]

I had a couple requests for sump shots so...



Another nice thing about the build is my wife was nice enough to let me "have" the closet behind the tank AND cut out section of the wall!! This allowed me to run all my electrical etc. behind the tank hopefully out of harms way and have a "mini fish room" . I still need to finish some wire management and clean up the wall etc. but you get the idea.

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by tomae

***!!!!!!! stunning!

Thank you, but it is tanks like yours that are truly stunning. When I see your tank I think of simple elegance and tranquility.. it just freaking rocks!

[reefmutt]

Next time you are shooting at that time of day, try just increasing the whites manually to 100% and leave everything else where it is.
The camera picks up so much blue, anyways, it may work out perfectly.
This is what I did when I was running GHL Mitras...

[glaukos]

Tank looks good mike
As days go by and corals grow,it will become much much better and i can't wait to see that!
Like the clean and organised sump too!Wish i could make mine look look like this

[sahin]

Originally Posted by MichaelW

Cheers Sahin nice of you to say. I love your tank 2 been reading about it for a while now.
Having it look built in was very important to the Wife and I and it took a long time finding a chippy who could do it and not quote some nonsensical $5000 dollar price! MUPPET!! Told him that's more than 4 times the cost of the tank!
Im originally from Brighton England and moved to London when I was 16, all before I started reefkeeping. Now live Near Seattle. I go back and visit my parents every now and then and last time I was there they mentioned they had seen a fish store and took me to it. It was basically a pet store that had a small section with about 1 emaciated yellow tang and 3 hammer corals! so having seen your tank I know there must be some good stores around but are they pretty rare or do you have a fairly good selection? im wanting to visit a few next time I am back.

Haha fellow Brit. PM when me you're next coming to the UK. If I am free we could meet and I could even take you to a store or two.

There are many decent marine stores these days. Lots of online stuff too. Jasons Aquatics down in Cornwall is awesome for SPS. They can get pretty much what one wants these day.

[markalot]

Originally Posted by sahin

Haha fellow Brit. PM when me you're next coming to the UK. If I am free we could meet and I could even take you to a store or two.

There are many decent marine stores these days. Lots of online stuff too. Jasons Aquatics down in Cornwall is awesome for SPS. They can get pretty much what one wants these day.

You'll notice that your fellow brit spells color correctly, probably because one is subject to immediate deportation for spelling it that other way.

What Nikon camera are you using Mike?

For multi-quote, use the little button with the quotations to quote each post, then hit the quote button and all the quotes will pile into your reply.

[MichaelW]

Originally Posted by reefmutt

Next time you are shooting at that time of day, try just increasing the whites manually to 100% and leave everything else where it is.
The camera picks up so much blue, anyways, it may work out perfectly.
This is what I did when I was running GHL Mitras...

Thanks for the tip I will try that.

Originally Posted by glaukos

Tank looks good mike
As days go by and corals grow,it will become much much better and i can't wait to see that!
Like the clean and organised sump too!Wish i could make mine look look like this

Thanks. It helps having the closet behind to keep some of the reefing clutter

Originally Posted by sahin

Haha fellow Brit. PM when me you're next coming to the UK. If I am free we could meet and I could even take you to a store or two.

There are many decent marine stores these days. Lots of online stuff too. Jasons Aquatics down in Cornwall is awesome for SPS. They can get pretty much what one wants these day.

Cheers Sahin sounds good. Seeing your new pictures it shows you can get very nice pieces,and more importantly, you certainly know how to get them to look great!

Originally Posted by markalot

You'll notice that your fellow brit spells color correctly, probably because one is subject to immediate deportation for spelling it that other way.

What Nikon camera are you using Mike?

For multi-quote, use the little button with the quotations to quote each post, then hit the quote button and all the quotes will pile into your reply.

Haha. Hey, I will have you know it's the auto correct not me! Nah I have been here a while now so most the time I have started to spell things wrong. Every now and then I will still get the spelling right.
I am using Nikon D5200 and have 2 lenses it came with. I'm sure the camera is good it's just user error.
Thanks for the tip on quotes.... Hopefully it worked.

[MichaelW]

Well I am still struggling with the camera and right now I can get better pics with the phone! so here are a couple.
This was a maricultured piece that had two corals on it. one blue and one small flat green piece. over time the green has branched out with light skin and rounded pink/purple tips. almost looks like a granulosa to me but im not very good at identification. I hope it continues to grow like this because I really like the rounded look.


Next is just a top down of your standard red dragon. Always loved this coral just need this frag to grow!

[markalot]

Put the camera in one of the program modes, then open the setting menu, white balance, select cloudy, then right arrow over for an adjustment grid.

These will set the jpg defaults but what you really want to do is take pictures in RAW mode and edit to color balance. It just gets harder from there.

[MichaelW]

Well tried out some of the tips you guys had posted and took pics during a whiter light period. I took a few of just one coral using a couple different settings to see the difference. This is Australian blue acro. I haven't had it terribly long but so far it hasn't dropped a hint of color. I used some of the editing tools in photobucket to try and get it most representative of the real coral. In real life it is a really nice bright but deep blue. Any way this is the best I have managed with the Nikon so far.

[markalot]

Better, but over exposed a bit. On the Nikon you should be able to press a +/- button somewhere on the top to adjust the exposure settings. I usually have to go -2 for taking pictures of corals.

[MichaelW]

Ok great thanks. How do you guys get those awesome macro shots? I'm guessing it would be using different lenses.

[markalot]

Originally Posted by MichaelW

Ok great thanks. How do you guys get those awesome macro shots? I'm guessing it would be using different lenses.

I own a macro lens but you can get pretty close with the kit lens.

Always try to manually focus using the viewfinder. Shoot straight on the glass, no angle, or it will distort badly. If the coral is far enough away I'll put the lens on the front glass for stability.