Salty's 125

[Salty Cracker]

Finally took some shots today with the brights on.  For the life of me I can't get a good shot when the actinics are making the thing glow, but it's starting to look good even with the whites.

***All photos are RAW pics, with an ISO setting of 100. 

 

[yveterinarian]

I agree.  It's looking terrific!

 

[unibob]

Very nice.

 

[reeffreak]

Looks great in person  good job ... Im jelous

 

[Darryl_V]

Nice stuff Glen....its really coming along.

I think I recognize some of those pieces as well.  Great job with them.

 

[jroovers]

Looks very good, that undata is a very nice size, everything looks healthy and happy.

When you say everything is raw, are you shooting in raw then saving and converting with your camera supplied software?  What camera are you shooting?

 

[Salty Cracker]

Nice stuff Glen....its really coming along.

I think I recognize some of those pieces as well.  Great job with them.

haha The best pieces are yours of course.  I'm trying to treat them as best as I can. 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Looks very good, that undata is a very nice size, everything looks healthy and happy.

When you say everything is raw, are you shooting in raw then saving and converting with your camera supplied software?  What camera are you shooting?

It's a Canon Rebel XT DSLR I think.  There's a selection to shoot 'RAW', I import into photoshop and resize to an internet friendly size (RAW size is absolutely huge).  It's the only way I know to control the ISO.  If I go with a high ISO it's very washed out, if I go for a low ISO it's super rich looking.  Before I stepped up the water changes All the SPS was pretty brown, but now the colours are really starting to POP.  Not as good as Darryl yet (and you really need to see his tank to appreciate how good it look in person), but starting to get there. 


Oh and yeah, that undata is really happy even high up in the tank near the LED's  It's about the size of a softball now, good shape and colour.  Actually got this as a frag from last year's fragswap.  There's gold in them thar hills I tell you!!!

 

[Salty Cracker]

I guess the next progression is to remove/sell/trade the pieces I don't really like too much, and start working on nicer colonies.  Seems to make sense.  I like the growth of the coral, but some of the pieces are kind of boring.  With only so much real estate in the tank....

 

[pulpfiction1]

nice looking corals salty,i might have a home for 1 or 2 

 

[Salty Cracker]

Update.  Since the new lights went in, here are a few updated shots.  I -think- white balance is almost correct, these are completely unedited except for size.  Very good colour starting to come on a few colonies, although there's a few that are white as white can be, although they seem quite healthy (didn't take photos of those, we'll see how they progess!)  Anyway...

 

[reefin]

that looks great!

 

[Duke]

Looking good!

 

[yveterinarian]

Very nice colors!

 

[Darryl_V]

awesome ....so what is you lighting now?  You just added some more LED?  What is your mix?

 

[sunnykita]

very nice !!

 

[Salty Cracker]

awesome ....so what is you lighting now?  You just added some more LED?  What is your mix?

Thanks!

http://www.thefragtank.ca/forum/index.php?topic=3647.0

Yeah I took some advice from the guys on here and changed my mix up, and added some UV bulbs.  I'm about 10-20% white (still too much when using the 5V LEDs), and then mostly royal blue, a few blue and I think I have 6 or so UV.  I had a bit of a crash when I upgraded...all the brown instantly came off the sps and some went into stn.  I now have a bunch of very pale/white corals but with good poly extension so I'm doing spot feeding.  The colours are definitely starting to improve now, I think to have success with the LED you have to have the UV.  I think that's what was missing before. 

I have 2 more panels to upgrade, the new heatsinks are awesome and they hold 36 bulbs, I run 3 channels on each. 

 

[davesolo29]

looking good. 
i considered trying some new colours in my vertex led before i sold it.  but i didnt want to spend more money on something i didnt like.  lol

 

[Salty Cracker]

looking good. 
i considered trying some new colours in my vertex led before i sold it.  but i didnt want to spend more money on something i didnt like.  lol

Yeah, the ideal setup is the rapidled solderless bulbs DIY.  I think I'm going to bite the bullet and order those when I do the other 2 fixtures.  I am pretty confident that I could light a 2 foot depth 200 gallon with 3 of the fixtures I made.  In fact, I put almost all new coral under overhangs until I see how they react...

What did you end up going with, I can't recall, did you go back to T5?

 

[davesolo29]

yup.. picked up an 8 bulb ati sunpower.  along with the vertex illumilux strip
still need to replace the bulbs in the ati before i get it all set up again.