Needreefunds Posted August 9, 2012 Share Posted August 9, 2012 Looks great Tim! I love the stix you picked Agreed! Beautiful frags! The whole setup looks great! Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 9, 2012 Author Share Posted August 9, 2012 Thanks guys I feel like it has the potential to become awesome. Time to fill it up with the goodness. Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 11, 2012 Author Share Posted August 11, 2012 Holy coral batman. I went to a local reefer's house today to check out his 240gal peninsula tank. While I was there we started talking about his blue tip staghorn that was blocking out a digitata that he really liked and wanted to let grow out a bit more. He gets out the pruning sheers, litteraly what you would use to prune a small tree and starts cutting. He filled up a small tupperware and just gave it to me. Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 11, 2012 Author Share Posted August 11, 2012 Blue tip staghorn acropora. Link to comment
divecj5 Posted August 13, 2012 Share Posted August 13, 2012 Right on....I had a similar experience when visiting the owner of Aquarium Specialty a few years ago. Had a Purple Monster colony that was twice the size of my hand. He cut me a Green Slimer frag with some bone cutters and it was crazy how thick it was. Big tanks = Big colonies That looks fantastic right where you have it. Always liked the growth pattern of Staghorn. Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 13, 2012 Author Share Posted August 13, 2012 Thanks Adam, The colony seems really happy where it is. The polyps were out a mile a couple of minutes after I mounted the frags. I haven't really figured out how to take photos with my iPhone yet. I suppose I should have just used the camera+ app to adjust the white balance so my crazy white rocks didn't wash out the picture. Also, I could have probably just gotten out the DSLR and taken some real pictures. There were 5 total frags and I managed to fit 4 of them into one formation that looks pretty awesome. the largest frag was hardly a frag at 5" long. The last piece I mounted and just set down on the rocks over on the right there. These guys get pretty direct flow from the MP20 but I don't think that is really a bad thing. My SPS island is filling up faster than I planned. I want to slow down a bit, and wait to collect some the corals from my wishlist. I can locally buy frags of Pink Lemonade, Ponape Birdsnest, Ice Fire Echinata, and Tyree Rainbow Stylo. Time to take a trip to Buffalo! Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 13, 2012 Author Share Posted August 13, 2012 Took some better pictures tonight. Some of them are well focused, others not so much. Reverse lens macro shots are pretty hard to take when you dont have a reverse ring. Also I cant take a FTS that I like for the life of me. Its the dry rock that really throws the exposure off. Link to comment
divecj5 Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Looks great man. All of those stix look nice and healthy and colorful. That right rock should look awesome as they fill in. Any specific plans for the left island/rock or are you just going to fill it in as you go? Link to comment
got2envy Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Those are some big azz frags...jussayin' It is going to look schweet! Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 Insta-tank. LOL Any specific plans for the left island/rock or are you just going to fill it in as you go? The left side is kind of becoming acan island at the moment. There is that frogspawn over there that is just kinda hanging out and that branching hammer that's recovering on the right side. I'm actually planning on getting rid of those two if I can find a Todds Torch, or something like it. A nice semi large frogspawn colony would be nice too. Other than that its going to be acans, zoa's and paly's as I find them locally. We basically have 3 reef stores here that are all pretty good but I'm finding that they have specialties. One is LPS and softies pretty much exclusively, the other has awesome fish and inverts but their coral selection is terrible, the 3rd is just an all around store that gets some nice pieces in sometimes but its pretty hit or miss, its also the only place to buy decent SPS. Those are some big azz frags...jussayin' It is going to look schweet! Yea they weren't really frags like most people think of them. He pretty much cut full branches off at the base of his mother colony. The biggest piece of coral is almost 5" long. Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 Also Duncan's. This tank is severely lacking in my favorite LPS, so I'm going to find a place for some Duncan's somewhere. Link to comment
metrokat Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Can I borrow your camera? Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 Haha, do you know what I have to do to take pictures like that without a macro lens? You'd think i was crazy. And the pics aren't even that great. Link to comment
metrokat Posted August 14, 2012 Share Posted August 14, 2012 Haha, do you know what I have to do to take pictures like that without a macro lens? You'd think i was crazy. And the pics aren't even that great. Well, I don't know much about this but would taking a picture in super high res, in raw mode give the ability to zoom in and have a macro type photo without a macro lens? Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 14, 2012 Author Share Posted August 14, 2012 Sometimes you can, other times the high crop makes the image grainy. For these pic's I turned an old lens around and shot with the lens reversed. I don't have a reverse ring yet so I had to hold the camera, the lens, and try to focus on a subject with an incredibly short focus range. About 1/3 of the pictures I failed to hold the lens properly so I had a light gap. The other half the time the focus was messed up. I think I shot 50 shots to get 6 decent crops. Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 15, 2012 Author Share Posted August 15, 2012 Everyone likes a little DIY, so how about a DIY ATO with a capacitive sensor that can "see" the water level through opaque surfaces. Its not effected by algae growth and turns a pump on with a simple relay. Thats what I built tonight. Now I just need a box to mount the electric bits in so I can put it in the stand. Link to comment
divecj5 Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 Sounds pretty fantastic!! Looking forward to the pics to see what it looks like. Link to comment
Needreefunds Posted August 15, 2012 Share Posted August 15, 2012 Everyone likes a little DIY, so how about a DIY ATO with a capacitive sensor that can "see" the water level through opaque surfaces. Its not effected by algae growth and turns a pump on with a simple relay. Thats what I built tonight. Now I just need a box to mount the electric bits in so I can put it in the stand. :like: Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 16, 2012 Author Share Posted August 16, 2012 Interesting development.... diatoms, all over the glass. Also my overflow occasionally makes a "water leaking" sound that scares the crap out of me. Link to comment
Needreefunds Posted August 17, 2012 Share Posted August 17, 2012 Interesting development.... diatoms, all over the glass. Also my overflow occasionally makes a "water leaking" sound that scares the crap out of me. Huh, I thought we started this about the same time The overflow in my 75 does this to me as well... with ( nearly ) similar results. Link to comment
pyronus Posted August 17, 2012 Author Share Posted August 17, 2012 Yea the weird part is I restarted almost 2 months ago. My new bleached dry rock must be leaching silicates into water and is causing a really delayed bloom. I'm not worried about it, they already going away this morning and the snails got a good snack. Link to comment
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