Veng's 20L - Black Friday Madness!

[Veng]

Ok, so a couple of FTS, coral shots, and tank updates tonight:

 

First the FTS, three different color balances from the light. Still trying to figure exactly which one I like the best.

 

Now some coral shots of the new stuff I got Saturday:

 

 

Color balance and photoshop (well in my case picasa, but whatever):

Undoctored and doctored. I am tempted to dr all my photos, but I feel a little guilty by doing it like I'm misrepresenting my tank. Is it wrong or just part of taking pictures these days?

[Veng]

As for the tank, GSP isn't happy (hasn't opened in new tank yet), the old birdsnet is somewhat pissed. He had a rough time getting between tanks and I broke the tips of a few branches. No photos of either because I'm embarrassed by them, . I dunno, maybe I should post them anyways.

 

The favia is ecstatic. The candy cane and hammer are content. The ricordia is happy. Most of the zoas are open and most of the mushrooms seem happy. The leather isn't extending, but he(she/it?) has always been temperamental on opening. Got a molt from twp hermits, one of the blue legged (not my blue knuckled) and the "random" tan legged hermit. They're not nearly as funny as when the blue knuckle molts and leaves blue knuckled legs sticking out of the sand for me to panic over.

 

The yellow polyps are open and will probably soon continue their attempt to over take my tank.

[Belac]

Ask and yee shall recive. This is one of the better ones. I have a few other links marked but most of them are over 5 years old and the photos don't work any more so it is a bit hard to know what is giong on.. I plan on going a slightly different route and I am going to try and get away with a closed loop system. I will let you know how it works out.

 

The cyano that won't go away drove me to it. That is my excuse. I am going to be doing the math on 90 degree sweeps and 120 degree sweeps here in the next few hours. If your willing to wait a few days before you jump on this project I might even have a blue print nocked out for both the big and little cam as well as the arm(s). I need to find a dead microwave, I have been looking for one to make an arc welder, now I want them for the turntable motor too. Hey two birds with one stone.

 

I thought of osmething you might try for the drilling a ten. Perhaps you could take one of those 'broken' tank pannels and silicon it to the 'good' pice of glass. Then you would have a thicker surface with less of a chance of cracking.

 

I will try and remember if I come that way. We can totally swap something.

[Veng]

I thought of osmething you might try for the drilling a ten. Perhaps you could take one of those 'broken' tank pannels and silicon it to the 'good' pice of glass. Then you would have a thicker surface with less of a chance of cracking.

Not a bad idea at all. However, since I've found a place to get me the stuff for the sump for ~50$ plus glue, I'll probably just DIY the sump, it'll look cleaner that way too I think.

[Belac]

Not a bad idea at all. However, since I've found a place to get me the stuff for the sump for ~50$ plus glue, I'll probably just DIY the sump, it'll look cleaner that way too I think.

Might try to finagle a way to cram an RO water chamber to run an ATO out of. When I finally actualy get around to building me a proper sump I am planning on doing that.

[Veng]

Might try to finagle a way to cram an RO water chamber to run an ATO out of. When I finally actualy get around to building me a proper sump I am planning on doing that.

Yeah, the only problem I've got with this thing is it's so damn short. I've got another 10" or so above the top of it.... Maybe I should just make a second whole "sump" or I wonder if at 7" I can fit a standard 5 gallon jug on top....Or really, a commercial tub would work just fine to sit on top of the sump lid. I think it's 1 gallon every 2" of sump, so I could put a chamber at the far end that would be about 10-12" long. I could even use it to double as my emergency overflow prevention if I did it all right.

Linearly from left to right looking at it:

|Return___Baffles___Main sump/fuge___intake|Emergency Float switch|ATO Reservoir|

 

If I make a water tight wall that's 1/4" short of the main section, then a 1/2" short between the emergency float section and the ATO reservoir, then I'd have an emergency float, probably a 3 gallon ATO, 7 gallon sump volume. If I have an emergency, it triggers the float switch which would (if apex controlled) would turn on the sump pump, and trigger an alarm. If it's a significant event to fill the 1/2 gallon the 1.5" wide or so of the emergency float switch section, then if it's more than that, it would spill into the ATO reservoir and fill that before spilling out of the sump. I'd have an alarm so I'd know the ATO was "contaminated" and could fix it, and heck a gallon of salt water in your ATO is a lot easier to fix than a gallon of saltwater on your floor.

[Belac]

Yeah, the only problem I've got with this thing is it's so damn short. I've got another 10" or so above the top of it.... Maybe I should just make a second whole "sump" or I wonder if at 7" I can fit a standard 5 gallon jug on top.... hrmm...

If you stick something like that on the tank make sure to keep in mind the wight isues. I have been useing 1 gallon jugs because of the weight issue. It gets annoying to change them every day and a half when it is dry... I am lazy.

[Veng]

If you stick something like that on the tank make sure to keep in mind the wight isues. I have been useing 1 gallon jugs because of the weight issue. It gets annoying to change them every day and a half when it is dry... I am lazy.

I had second thoughts and edited my posts with them. See above.

[Belac]

If you need cheap alarms buzzers you can get little ones at dollar tree. They are for windows, and pretty loud and decently small. I have scalped a few for other projects. I have a phone buzzer I plan on putting in my ATO to tell me when the water is out. I just need to finish wireing it up.

 

I like the new plan better then putting 40 lbs on the frame of the sump.

[Veng]

Well, liking it better than not putting 40lbs on the frame isn't saying much.

I keep thinking and talking about getting a full Apex. I've got an RKL, but I want more outlets and a lot more control than it gives me. A full Apex would give me double the outlets, e-mail alarms, sunrise/sunset control, easily changing between lighting controls, and a lot of other fun stuff. It would also give me switch inputs for ATO switches, etc. They're expensive, there's no question about that. But at the same time, they can pay for them selves. Besides, I want a toy!

[Belac]

Well, liking it better than not putting 40lbs on the frame isn't saying much.

I keep thinking and talking about getting a full Apex. I've got an RKL, but I want more outlets and a lot more control than it gives me. A full Apex would give me double the outlets, e-mail alarms, sunrise/sunset control, easily changing between lighting controls, and a lot of other fun stuff. It would also give me switch inputs for ATO switches, etc. They're expensive, there's no question about that. But at the same time, they can pay for them selves. Besides, I want a toy!

 

I like the emergcy over flow to the ato chamber it really is a bright idea.

 

Controlers just are to expensive for my budget. Toys are great, maybe you can get that and the coral shopping spree for christmas. Ask santa really nice he might get you something, however I suspect all his tanks are cold water stock.

[Veng]

I like the emergcy over flow to the ato chamber it really is a bright idea.

 

Controlers just are to expensive for my budget. Toys are great, maybe you can get that and the coral shopping spree for christmas. Ask santa really nice he might get you something, however I suspect all his tanks are cold water stock.

lol.

 

Yeah, they are expensive, that's for sure. If they weren't that expensive I wouldn't be talking about getting one, i'd be talking about how I programmed it.

[Belac]

You know I have an old pc some where that has a 75w power supply. I could totally over kill and run the computer as a controller.

[Veng]

There are a bunch of options for DIY controllers such as adruino and such, but I can go out and drill for oil to make plastic to make acrylic to make a tank. At some point you have to start with something and the Apex seems like it would be a great balance to give me a solid platform to build things from.

[metrokat]

New Divers den clam up tonight:

Looks exactly like the emerald babeh I have. The blue clams at your LFS, did you get a top down look?

[Veng]

I couldn't get a photo, they had the surface severely agitated.

 

So Chemistry time:

 

Let me know if the pic works or not.

[metrokat]

Doesn't work.

 

I'm going to get my own viewer and carry it around to the LFS.

 

I also want one of these

[Veng]

Ok, refresh the page and see if it works now.

 

You know, if I had thought about it, they had a viewer on the other side of the room.... >.<

 

Well, I guess 100% fresh red coral sea pro pretty much matches what's on the container. I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at that. I will have to over feed a bit to try to get my Nitrates up before I get a clam or Zeph would kill me.

 

Oh, and do you have any thoughts on color manipulation of photos?

 

They sell those at one of the LFS here. I think they are 70$ish? They only seem to do about a 2x Magnification.

[Belac]

Picture works.

 

I have looked at adrino but honestly they intemidate me. Good luck getting your toy.

[Veng]

They look like they're more work than fun.

[metrokat]

The red sea coral pro was awesome when it was new in the bucket, i guess over time the parameters shift from advertised levels. I bought the largest size bucket they make and it pretty much lasted me a whole year. I'm on ESV and I don't see any difference. After this batch of ESV is done I'm switching to regular Reef Crystals since my dosing is making the important parameters where they need to be.

 

Photoshop is the best for photo manipulation, I have picasa which is very limited in what it can do but I only do basic touch ups like lighten it, darken it, increase contrast, that sort of thing.

 

 

 

You changed the name of the thread!

[Veng]

Yeah, I changed the name of the thread. It's like a pair of shoes, you just have to try something new every once in a while, right? So what do you think, do these adjectives make me look fat? I changed it last night, now I'm wondering if it sounds like i'm going to have an operation or something.

 

Ok, I don't have photoshop. Hrmm looking around it looks like they at some point released a "home use" version called elements. Is that right? I might have to look into getting a copy of that since it seems to be in the 70-80$ price range. I figured everyone was still just pirating the full version like they use to. Guess I'm a bit out of touch, I don't mess with photos too much.

 

I wouldn't use it to hide a blue tang or something that I was keeping in a 3 gallon pico, but contrast, lighting, color balanec that kind of thing. Even just picasa seems to make a world of difference on photos for fish tanks. Outdoor photos I had never seen the need for, but I could totally see a need for this from our portland trip.

 

 

I've had the Coral Pro salt for a while now. I actually got the small bucket to try it out, and I've still got about a 1/3rd of it left I think. I probably used more in making the 25 gallons of saltwater for this tank than I had in the previous several months I had it. Making only 5 gallons at a time for water changes for a 10 gallon and the stuff lasts a while.

[metrokat]

I've used elements and really liked it!

 

New thread name suggestions?

Veng has an incredible wife. And a tank.

[Veng]

Lol, How about:

Veng has an incredible wife and an awesome puppy and there might be some talk about a tank from time to time. Hrmm perhaps a little too long.

[metrokat]

Vengs life.

Wife. Puppy. Tank.