DreC80's Reefer XL425

[DreC80]

Falco Hawkfish...pretty cool little guy.

[DreC80]

Green Anacropora, has to be my fastest growing coral hands down.

[DreC80]

Well, just received a Live Aquaria order and they completely butchered it.  Have probably ordered from them 10 times or so over the years and this is the first mess up.  Ordered a few items for my Cvue 18G, green bubble tip anemone from Diver's Den...got that no problem.  Ordered ORA Pom Pom xenia $35 and an ORA Premium Snowflake Clownfish $70 to pair up with the one that's already in the tank.  Well ORA went ahead and sent me two misbar clowns $18 each and no xenia.  So not only did I not get what I ordered, I got shorted money wise and have to find a new home for the third clown so it doesn't get killed...smh 😡

[William]

30 minutes ago, DreC80 said:

Well, just received a Live Aquaria order and they completely butchered it.  Have probably ordered from them 10 times or so over the years and this is the first mess up.  Ordered a few items for my Cvue 18G, green bubble tip anemone from Diver's Den...got that no problem.  Ordered ORA Pom Pom xenia $35 and an ORA Premium Snowflake Clownfish $70 to pair up with the one that's already in the tank.  Well ORA went ahead and sent me two misbar clowns $18 each and no xenia.  So not only did I not get what I ordered, I got shorted money wise and have to find a new home for the third clown so it doesn't get killed...smh 😡

That’s a big mess up

[DreC80]

April tank update.  Corals and fish are doing well. Added a second icecap gyre 4K today to help eliminate dead spots as the corals grow.  Here are a few tank pics.

[DreC80]

[mitten_reef]

The 425XL tank looks sooo good; and it def looks like it allows for better scape option too!  oh and you corals are looking great as well. 👍

 

I spy a second tank, is that WB20?  

[DreC80]

2 hours ago, mitten_reef said:

The 425XL tank looks sooo good; and it def looks like it allows for better scape option too!  oh and you corals are looking great as well. 👍

 

I spy a second tank, is that WB20?  

Ha, thanks.  I really like the XL425.  Not too big, not too small...seems just right.  It is a big difference going from the 30l to this.  I love the 30l, but the width you get on the reefer is awesome.

 

The corals are growing well and actually have some good colors.  I just can't figure out how to photo them with my nikon.  I even bought a macro lense.  Any tips?

 

The second tank is just a cvue 18g from cobalt.  It has a pair of clowns, bta, and some "easy" corals like zoas and leathers.  I honestly have better success with SPS than I do with the "easy" corals.

 

Still have the nuvo, it's just currently vacant 😄

[mitten_reef]

11 minutes ago, DreC80 said:

The corals are growing well and actually have some good colors.  I just can't figure out how to photo them with my nikon.  I even bought a macro lense.  Any tips?

I started by following Dave's tutorial here (link).  I stopped short of doing the filter, as I think they exaggerated certain colors too much.  

 

From what I'm seeing, it doesn't look like you're having any issues with blue led overwhelming the sensor - which is a great place to be, it's very hard to get rid of the blue.  the photos are a bit over-exposed, shorter/faster shutter speed should help with that.  let me know if you have questions, I'll try my best to answer them.  I'm no pro, in fact, very far from it 😅.  My DSLR camera is from 2007.  feel free to shoot me pm as well.

[pokerdobe]

53 minutes ago, DreC80 said:

The corals are growing well and actually have some good colors.  I just can't figure out how to photo them with my nikon.  I even bought a macro lense.  Any tips

Do you have a post processing program? I would tone down the exposure and highlights. Maybe a touch more on the warmth and bring down the shadows a little bit to create areas of contrast. 

 

Also, bump up your light settings temporarily to allow for more "whites" or warm colors, green/red/etc. If you can, shoot in RAW. Adjusting off the raw image will result in better, smoother post processed images than what I jerry rigged below. 

 

[DreC80]

3 hours ago, pokerdobe said:

Do you have a post processing program? I would tone down the exposure and highlights. Maybe a touch more on the warmth and bring down the shadows a little bit to create areas of contrast. 

 

Also, bump up your light settings temporarily to allow for more "whites" or warm colors, green/red/etc. If you can, shoot in RAW. Adjusting off the raw image will result in better, smoother post processed images than what I jerry rigged below. 

 

Awesome, thanks for the advice.  I'll take a look into some post processing programs.  With the abundant amount of free time that I now have, I just need to do some research and practice.  

[DreC80]

Hope everyone is doing ok and staying sane during these times.  Getting 25 gallons ready for a water change tomorrow.  I used the Red Sea blue bucket salt since I started the tank, but switched over to Fritz RPM and have used that for the last couple of water changes.  I haven't noticed any big differences and Fritz is a bit cheaper so 👍

 

Downloaded rawtherapee to the mac and started playing around with that today.  Also took a few cell phone pics and made some minor edits with snapseed.

 

Here are a few cell pics.

[DreC80]

Can you find the hawkfish?

[DreC80]

Got my Avast Marine porthole today to help get some pics from above the corals.  Here are a few that I took tonight and did some post processing with rawtherapee....didn't touch the saturation slider, promise 🙂 

 

Not all the photos are great, some have a glare, some aren't completely in focus...but it's a work in progress.  If you all have any feedback, let me know.

[mitten_reef]

Just now, DreC80 said:

Got my Avast Marine porthole today to help get some pics from above the corals.  Here are a few that I took tonight and did some post processing with rawtherapee....didn't touch the saturation slider, promise 🙂 

 

Not all the photos are great, some have a glare, some aren't completely in focus...but it's a work in progress.  If you all have any feedback, let me know.

Looks great!!  Did you buy the additional filter with it?  What’s the last one?

[DreC80]

Hard to photograph blues/purple, but an ARC Fireworks

[DreC80]

3 minutes ago, mitten_reef said:

Looks great!!  Did you buy the additional filter with it?  What’s the last one?

Thanks, I didn't buy any sort of filter.  They do offer an orange gel filter for the porthole.  The last coral is the TCK Pikachu...and it's pretty darn yellow.  I know there is a lot of yellow coral controversy, but this one is yellow IMO.

[DreC80]

And a little Cali Tort action

[DreC80]

Here are a couple of pics of the Avast Marine porthole.  These are with the cell phone attachment installed.  They also have a longer version for bigger lenses.  Seems pretty well built and works as expected.

[mitten_reef]

I love the new photos! It sucks that sometimes the best picture is the ones that is slightly out of focus.  I take about 4-5 shots per location just to make sure there’s at least one good one.  Topdown is hard to look through the viewfinder, just have to hope that the camera picks up the right coral as the main focus.  
Some could use a quick post processing, simply increase exposure a bit so it’s not as dark.  Or for the one that looks over lit, just dial down exposure.  The exposure is the only thing I mess with as far as post processing.  I preset the white balance in the camera itself for color correction. 

[DreC80]

Sounds good.  Thanks for the advice.  I haven't been super successful with setting a custom white balance on the camera itself.  Are you setting a custom white balance or using one of the camera's preloaded ones?  The post processing software helps me in getting it more accurate.  It's weird because the exposure seemed pretty good on most of them when I was looking at them on my Mac, but as soon as I uploaded them to NR they seemed dark.  I still need to work on getting white balance and exposure correct on my camera so I don't have to worry about it in post processing.

 

Love the tips, keep them coming.  Hopefully in a year or so I'll look back at these photos and laugh at myself.

[SaltyTanks]

Pics look great to me, especially birds of paradise & Cali Tort pics. White balance looks on point. I struggle with glare big time since I have windows all around my tank. Taking pics at night with all the house lights off is the only way I’ve been able to take any pics without glare. maybe use a blackout drape, but that’s a hassle. Or a polarizer lens filter, but probably not worth the money for just tank pics.

[DreC80]

Went ahead and purchased another Radion XR15 G4 (got it for $350 since they are discontinued).  Also purchased three diffusers to put on.  

 

In total I'll have three XR15 G4 pros with diffusers and four T5s (2 blue plus/2 coral plus).  Luckily I bit the bullet on a par meter a couple years back so I'll use that to dial everything in...especially since the diffusers are said to reduce par by 25% or so.  Hoping to get that done this weekend.  Will post some pics when done.

[mitten_reef]

 

Copied from above, happened to have the name for this monti?  the closest I've seen to mine.  Does it shift colors often?  

 

[pokerdobe]

1 hour ago, DreC80 said:

Went ahead and purchased another Radion XR15 G4 (got it for $350 since they are discontinued).  Also purchased three diffusers to put on.  

 

In total I'll have three XR15 G4 pros with diffusers and four T5s (2 blue plus/2 coral plus).  Luckily I bit the bullet on a par meter a couple years back so I'll use that to dial everything in...especially since the diffusers are said to reduce par by 25% or so.  Hoping to get that done this weekend.  Will post some pics when done.

Crank that s*** up to 100% and call it a day. 😄