Krux Posted August 2, 2018 Author Share Posted August 2, 2018 (edited) In the ongoing investigation into what the heck is the Green Lump, I shot this horrible top-down pic to show the changes to the color at the tips. Still looking sort of like the Paletta Tricolor, still totally the wrong shape. I will likely need to update this later as when looking at the photo on the monitor the shot is shameful... I really need one of those spyglass things. Edited August 2, 2018 by Krux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 (edited) Well, it has been three weeks since the last update. I have finally gotten pretty close to figuring out my alk dosage, running at around .7dkh per day of usage. I am seeing some happy corals starting to extend polyps more and more in the day hours. A few of these shots are horrible, I still can't get the phone to shoot blue corals quite right, and some of the pieces are just too well lit, I can't turn down the brightness enough to get any detail... they will work for growth tracking shots though. Confusa (I think) from @Gil&Fin Forest Fire Digi From @Optimusprime3605 (blown out photo) Wild Australian piece from Cuttlefish interwebs think granulosa, starting to throw some radial corallites Microladas from Cuttlefish (another blown out photo) Rouge Milli from Cuttlefish can't really focus on it yet, oriented the wrong way Wild Australian probably a spathulata from Cuttlefish, it can't tell if it wants to be yellow or pink The Green Blob - still thinking this is a Paletta Tricolor Red Gecko getting settled in, recent Cuttlefish pick up. Aussie Purple Monst-ish in the background. Another wild Aussie acro from cuttlefish, no clue what it is but the colony was a table. tips are going a nice rose color, they look more purple in photo Red Dragon continues to be a purple dragon Blue Tort from Cuttlefish, this one needs some TLC but I swear it looks better after two days in the tank. Maybe @CuttleFishandCoral can back me up on this. Does not photograph well at 550 par Some old school Purple People Eaters that I scored from @goldenbasketreef Red cyphastrea also from @goldenbasketreef Wild Aussie from Cuttlefish, this is looking to be a "shortcake" and is turning blue on the growth edges Edited August 28, 2018 by Krux 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted August 28, 2018 Author Share Posted August 28, 2018 (edited) What I thought was a SunsentMonti from @Gil&Fin but it is turning purple on the edges, why must everything turn purple? Tubbs Stellata from Cuttlefish is finding its groove. Wild Aussie from Cuttlefish, looking to be a neon green Highlighter tenuis White Lightning horrida from Cuttlefish Rainbow Monti from @Optimusprime3605 Still on the hunt for a 20k Lokani, RR Maleficent, Pinky the Bear, Purple Monster with lineage, Bahama Mamma, and Icefire Echinata if you have a line on those. That's all for now. If you are in SW Portland, have a DSLR, and want to come for a photo shoot so I can get some good pictures I will trade pizza and beer for your time, hit me up. Edited August 28, 2018 by Krux 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuncrestReef Posted August 28, 2018 Share Posted August 28, 2018 (edited) 3 hours ago, Krux said: That's all for now. If you are in SW Portland, have a DSLR, and want to come for a photo shoot so I can get some good pictures I will trade pizza and beer for your time, hit me up. Once my wife comes back from her trip to Africa with my camera on Friday, I'd be happy to arrange a photo shoot. My tank only has so many corals, so I'm getting tired of taking the same photos over and over! I have a Nikon D610 with a 200mm macro capable of very detailed photos. Here's an example: Edited August 28, 2018 by SuncrestReef 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted September 6, 2018 Author Share Posted September 6, 2018 I am one of those idiots that buys a Spath thinking he will be the one to keep it looking pretty... posting a photo so I can prove myself wrong in a month... at least for now it is so colorful it looks fake! Also included a group photo for scale, which really means nothing to anyone but me, but I guess it will help me count branches to see if it grew any... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted October 26, 2018 Author Share Posted October 26, 2018 (edited) Photo for attention, spath is at 6 weeks and still hasn’t gone brown! Added an MP40 tonight to get some flow going in preparation for some new additions this weekend. Had an an all spike (low) and lost the highlighter tenuis, rommel, mini purple plasma, and a nubbin of a cool table Jeff got in a few weeks ago. Everything else is doing well now though. Fingers crossed for another Rommel, a Pinky the Bear, 20k lokani, legit Purple Monster, icefire, and maybe a RR Maleficent to appear at Fragfest! TTFN Edited October 26, 2018 by Krux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted October 26, 2018 Author Share Posted October 26, 2018 (edited) Green Blob is going white/purple at the growth edges and is plating out a little bit... weird. Edited October 26, 2018 by Krux 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted December 21, 2018 Author Share Posted December 21, 2018 (edited) Update but no photos! My lovely wife and I struck a deal, she gets to go to St. Kitt's and I get to upgrade tanks. Took the opportunity to pick one up at @CuttleFishandCoral anniversary sale last week. Just when I recovered from the great alk spike of 2018 and things are looking great again it will be time to throw another wrench at the tank. On the plus side, I will finally be able to start buying carpet nems now that there will be real estate. This also happily coincides with 10 days off from work. So, um, who wants to help move this thing down the stairs into the basement when it arrives? Edited December 21, 2018 by Krux 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youcallmenny Posted December 21, 2018 Share Posted December 21, 2018 Which tank did you get? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted December 21, 2018 Author Share Posted December 21, 2018 She went for the 350, I was going to go back in and change the order to the xl 425 once she walked out but figured that would only get me in trouble! Gotta take what you can get. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youcallmenny Posted December 21, 2018 Share Posted December 21, 2018 Very nice! That's a great size. Interested to see what you do with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted December 30, 2018 Author Share Posted December 30, 2018 Tank is up and running, temp correct, salinity correct, just waiting for the fog to clear over the next couple of hours. Should be able to start moving livestock this week. My PPEs will need to serve as the canary for water quality tonight... they are the only thing I have that doesn't need light for a day or two. Picked up another xr30. I had debated getting two xr15s to flank my current xr30 in the middle to spread out the light, but got a great deal on a lightly used unit so the trigger was pulled. The middle foot of the tank is going to be well illuminated. Spath should be happy. Special thanks to Jeff and crew for letting me haul off all of their water and a couple of loaner items to get this ready for the transition. Ready for you to start searching for a small blue carpet for this bad boy @CuttleFishandCoral! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CuttleFishandCoral Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 Excited to see what u will do with this tank! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted January 6, 2019 Author Share Posted January 6, 2019 (edited) My mother in law was kind enough to get me a magnetic frag rack for Christmas. I took advantage of today's coral road trip to throw it in the tank and snap a few quick photos. Don't know what this is, but for some reason it was calling to me. Weird purple brown color... let's see what it does. Impossible to photograph. Got to meet J-Dog today, thanks for having the wife and I over to pick this up I think I need to make a cyphastrea tank some day... I love these and always forget about them. Any way, nice pink branching model here. Here we go on shortcake attempt #3 echinata of some sort... will have to tide me over until i find the ice fire and the hawkins. Mother colony was very pretty, sort of a cross of the two. Also got a frag of Pinky the Bear, can cross that off my list finally. Thanks Fernando. Added a blue star wrasse the other day, i have seen it twice but as expected our mystery wrasse isn't very welcoming. Felt it was important to get it in the tank as soon as possible after the upgrade before territory was reestablished. Hopefully it eats? No wide angle shots for a while, the tank needs to go through a little cycle and I am still waiting on some equipment to finish out the build. A tank twice as large makes what was a comical collection of frags stuck to rocks look even less impressive. With some free time maybe will have an update next weekend. Thanks for following along. Edited January 6, 2019 by Krux Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted January 13, 2019 Author Share Posted January 13, 2019 (edited) Water change Saturday! Took the opportunity of having the water level down a few extra inches to take some updated shots after hitting everything with coral frenzy. Added a few new frags today as well. A few pieces have lost a bit of vibrance through the tank transition, but everything was looking pretty happy today. New rock is still stark white making it difficult to photograph things on that end of the tank, but i have some health algae growth on the back glass so it should only be a matter of time until a major bloom happens and then things can settle in. Waiting for a few power brick 1' cords to arrive tomorrow so I can complete the installation of the hardware on the controller board. Hoping that stays a one day project, was hoping to tackle it today but the wiring didn't arrive. Also waiting on my PMK to arrive. Edited January 13, 2019 by Krux 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtarmitage Posted January 13, 2019 Share Posted January 13, 2019 Upscales had some big ice fire frags earlier this week 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted January 20, 2019 Author Share Posted January 20, 2019 Must be a bit chilly in the tank cause you could cut glass with these polyps... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted February 3, 2019 Author Share Posted February 3, 2019 (edited) with less than 6 corals left on my list to find (see my wtb thread, have a line on the maleficient), it is time to let things settle in and grow for a while. the velvet hit and wiped out all the fish save one, was hoping to go fallow and let it run its course but with my wrasse apparently immune not sure how to handle that going forward... maybe this will forever be a one fish tank? first FTS since the move to the 350, things won't be changing much very soon (may add an xr15 to the middle to even out the shadows), so I guess this will become a grow out thread for a while. A few more months of aging and I will start looking for a carpet. A few of the corals were mounted behind the rocks, stags in particular so they can grow in, it will be fun to see when they peek out and become visible from the front. going to take the same photo and load it into paint to mark up what is where for reference. if my replacement par meter ever arrives i will edit in the par numbers as well. thanks for looking! Edited February 3, 2019 by Krux 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derbird Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 You did wonders with the 170. Gives me hope with mine =] One question, did you get your screen top at BRS? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted February 24, 2019 Author Share Posted February 24, 2019 Shifted around some corals for the frag swap today, and these three were in the general area so I snapped a couple pics of them as well: rainbow monti, tubbs stellata, and purple people eaters under blues. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted February 25, 2019 Author Share Posted February 25, 2019 (edited) Tonight I taught myself how to make presets in Lightroom, which makes things a lot easier. There is some weird stuff going on in the magenta range on a few of these. Time for a February photo shoot for growth tracking! Edited February 25, 2019 by Krux 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertareef Posted February 25, 2019 Share Posted February 25, 2019 Looking good! Getting a really nice collection together there. That Red Dragon has definitely filled in quite a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted March 10, 2019 Author Share Posted March 10, 2019 (edited) @CuttleFishandCoral queue theme music from Golden Axe RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!!!! Was just talking to Jeff today about my horrific luck keeping wrasses recently, having had four disappear in 3 weeks, inclusive of this coris wrasse that had been MIA for a week. Losses in the last month now lie at the mystery wrasse, 2 leopard wrasses, shortcake attempt #3, peter pan frag, my long term resident lightning hermit (strangely found floating on same day the wrasse showed his face...) and my pink diamond goby. Additions include aforementioned coris wrasse, two chalk basslets, a white tail bristletooth tang, a pearly jawfish, and some sweet sweet cyano (probably related to the disappearing wrasses) and a hellboy frag. @reefnjunkie continues to not have a secret to growing frags 47X faster than I had hoped, snap to it on that discovery please sir! Edited March 10, 2019 by Krux 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
albertareef Posted March 10, 2019 Share Posted March 10, 2019 Sorry to hear about the loses. I seem to be jinxed with pink margin wrasses - tried three and lost all of them eventually. I finally got a piece of strawberry shortcakes going really well then the whole tank crashed from metal poisoning. - this hobby sometimes.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Krux Posted March 10, 2019 Author Share Posted March 10, 2019 Grabbed one of those phone filters, it still takes some lightroom to get the color correction I think, but I can see how it helps capture the glow of colors, a little too bright for what I am used to seeing, but a few notches down on the saturation helps. Also it made orange things too orange, maybe the yellow filter is the key. Interestingly, totally different output depending on if the shot was taken top down or through the front glass. Ultimately I think I just need to use my underwater camera, but getting the photos out of it is quite inconvenient, and it doesn't shoot RAW. Now I need to make a new preset or two. Red Devil, yellow spath, and Fox Flame frags (chalk bass photobomb) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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