pledosophy

We had the same thought last month when we moved. Then when we only kept what we couldn't live without, we three away a quarter of that at the new place. Good luck on the adventure Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Glad you found us. Shoot me an email at President@PNWMAS.org and we can try to arrange getting you what you need. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I have some of the 20 hour packs. How many do you need? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I watched this and the Julian Sprung vs. Jake Adams debate, Mike Paletta, and some other one about Zooaxenthelle and Symbiont's but I can't remember the guys name . Talk about a day on You Tube.

I should bring some toys over. I'm pretty open schedule wise. If you wanna hang out and play photo text me and we'll set up a time. That way we quit clogging up your tank thread. I'm impressed your getting those results with that lens. Wait until you try an L series lens. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lens? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Glad I could help. I never know if I am giving unwanted advice when I talk about pictures, so When I come over to get those sticks you owe me I can show you a few tricks on how to use PS better and ways to sharpen without changing the color. I'm a little bit obsessed with that program. I'm still going back and forth on getting that 210g, so don't wanna get frags and then swap tanks. I do have a 100mm macro you can play with too if ya want. On camera's I have never really used the Rebel line since about 2002. I don't know too much about them. The specs on it look pretty nice though, but for what your doing, you can probably get pretty good results with what you have. The XSI is known for having a noisy sensor, and that technology has come a long way in the last 6 years. Whether spending $800 on a new camera is worth it for someone that has a little baby... I don't know. I hear people like baby pictures too.

IME I do not agree with that. If you have a very old camera you can start to get noise higher then ISO 400. However newer cameras can do much much higher. What kind of camera do you have (model number don't just say canon)? I know photographers always want to say it's not the camera, it's the user, and partially that is true. Sometimes it is the camera too. My DSLR has no problems shooting at an ISO of 3200 without noise, and with editing I have made huge prints (4'x8') from ISO's of 6400 that are still sharp. For me when purchasing a camera a big part of what I am paying for is those extra usable ISO stops. Also that advice assumes a set aperture and seems to assume a set ISO without really speaking about shutter speed. Shutter speed, ISO, and Aperture form a thing often referred to as the "exposure triangle". It is kind of odd to see the two mentioned without reference to the third. Some sharpness can be lost straight out of the camera on a crw file at higher apertures, but it is easily brought back in, especially since you are using CS6. IMO macro shots usually work best between 11-22 depending on the subject. I like to look for the defined "veins of symbiodinium" (I had to look that word up) or color patterns on the surface to the stonies, which is why I like the higher F-Stops. In the photography world saying you use CS6 to sharpen is equivalent to the stick hoarder world of saying you have a light on your tank, or that you put stuff in the water to make the corals happy. There are several ways to sharpen an image in CS6. Some work better then others especially when applied at different times. Sometimes running the High Pass filter on a seperate layer merging down to a single a back up layer and then setting the blending mode to a different luminosity is going to be best, other times smart sharpen works good. I'm just curious what your work flow is. On changing the temp to 20K, depending on your camera for true color you might consider white balancing per shot, or maybe even a white balance disc. If your running your monitor uncalibrated this is an easy way to get more accurate color without forking over the few hundred for calibration software. I use a white Tupperware lid to white balance in tank shots but anything white will work for most cameras. The Tupperware is just easy for me. You know if your happy with your pictures you can just ignore me, but I think with a couple pretty simple tweaks you'd be a lot happier IMO. HTH

I thought this was a very interesting perspective from an owner of a LFS. With so many of the LFS's in our area going away over the last 5 years these are definitely things that those of us who plan to stay in the Hobby should concern ourselves with. JMO

Nice! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Congrats on another lil one!

Opposite actually. The higher the F-Stop the great detail in the photo. You will have to increase either your shutter speed or your ISO to compensate. Often time this leads to a longer exposure then 1/125th and for anything longer then that I would recommend turning off all of the pumps as the water flow will blur the photo IME. Tripods are your friend too. You can also run a sharpening tool on them. Are you using something to sharpen now?

Looking good Frank. If you haven't already you might want to try turning off your pumps before photo's and maybe trying a higher F-Stop. 16-22 are pretty good for macro IMO

This is how American Family reads as well.

Nice! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks Jeff, It's always nice to hear from someone with a little more insight when making these decisions. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Weird. I wonder if they got some help or had a breakthrough. Their website says they will ship next month.

For someone who has been looking at buying an Apex setup like me, this just raised a few more questions.

Seems like you could tee off to get to the return seperate from going to the manifold and save the 90 which would improve the pump performance. Just split straight from the pump to the return and have the other go through your 3 small outs. Controlling the return then from the manifold could be one ball valve. Not sure how much if any better it would be. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Lookin good Sean, Curious where is the blue stuff that leaks all over the pvc that I have when I do plumbing? I don't see it anywhere. Can't wait to see you have it all setup. Let me know if you need anything, you know I am a hoarder and I want to clear out my garage! I have like 5 old sets of LED's if you wanna give some older models a try (whistle) What 3 reactors are you running? Also I might try to turn make that return barb a straight barb and ditch the elbow all together. Then you can run the hose from there directly to your return line in the tank. Pointing down and then running back up again seems like a waste of a 90' and you know how I hate 90's in plumbing. They are almost as bad as people who reduce the diameter on the return plumbing to the tank just before the return! Edit: I'd also suggest painting those locline returns with some krylon fusion. I think tiger stripes would be nice, but you'll probably prefer just straight black or the wall color they will be against cuz your all practical.

The bright red ones are non photosynthetic and are fairly difficult to keep. As a general rule any seafan with a white polyp is non photosynthetic and needs to be fed appropriately. The people that have the best luck with these longterm are the ones that use automatic feeders (ideal refrigerated for their food source) and peristaltic pumps to continually provide a food source. Some people do choose to target feed them multiple times a day but as I followed their tank over the course of a year or so usually by the end of a year the seafan had died or the tanks had been torn down. Most NPS corals require very specific care. I have been looking into keeping them for several years now, but until there is more success in the hobby with those types of tanks it is just not worth it to me to keep something in my system that is not going to grow and thrive. Far to many tales of the other. I do have three different purple sea fans that are photosynthetic. I have had one since it was a frag and an inch tall, it is over 18" now with several branches and growing that has taken about 5 years. The others I have had for less time and they are much smaller still. JME

How long have you had it? How does it grow cheato?

I use the eggcrate style light diffuser from HD. Not as clear as the mesh, but fairly easy to cut to size. I also painted mine black since I do not have a canopy and it shows. I even put in a little feed pipe so I could feed the tank without removing the cover. The pip extended far enough down and was over a powerhead so when feeding cubes I just dropped a cube in. Worked well for me. Just another option if you need something until you get the clear netting.

I think it depends on where the tank is. If your in a commercial building and having the seam go out can flood the downstairs doctors office putting them out of business for a week and ruining there equipment, you might want to go higher.