Blog Comments

Who ever decides to write a detailed book on corals should hire you as the photographer. Great pics.

You mention resetting the bed...are you planning to completely remove it...whats the safest way to do it. Will it be cut out of the main systems circulation while you are working on it?Looks great of course...Thanks again...

Originally Posted by Aquarius Marinus

Beautiful! My favorites are super-macros.jpg and super-macros-3.jpg

Super-macros is an Acan polyp (or two), and super-macros-3 is a chalice coral.

Originally Posted by BulkHead
Boy can I relate to that.

Let me know if you find a cure!

Beautiful! My favorites are super-macros.jpg and super-macros-3.jpg

Looking good!!!

And I still you a disposable camera!!!

Originally Posted by Aquarius Marinus

I'm the other way around! I have to know how and why everything works... I do so much research that its debilitating. I have a problem of reading into things so much that sometimes I never do anything.

Boy can I relate to that.

Marc, I won't try to give advice as your photography experience is greater than mine, but my D80 does so poorly at anything over ISO 800, I try to shoot at the native ISO of 200. That seems to be the sweet spot and I think would work well when your MH's are on.

Those are great, Marc!!

I'm the other way around! I have to know how and why everything works... I do so much research that its debilitating. I have a problem of reading into things so much that sometimes I never do anything.

Just a suggestion, when I shoot RAW I use +JPEG standard and make the jpeg resolution quality as small as possible. I only want the jpeg as a thumbnail to see what photo is what, so I don't care about it's quality. I can always make a nice jpeg from the RAW file later.

I also believe that you do not need to shoot RAW to get great detail. It is true that you have more cropping and editing ability with RAW, but I've seen plenty of jaw dropping detail in pictures taken by mediocre cameras as JPEG Fine (Large).

I have a D5000, same sensor as the D90 I believe but all the features are in menus instead of buttons, and it has a pentamirror instead of a pentaprism like the D90, and the D5000 doesn't have an AF motor. I am waiting for the full-frame cameras to get a little cheaper. The new sensors can shoot super high ISOs with extremely low noise. The D600 is looking very attractive.

*Sorry to anyone who was confused from my earlier, pre-edit post here. I was confusing the D90s pentaprism with an older design.

If I didn't have any macro algae going, if it simply couldn't survive - this would be a cryptic zone with no light instead.

My fuge is the creepy zone. I have no idea what's going on in there but I know for sure I'm not going to stick my hand in it.

Ever thought of running a cryptic zone instead?

Feather Caulerpa has always done best for me. I bought it maybe seven years ago, and never needed to buy more. I've tried other stuff but this macro seems to win while the other stuff fades away.

Yes, the principle of growing macro algae to avoid nuisance algae has been established for a while now. My reefs have always been algae free.

Out of curiosity why did you choose feather caulerpa? Did you ever run chaeto? Would there be benefits to running different kinds of macro algae simultaneously?

I recall a discussion from days of yore about algae turf scrubbers, and micro algae being able to absorb phosphates and nitrates at different rates than macro algae, but forgot whether it was faster or slower. I would guess micro algae absorbed faster? Otherwise there wouldn't seem to be a benefit to it.

Yes. They have to be off for about 15 seconds or more to switch. The Apex is programmed to kick them off and on per schedule.

Awesome write up...I've actually not come across twin-arc bulbs before. So I am assuming they will switch whenever power is toggled? So that you could set the exact amount of time you wanted each spectrum to run?

I'm not sure. The Radion is set to 85%, but where in the light cycle that was I'm not positive. The 400g has three Twin Arc metal halide bulbs over it, coupled with VHO Super Actinics. The Twin Arc bulb has two spectrums inside the glass shield. I run them for a few hours in 20,000K mode, and a few hours in 10,000K mode, daily. My blog about the bulbs is here:

http://www.reefaddicts.com/entry.php...l-halide-bulbs

I love the first picture of your reef and the 60g cube. What lights are you running in the reef and do you know approximately what intensity the Radion was at when that picture was taken?

I have it enabled. I'm not sure about the length of days part - it never even popped in my mind. I'm a clock watcher, and pick my hours by preference rather that growing longer days for summer and shorter winter days.

Neat! Does the Radion support automatic length of day changes with seasons like the Apex controller does?
Does the grayed out "Lunar Phases Enabled" indicate that you have them enabled or disabled? If disabled, why did you choose to do so?