Blog Comments

I'd leave it alone unless the algae starts to over grow the living coral. The corals in the wild all look like this, only the tips end up living because they block the sunlight in the middle.

I think I'll just do both. Cut a couple frags, but leave the main colony intact. My new Mithrax crabs seem to spend a lot of time picking at the algae in it, so who knows?

Phil

I would just cut and save.. another options I've tried is dipping in 5:1 ratio tank water to peroxide sometime as strong as 1:1 but you can drag some off and try diff ratios. algae turns diff color them dies off quickly for easy manual removal

It's turf algae, it doesn't blow off. I can't even pull it off with tweezers.

I suspect the core of this coral died last year during a heat wave when the then tank temp got way too high. That's when the algae set in on this coral.

Nutrients are unmeasureable and my algae scrubber is going gung ho with lots of bright green alage. I've just replenished my clean-up crew, I was down to only 6 snails.

So, my original question: would it be better to frag it out, or leave it alone?

looks like you have bigger probs need to get algae in check, get nutrients in check. get something to remove phosphates and nitrates. you could use a turkey baster to blow it off.

I suggest manual removal of algae.I would also take a power head and try to blow the remainder off. After that, let the CUC have the left overs.

I'm down to only 6 astreas, 1 nassarius and 4 or 5 hermits. Was definitly time to bolster the clean-up crews.

Looks like a good order to me. I like seeing the snails, that's something you don't hear much about when it comes to stocking a tank.

Yay Phil, I too will be making some purchases very soon.

I set the white ballance in post processing by selecting the white on the clown and the mostly white pipe in the background with the Chromis. Works pretty well, but it's interesting to see how much the results differer after selecting 2 areas that both appear white.

That's it, I am getting a mermaid for my tank! That particular specimen is mighty fine.

I'd say the white balance on your shots above looks pretty darn good though you may get better results with custom - though it can be a bit of work to set up properly. If I don't use custom white balance on my camera while shooting similar pictures, my blue chromis will come out purple!

Oh no Marc! They're coming to disappear you now! It's all a big cover up.

I'll look forward to her comments.

-I'll try the higher ISO, I was hesitent to go above 400 as my last camera started to get pretty bad noise at 800. However, I did choose this camera partly because it's reported to have low noise at higher ISO.

-Good call, I was zoomed in to better keep them in focus since I was using continuous, spot focus.

-I haven't looked on-line for white balance suggestions, duh! Should have been the first thing I tried. It manually sets it everywhere else just fine. I even put a big white plate in the tank and it still kept giving me a error message when I tried to manually set it. I'm guessing the color is outside it's range, but will check.

They started showing up in the display after my Banded Coral Shrimp died. I suspect he was munching on them, But I'm glad to see them. It's the little micro life that make a reef tank so facinating to me.

I think they survived because they can retract into their calcified tubes. Odds are they hold water within as well - they are neat little hitchhikers that sometimes appear in tight clusters in our reef tanks, but more often than not they show up in the sump & filtration, like you pointed out above.

I beg to differ. I just saw this one recently:

Jessy will have advice for you I'd bet.

You can increase ISO to 800 or so. Any higher and you'll end up with grainy pictures.
Try to avoid zooming in, because that changes the f/stop and thus slows down shutter speed.
Aim at a spot where the fish keeps swimming through, set the focus and wait for the fish to make the next lap. Shoot!
Shooting with a flash will definitely lock in a fish, but the colors will not match what we normally see.
The lower the f/stop, the better usually.

Have you tried googling how to set the white balance with your camera?

All because too many idiots can't tell a fantasy from a documentary. Mermaids may not exist, but idiots are still quite common.

Not only that but it probably cost the government millions for scientist to research this subject.