Habitat - Indoor :: Moe's new 75G home - build thread.

[VeipaCray]

Yeah we rinse everything from outside. I think it's from the pellets, but who knows. It could also be oils from our hands as we handle the food. I just picked up some gelatin so I can try some of the infamous "jello shots".

I was hoping to get that new filter setup or the jello shots made, but my son started crawling this week so I spent the day shopping for and installing baby gates.
Sorry about your cold in the hot weather... I know how that feels and that sucks.

[turtlesrmom]

OMGoodness! I have yet to go through all the pages on this thread but watching you build this great set up makes me wish I could build my own but alas, not at this time. Good work though! And I love the baby picture and the turtle nursery. Hope the little guy is doing great now

[VeipaCray]

Thank you. Yes the little guy is 10+ months old now, crawling, has 4 teeth and is starting to take his first steps.

I have much updates to post to this thread, but I've been busy the last month with my reef tank (sump mishap caused major issues and made me give ye ol' credit card a thorough workout this month).

[happycamper]

I want to see some pics of the reef tank

[VeipaCray]

I want to see some pics of the reef tank

Since you asked... I'll post a few. I had an issue with the ATO system not working causing the baffles in my sump to break.. which in turn caused a huge mess (in the tank) and a few pumps including my skimmer to fail. I had to give much of the coral that survived to friends while I installed a new sump, got pumps serviced / replaced, and got the system running again. A few grand later and the tank is up and running again. I got a few new frags from a coral show last weekend.

I also have issues taking photos. I need someone who is into photography to tell me how to take macro pics through glass / water. I have a DSLR camera if anyone can help...

I'll take a few shots of the entire tank / new sump tomorrow when the lights come back on. Here's a few not so good coral shots for now...

Sun Coral...


Birds of Paradise frag...


Frogspawn...


Mushrooms...


Some kind of Anthelia I think...

[happycamper]

Cool pictures! The first and the third are my favorites!
For things like coral I would use a tripod, and increase your ISO. I like to manually focus when I am using a macro setting because the depth of field is so short. I have actually had great success with my DSLR's flash, just have to find the right angle where you don't get the reflection, and don't distort the subject.

[happycamper]

Do any of those things glow under a blacklight? Glowy blacklight pics are always entertaining...

[VeipaCray]

The coral does "glow" under the special lighting used. I'm not sure what the wavelengths and kelvin of a blacklight are, but the ATI bulbs I'm using have the following specs...

Aquablue Special - blue/daylight - 12000K
Blue Plus - blue/actinic - 20000K - 450n
Actinic Blue - actinic - 420n

[happycamper]

You can also adjust the white balance to fix any unwanted tints the lights are creating.

[VeipaCray]

Yeah I'm very much a camera noob and shoot with the white balance in auto.

If I'm feeling particularly snarky I'll adventure over to the aperture priority setting and muck with that a lil. I really need some serious camera help.

I do have a tripod and will try to mess with the white balance and manual focus to get some better shots.

[PridgNYC]

Which camera do you have and what lens? PM me, I'm pretty good with cameras. I have a Canon 60D with a bunch of lenses now, but have been taking pictures with SLR's since my mid teens back in the late 70's , early 80's when they were mostly manual focus, manual aperture, manual shutter.

[VeipaCray]

PridgeNYC & HappyCamper> Thanks.

I have an olympus e510 with two lenses and a tripod. Not the best I know, but I got it off a friend for $100 (lenses, camera, bag, tripod, wireless flash)

I have these two lenses...
ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 40-150mm (80-300mm) 1:4.0-5.6
ZUIKO DIGITAL ED 14-42mm (28-84mm) 1:3.5-5.6

I'm not opposed to buying a better lens for this type of photography or even getting a different camera completely.

[PridgNYC]

It's not a bad camera considering it came out 4 years ago, dpreview gave it pretty high marks. http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse510/page31.asp. They say it does get noisy above 400 ISO, so you aren't going to be able to push your ISO very high. It is a micro 4/3 camera, so lens selection is not going to be nearly as extensive as if you had a Nikon or Canon with an APS-C or Full frame sensor. That said, you will eventually want a faster lens, one that goes down to 2.8 or below on the aperture, especially since your camera doesn't do so well above 400 ISO. Before you go out and spend many hundreds or thousands of dollars on lenses, you need to decide if you are going to stick with the 4/3 format. If you do decide to stick with the 4/3 format, there are newer cameras with better low light performance, but you are still stuck with the lens availability problem.

Before you start doing all that research and making those decisions, you can still take good pics of your aquarium with the camera you have. Use your biggest zoom lens and set up a little farther away, but zoom in to what you want to take a pic of. Try using the flash with the camera pointed at an angle to the glass to avoid reflections. Use the tripod and the delay timer to avoid camera shake, (just pressing the shutter button will cause the camera to shake), or, even better, a remote shutter release. Don't worry too much about white balance, you can usually fix that in post processing (photoshop).

[VeipaCray]

PridgNYC > Thanks. I'll give it a shot this weekend and see how it comes out. I was thinking my next camera would be a Nikon or Canon - lenses and familiarity with the camera. Everytime I've asked a neighbor or friend for help the universal response I get is "i dunno... I have a nikon (or canon)"

[happycamper]

I have a Canon Rebel xti. Older model, I have had it for about 5 years and I love it! (figured I'd add on to your universal response list)