Corals Under LED's!!

For the longest time I've admired the color of corals under blue LED's. To me they look so much more eye catching than when they are under other actinic lighting. Capturing that color in photos has always been on the back of my mind, but every time I've tried it I failed miserably. Until yesterday.

After I finished with the water change and frag rack replacement yesterday, I figured I would grab the camera again and try to capture that amazing color again. Photo after photo just kept turning out too blue or purple. I took a look online and realized that I had forgot the most basic step in video and photography: White Balance. I felt so stupid afterwards since I had taken so many video and photography through high school and college. I set the camera's white balance to custom, took a picture of an empty spot on the frag rack, set the custom white balance to balance off of that picture and started shooting again and with a couple minor adjustments to some of the other settings, I had my photos. Now all I need is a macro lens... These are some of the results:

 

 

Build a Better Frag Rack

So yesterday I decided to do some rework on my frag tank when I took everything out to clean the bottom. I'm glad to say there is no more Cyanobacteria. I did make a new frag rack that now spans almost the entire bottom of my tank as well as has two raised platforms for more light needing corals. I do like the look of this one much better because it gives me not only more room, but it makes the tank look more open as well. It's almost exactly like the pic I posted yesterday.

Before, I was using a 3 tier rack that I had in my 10 gallon. For that tank it was the perfect size. However, I needed more room in my 20 gallon and wanted a rack that would be able to handle the amount of frags I wanted to put in there, as well as make it look a little cleaner. This led me to make the rack in this design. It allows me to put corals wherever they need to be as far as flow and light are concerned.

Before:

After:

Now, what is the main reason frag racks are made? Personally I build them to be able to use as much room in my frag tank as I can, but I've also built them to keep frags in my display tank. These are also, from what I've read, what the majority of other people build racks for as well. Another reason I've seen is to keep the Cleanup Crew from knocking the frags around as they sit on the sand in the tank.

They can be made of anything from egg crate (light diffuser) to acrylic and held together with glue, zip ties, or epoxy. Depending on what is being kept on the rack, the size and shape of the tank, as well as the lighting, frag racks are made in all different shapes. The most common one I've seen is just a flat platform raised up off the bottom with either PVC legs or egg crate legs. People are keeping softies, LPS and SPS on these kinds of racks, they just change the lighting depending on the coral. If keeping a mixed frag tank, usually raised platforms are a good idea so you can put corals that need more light up higher and don't have to buy a new light.

Frag Tank Re-Do

So after a lot of searching and pondering I'm going to completely redo the egg crate stand in the frag tank. Something that spans the majority of the tank and give me lots of space as well as room, both high and low. Probably something like this:

I'll take out some of the LR that's in there as well so I can put my mushroom colonies on it too. Of course I'll still have the room to put the racks on the sides if need be but I like the openness of this setup. I'll probably raise it a bit to fit a powerhead under it to keep crap from settling on the bottom like it is now. Pics will be posted tonight when done. 

The Weekend is upon us!

So this weekend my tanks are going to get a much needed cleaning... I've kinda neglected them for a little because I was so busy. I need to do a major water change in the display cause I haven't for about a month, a big water change needs to be done in the frag tank as well. Oddly enough I have cyno growing on the bottom of the tank to the point that it's starting to bubble up. I can easily get it up but I think what I might do is pull out the frag racks and  do a whole tank cleaning. I'll probably start on it today when I get home actually. Everything is still looking good though which is kind of surprising. I can almost guess what the nitrates are and I cringe when I do. I should add a small CC, but that just adds more crap to the water. After this weekend though everything should be good.

I also am going to try and figure out what to do with the mushroom frags I just cut. Do I glue them to a rock and make a few colonies of different kinds/ colors of shrooms or do I put the Yumas and Floridas on frag plugs to keep them separate or build some colonies and some frags? Either way I look at it I need to get rid of some because I'm pretty much out of room. I suppose I could make up another 3 tier rack to go along with the one I have now instead of using random racks and put the rock on a rack underneath it...

Frag Tank update!!

So over the weekend I ended up getting a Banner Engineering light bar from my dad. Not the typical reef led but so far so good. It's a 24v bar that is "normally" used for industrial applications. 

Since putting it up my zoas and mushrooms that were reaching for light have settled down to where they should be. I've also added a couple more egg crate racks to the tank to lift some colonies off of the ground to make cleaning the bottom easier. 

Looking at the tanks today makes me think I went a little "frag crazy". My 20 gallon long tank is completely filled. I have really no more room... This is good in the sense that my coral is growing but bad in the fact that now I have to find somewhere to offload some of the frags. I suppose I could do a little rearranging, add another big rack and take out some of the smaller ones and so on, but that will have to wait until some time Monday or Tuesday. I have plenty of egg crate left to do it with. I mean look at it! It's packed!!

RBTA update!

So when I got these two little guys, well two halves of a little guy, they had just been split on accident by the seller. I was about 90% sure that they would be fine and it turns out I was correct. Within the two weeks I've had them they've healed up nicely and are accepting what I give them for food which is usually mysis every other day and a few small chunks of deboned silverside on the weekend. Next time I feed them I'll try taking a video of them feeding along with my rock flowers who greedily accept anything haha but a pic for now is all I have which is not the best due to the LEDs.

Not much new to update the blog with tank wise today, but I am updating the design a little and rearranging a few things as well as adding a few links that I found helpful to running my tank.