xcreonx

Sounds very cool!

My brother, who is also a photographer in NYC, got a 60mm macro lens that is the sweetest thing I've seen in years. A serious lens!

Also, I have the 1gb microdrive and it has worked fine so far. I reformat it whenever possible to keep things fresh. I think it is a little slower than some cards out there, which certainly contributes to my cameras write speed. Overall, I think that card is fine. I haven't looked into other brands, but I would consider researching another card if I was shooting raw more than I currently am right now.

You know, I never used any in-camera metering. Long before I got serious about photography, I used my dad's old Nikon A2020. It had a meter built-in, but never worked and always overexposed any film I put in it. So I decided to just wing it. After years of guessing and then finally going to art school for photo and learning the correct techniques, I still just use my eyes to judge ('sunny 16' and all that) and that has worked great for me. However, I was shooting all film back then, and I only shot Ilford Delta 100 BW. With the D SLRs, the ability to change the ASA on the fly has kinda screwed my 'eye' up, but I'm getting used to it. I do use Aperture Priority for any snapshot photos. It's just easier and functions the same as my N90s. I try to keep the ASA as low as possible. Just like film, the higher the ASA, the more noise shows up.

I still shoot alot of 4x5 Delta 100 in my Graflex, which is similar in exposure to 35mm (minus the bellows factor, of course) glasses10.gif So I'm trying to keep my eye trained in that sense.

You should still have metering even with older lenses. I believe as long as they are auto-focus, they should work with the in-cam meter. Whether or not you'll get all of the fancy metering features, I don't know....

I've never used the LunaPros myself. I've had a Sekonic L-508 for many years. It has a spot meter and an incident dome, so it's perfect for anything I do. I just wear it around my neck and grab my graflex and go.

I also have the D100 after having a N90s for many years through college. The cloudy white balance does seem to give the best out-of-the-camera tank shots for manipulation in PS. I have a few lenses for it, nothing over 10 years old. They are standard Nikon Nikkor lenses, not the fancy D lenses.

Wonderful camera. Not as fast writing raw files to the card as I'd like, but I can certainly work around it. On shoots in the past for clients I'd have everyone take short breaks and shut the lights off as the camera caught up. Make sure you don't shut the camera off if the green 'writing' light is on. I have lost many shots this way.

raw mode is the way to go for sure if you want detail. jpeg is nice for everyday stuff that doesn't need the control. A good raw editing software will keep it uncompressed all the way through the workflow, in 16bit color. I've been using Adobe Bridge, which comes with CS2. You can work in Photoshop as well, but be careful of switching modes, as they will degrade your image quality. (ie 16bit color to 12bit color, or saving out as a jpeg or even a tiff file to a degree.) Bridge doesn't even affect the file, it merely saves a reference file in the same folder that applies the corrections and changes you want to the raw file. It's a great way to work!

Another good program is Apple's Aperture. (mac only)

Shooting digital is similar to film. I feel something is lost in a way, as I am so used to shooting large format, carrying around a light meter and a 4x5 camera. I guess it's more the experience of film and the on-the-fly calculations. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a purist by any means. Digital is MUCH easier to shoot with! But I'll keep my 4x5 around for a while

When I lived in Florida I collected sand from the Gulf for my tank. I sifted it carefully for any foreign items... bottle caps, hooks, etc... And placed it in the new tank.

When I tore it down 6 months ago after being up for 4 years, I found at least 13 sanddollars ranging from 1" to 3". I would see them every once in a while, but never knew I had so many. They must have come in as eggs or larvae or however they reporduce..

That being said, I wouldn't suggest them unless you were able to keep them in a similar habitat. They live in the sand in the Gulf, which was what kept them alive i my tank.

Gorgeous creatures!

It's amazing how tough these creatures can be.

I 'cooked' some rock for almost 3 months... no light, hot garage temps... when I pulled it out, there were still some small zoanthids, palythoas and GSPs that I must've missed, and they were STILL alive... although a little mad happy2.gif

Your anemone can certainly recover, just give it what it needs and take care of it.

Sounds like a ballast issue. MHs take a few minutes to turn back on after the power is cut. My old lights would take probably 10-15 minutes to 'warm' back up.

They are very simple to frag, but difficult to get to attach.

To frag, use a very sharp pair of scissors. I got a pair of stainless steel fabric shears at the fabric store. VERY sharp. You want to get in position, shears open, on the branch you want to cut, and hit it quickly and cleanly. The branch will float away slowly at which point you can grab it and do one of several things.

- Using a plastic toothpick or sword, stab the cutting into a piece of rock.

- Loosely tie the cutting with fishing line to a piece of rock.

- Rubberband to a rock.

- Or, the most effective but time consuming: place the cuttings in a basket full of rubble and wait for it to attach on its own. Usually takes a few weeks to a month.

I fragged colts this way quite successfully. I had a colt that took up a good 1/3 of my 180g tank. It gave me hundreds of frags over the 3 years I fragged it. Wonderful corals! They'll just keep getting bigger!

Here's a shot from my old tank before I got into SPS corals (this shot is maybe 4 years old). You can see the colts spread out in the tank. They all grew from a single 5" - 6" aquacultured colt in about 2 years.

And here's what the frags looked like. ( a small frag. I did cut bigger ones as well)

One thing to be very careful of: Colts slime when you touch or cut them. Other corals, especially nice expensive SPS, don't like the slime. If you cut them very quickly and cleanly, they will slime less. I had it down so good that I could cut large branches off and the mother colony wouldn't even flich. Like it never happened.

Superglue isn't a good choice, as you found out, for any kind of permanent hold on plastics. The best thing to find would be Weld-on (16 would work well) or even some kind of PVC cement may work. You need a solvent to bind the parts together, if you want a permanent bond. Sorry, I don't know any local places, I'm new to Austin blob7.gif

Yes, I made a trip to all of the stores in the area. Definitely some nice stuff at each! Good prices all around, little high on some things compared to the stores I frequented in Fl, especially mushrooms and branching Euphyllias, but nice none-the-less.

I have yet to check out Horizons. I didnt know it was up there when I went to River City.

No SPS. I did that for many years and I'm taking a break from that 'disease'!

I've got an adult A. Frenatus for trade if anyone's interested. I've had him/her (i think it's a her since she's very dark, not bright red) for almost 5 years now. She's your typical clown; tough, mildly aggressive, will host in corals but prefers a bubble-tipped anemone, defends her territory from anyone who comes near, occassionally spits gravel at you... you know, a clownfish! She is wild-caught, not tank bred.

Open to trade ideas. No SPS though.

I will get a photo tomorrow morning when the day lights are back on.

thanks!

-Joe

Actually I just decided to get rid of my Tomato clown instead, so no need for an anemone

Although I would LOVE to find a captive-bred RBTA or a nice FL green bubble coral

Looking for?

Nothing in particular, just good stores in other places.

Hey guys. Just wondering if you all have some recommendations for really great coral stores in Houston, San Antonio, etc.

Back in Florida, I was never hesitant to drive to Miami (2.5 hours one-way) to visit a really great store with healthy, reasonably priced livestock. I always came home with a few pieces.

Any ideas?

24" t5s

Where is this Horizons store? (sorry, Im new here!)

Nurse Nini, how did you acclimate the LTA? My limited experience with them has been the more careful the acclimation, the better luck. I had a rose BTA that I drip-acclimated for a hour and he lived for many years. The one before that I did a short acc of maybe 15 minutes. He lived about a month. Just a thought.

Yeah, for some reason the html works for you. oh well.

that was actually my holding tank when I was selling off a bunch of my corals before I moved here.

hmmmm... I guess my html is turned off....

FWIW, A. Yongei and A. Formosa are both considerd 'slimers', just as they are considered 'Staghorns' too.

DiscusPro, your first photo looks like the ORA Bali Slimer, of which I had a small frag that turned into a monster. You can see a piece of it on the left (a photo from my SPS sale): <img src="http://goodmorningheartache.com/tanksale/acros2.jpg">

Also, M Digitatas don't have an axial coralite on the growth-tip, like Acroporas do. The tips are bare and generally rounded:

<img src="http://goodmorningheartache.com/tanksale/orangedigi.jpg">

We lost power in that nasty storm last night for like 3 hours. Luckily I had my UPS backups ready to go. Anyone else lose power? How did you deal with it?

Backup systems, in whatever fashion, are ALWAYS a good idea.

In the rash of hurricanes in Florida the last few years, we lost power numerous times, often for several days. And believe me, with 95% humidity and 90 degrees, things go south very quickly. My solution was simple: I had a battery-powered car jumper. It had a cigarette plug into which I plugged in a 400w power inverter to give me AC. This ran my Tunze 6000s for a good 12 hours. For longer outages, I simply hooked the battery-jumper up to a deep-cycle marine battery, simpy a boat battery. This gave me plenty of power to run 2 tunze 6000s and a mag7 for 3 days during Hurricane Jeanne. To cool the tank off, I had bought several bags of ice from the gas station and stuck them in our deep freezer. Even with no power for a few days, the deep freeze stayed cold enough to keep the ice at least mostly solid. I put ice in ziplock bags and floated them in the tank. Cooled it off nicely.

I hope I never have to do any of this again I'm glad we're inland now...

It's always a good idea when planning a tank to plan your coral/inverts according it's original location, then ideally add other corals from that area only. Basically a biotope. I have had problems for many years with beautfiul shallow-water acros from Fiji or Tonga RTNing in a tank with leathers from Indonesia and Gorgonians from Florida for no apparent reason at all. Water was perfect in every way... toxicity is a big concern, especially in mixed displays.

In my newest tank I've paid careful attention to coral selection and placement. I've choosen coral only from the deeper-waters of the Indo-pacific, which is the pacific side of Indonesia only. This is quite a distance from Fiji, Tonga and the Solomon Islands, where a good majority of our SPS come from. Different ocean, different ocean currents, temperatures, etc. I choose this because of the great diversity that exists here: euphyllias, open brains, corallimorphs, bubbles, foxes, elegances... I admit I have two Ricordeas (Florida ricordeas).... but they've been with me for years

Probably the best reason to plan a tank this way: Corals from the same environment have similar requirements... water flow, light, feeding, etc. This is great, as you don't have to blast on coral with light only to shade another from that light. There are always acceptions of course... I have to shield a Nemanzophyllia (Fox) from the same light my Euphyllias get, but this is better than having to shield all of my LPS and shrooms from the big metal halides required to keep all of the high-color SPS I had... that made things very difficult to aquascape.

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yeah, I'd like to see them! I have some purple rics now.

Blue rics are nice. Do you have a photo of them by any chance?