Build and Progress of my RSM Nano Tank

[Reefmack]

Good to hear the zoa die-off has stopped. Any response from LA? My little Fromia star is all over the place too, but hard to see it moving if I watch it. But, the next time I look it's in another place.

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 3 - Week 13 - Day 87 - Saturday September 22nd - Around noon

- 2 gallons water change with my "Ca enhanced" water. ALK is now up to 8.6 from 8.3 after the water change. I hope this is slow enough.

- Cleaning of the white pad.

- Sea Star is now moving everywhere. In a different place each time I look, but definitely prefers areas of low light. I guess she is acclimated now.

- The biggest of my blue stripped mushroom seems to move. His foot is now shaped like the letter U and with the body on one side of the U. Will he leave a baby mushroom behind???

- All others critters seem to do well.

- Leaving for the weekend: removed white pad, positionned the "black gate" lower than normal.

Next update on Monday night. Thanks all for visiting.

---

Reefmack: No, no time to email LA. This will have to wait until Monday.

[LaurentSeattle]

And here is a (bad) picture of the mushroom:



Any idea anyone?

[Reefmack]

It's possible a new mushroom will grow on the other end of the U. I've had something similar happen with my yuma types - they'll shoot out a "branch' of the foot and a new tiny yuma bud develops on it.

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 3 - Week 13 - Day 89 - Monday September 24th - Around 9pm

- Back from the weekend with nothing bad happening while I was away... All critters seems to be happy. Lucy Lu, the Yellow Wrasse, has a very round belly and seems to have gained some length... Hard to tell though....

- Did a 2 gallons water change with "CA boosted" water. After water change, ALK is now up to 8.7 (from 8.6) and pH is 8.3. Everything else, NO2, NO3, PO4 is zero.

- Mushroom foot still in its U shape, but the other side of the U seems to be burgeoning... Yay, new baby mushrooms?

- A piece a chaetomorpha algae that came long time ago with the feather duster has grown significantly...

- Restored 50 microns mechanical filtration, cleant the glass, removed some green algae, cleant white pad after feeding some Cyclop-Eeze.

[SaltwaterChris]

I just got done reading all 15 pages great thread and it really sounds like your staying on top of things the best you can.Your tank is looking pretty good but hard to tell haven't had a full front shot in awhile. Sorry about your zoa loss it happens to the best of us heck I can't even begin on how many things I've lost but that's another story.

[chetm2]

Ditto what Saltwaterchris said Just a couple of tips. Never use tap water to clean out your sponges or mechanical filters if possible. It can transfer the nasty stuff and actually feed the algae like fertilizer. The tap water here in Gilbert, AZ is close to 800 tds. It's high in everything you don't want in your tank. A hand held TDS meter is pretty cheap and worth the money. The difference between 0 tds and 30 tds is a algae farm. I learned the hard way years ago. The phosphate removal is great but be sure to rinse it out (with clean ro water) until it clears up before putting it in your tank. Another thing you could try to help with your algae outbreaks is a Lettuce Nudibranch, when he clears the tank of algae give him to a local reefer that needs help. Your peppermint shrimp may just be hiding. I have 4 that I hadn't seen in months and just happened to catch them cruising around at night the other day. The zoa's is a bummer, maybe LA did have some sort of fungus or something. Hope some of this helps. Keep up the great work and once the tank matures it will be even more beautiful

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 3 - Week 13 - Day 90 - Monday September 25th - Around 9pm

I have played a lot Halo today (hey, I even get paid for that!) but I found some time to execute my daily duties with the tank. Usual stuff, clean the glass, the white pad, nothing really new...

Here is more exciting: Once again ReefMack prediction comes true: My big stripped mushroom is somehow splitting! See how the "lower end of the U" is thinning on this picture below.



Thanks SaltwaterChris: Here is the FTS as of tonight. (No time to doctor a bit the picture, it is the real thing)



Pest algae are now almost gone. No cyano at all. Knocking on wood.. Chaeto is growing fast on the bottom right.

You can also see on the top left an Astrea snail: The growth is amazing; The snail was all covered with pink coralinne when I purchased it, the "clean" white piece of shell shows the growth...

[Reefmack]

Hi Laurent. Looking better all the time. If you have a local club around to give it to, I'd try a sea hare to get rid of what's left of the algae. They're a lot bigger than a lettuce nudibranch and will do a lot quicker job of it. Mine even ate some small patches of cyano I had - ate everything but the chaeto. But both the sea hares & lettuce nudibranchs will starve after the algae is gone, so having someone in need to give them to will prevent their demise from lack of food. Both are cool, efficient critters.

[Racktacular]

Hi everyone. It has taken me 3 days to read the entire thread and I must say that this is one of the best and more informative threads on this site. I am going to be getting a nano tank early next spring and trying to learn all I can before I start. It can never be too early, especially with me knowing absolutely nothing about the Reef hobby. I have a lot of infro written down on a piece of paper (and links) of all the great info everyone has supplied on this thread. Thanks again to all.

And Laurent: I just got Halo yesterday and palyed it for about 4 hours. Great game. Wish the sound effects on the guns were much louder as the experience of shooting things isn't as consuming (even with my 56" DLP with 8 channel surround sound). The online aspect is great and a ton of fun. My XBOX LIVE ID is VITB6 so if you want to send me a friend request that would be welcome.

- Rack

[LaurentSeattle]

Tank update coming soon...

Racktacular:

Thanks for your comments. If you should go with a RSM, check out the RSM club monster thread on this forum and also RSMReefers at http://rsmreefers.com/index.html for even more infos, blogs, galleries...

And one more thing... My gamertag is SeaCodeMaster on Live...

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 4 - Week 14 - Day 92 - Thursday September 27th - Around 7pm

- Did a 2.5 gallons water change.

- I am currently topping off with salt water. Salinity was at 1022 and I want it up to 1024.

- Tested ALK: up to 8.8 DKH from 8.6 last time. The objective is to very progressively reach 9.0 and stay above. So far I am using my very own recipe of "Ca enhanced" water: I dilute some (very few) of the "calcium+3" additive that shipped with the Red Sea starter kit into my "reserve" of new salt water. The product comes with the water changes and apparently ALK is slowly going up. If someone could comment on this method, that would be great. It worked nicely in the past for my Malawi and Tanganyka ciclids...

- Green Hairy Algae is still receding, and now almost totally gone. Good!

- Skimmer activity now looks like France in May... Very slow, and often nothing at all.

- I will go shopping for new critters this weekend: do not miss the Saturday night update!

- Yay! My bigger blue stripped mushroom is about to create an offspring: Look below!



Back to HALO...

Thanks all for visiting and posting here!

[kmjoen230]

Laurent - What type of camera do you have?! your pics are amongst the best i have seen for home aquatic shots!

[LaurentSeattle]

kmjoen230: I have a Canon Digital Rebel XT bought (at Best Buy) about 15 months ago. I shoot most pictures very simply: "No Flash" program, auto-focus, no tripod.

I want to be more "artsy", I dig into the manual settings. I do all my post-processing in Aperture on my iMac: Crop, Rotate, Resize, Color Adjust, Exports, etc...

I have found out that using the flash is also sometimes good. I am possibly going to explore a bit some HDR in the near future.

[Racktacular]

Laurent, you should add what type of camera and post-processing you do in your signature, since that is like the 3rd or 4th time you've repeated yourself. :-)

I'll add you on LIVE tonight, if I have the time to get on.

[kmjoen230]

Laurent - the camera is water proof?!

[LaurentSeattle]

Month 4 - Week 14 - Day 93 - Friday September 28th - Around 8pm

- Removed (by hand) some more algae.

- Cleant white pad and black sponge.

- The bigger mushroom has separated from its former piece of foot. But nothing like a mouth or similar can be seen on the offspring. Just a little flat "thing". Another mushroom seems to be willing to do the same. I tried to move the mushrooms to a quieter spot without success...

- All critters apparently doing well.

- Some Halimeda seems to be growing on one of the top rocks. Maybe the first good result of upping a bit Calcium and ALK. I will picture that tomorrow.

- Some brown strange "thing" is also growing on one of the rocks. Expect a shot tomorrow.

---

kmjoen230: Water proof camera? I do not shoot the pictures from inside the tank..

[MAXreefer]

Originally posted by kmjoen230
Laurent - What type of camera do you have?! your pics are amongst the best i have seen for home aquatic shots!

kmjoen,
I read here a while ago Laurent was using a Canon Rebel XTI and was also impressed with the quality of his pictures and got one also last month. (Yes also from best Buy. I am sure you can get a great discount there for sure!!).
I am definitely not a pro in taking pictures but I get quite some good shots with this camera (also using the no flash setting).
Took this one last week:


Laurent, hope you don't mind I invaded your thread here?
Michael
MAXreefer

[LaurentSeattle]

Great shot Michael! The purple surgeon is always cool in its pyjamas...

I like very much the Canon XT. It is easy as a point & shoot when you feel lazy and can become a near-pro camera when you go "manual". Amazingly in Point & Shoot lazy mode, you still get very nice pictures. The Auto-Focus "AI" is really good.

The XTi is even better. Highly recommended!

[MAXreefer]

Originally posted by LaurentSeattle
Great shot Michael! The purple surgeon is always cool in its pyjamas...

I like very much the Canon XT. It is easy as a point & shoot when you feel lazy and can become a near-pro camera when you go "manual". Amazingly in Point & Shoot lazy mode, you still get very nice pictures. The Auto-Focus "AI" is really good.

The XTi is even better. Highly recommended!

Thanks Laurent,
I have some fish who don't like to "pose" in front of the camera when I am nearby.
I connected the camera with a long USB cable to my laptop. I pointed the camera to a nice spot in the tank and then just sit far away from the tank. I use then the "Camera Window" software and when I see one of the fish in that nice spot I just start taking one pic after another controlled from my laptop. Many times I made great shots this way.
Michael

[Reefmack]

Great picture and a beautiful fish Michael! Taking the pictures from a distance away using your procedure is a great idea!

Laurent, MAXreefer - what photo editing software are you guys using? I have an older version of ACDSee, but it's pretty limited. Photoshop Pro is too expensive, but I was thinking of Photoshop Elements.

Laurent - what's the benefit of working with the RAW images?

[LaurentSeattle]

Reefmack:

I am using Aperture. It's only for the Mac.

RAW images are usually 12 bits per color and pixel, sometimes 14 bits and even 16 on very high cameras. That's more information and usually the final end of visual (compression and pixellation) artefacts in your pictures. With 12 or more bits,there is much more room for adjustments and post-processing. Once all done, the picture is exported to classic formats: JPEG, PNG, etc...

[Reefmack]

Thanks Laurent for that information! I'll be sure whatever I may get will work with the RAW images.

[Iostream]

Originally posted by LaurentSeattle

RAW images are usually 12 bits per color and pixel, sometimes 14 bits and even 16 on very high cameras. That's more information and usually the final end of visual (compression and pixellation) artefacts in your pictures. With 12 or more bits,there is much more room for adjustments and post-processing. Once all done, the picture is exported to classic formats: JPEG, PNG, etc...

To expand on this a bit, JPEG is 8 bits. Your camera sensor actually takes the pictures in raw, then immediately throws away 4 bits of information to do the jpeg conversion. Any editing you do to that jpeg just loses more information. It is always good to shoot RAW, then edit and export as necessary. As for software, there are several options. I shoot Nikon, so I use their Capture NX program, but Adobe Lightroom is also a decent option for working with RAW on PC ($299). I don't know how well Photoshop Elements handles RAW (if at all).

[Reefmack]

Thanks again Laurent. I just joined an Elements forum to see if it works with RAW.