Will this color up?

mrcoffee2 · Jun 9, 2014

Hey Guys,

This is by far the most expensive Acan I have ever bought and I may be having a bit of buyers remorse... honestly I know things can color up but it doesn't even look close to me. Will this thing color up or do they typically stay the same?

Here is an image of what it is suppose to look like.

I feel shammed

mike007 · Jun 9, 2014

How long have you had It? I find they do best towards bottom (less light) and make sure all your parameters are spot on and he should color up.

Pete polyp · Jun 9, 2014

Run it through the same Photoshop they did and it will color up instantly!

It looks pale and has a good possibility of coloring up. It may never look like the other picture though, but there's stranger things that have happened.

mrcoffee2 · Jun 9, 2014

I have had it for 2 days now, but it was at the sellers house for 2 weeks looking the same. I have it on the bottom under a hydra at 50% power. The pic I took was just CW but for the most part they are under blues. My parameters I believe are good all of my acans are puffed up with feeder tentacles gaping out of them

0 ammonia
0 nitrates
0 phosphates

mrcoffee2 · Jun 9, 2014

mike007 said:
How long have you had It? I find they do best towards bottom (less light) and make sure all your parameters are spot on and he should color up.

Yeah thats kinda how I feel right now... Hopefully things spark up... At $75 a head its a bit discerning

playin gmz · Jun 9, 2014

You should be fine, give it some time in the right spot it will look better than you think.

vic67 · Jun 9, 2014

I agree on giving it some time and keeping it low in your tank.

mike007 · Jun 9, 2014

Probably just stressed a bit from being moved . Give It some time and It will come around.

saltjunky · Jun 9, 2014

I bought one a month ago had nice pinks and purple looked great drove 30 min across town and it has just now got all its color and Imo looks better now than before so like everyone says time

Dustyboots · Jun 9, 2014

+1 on Photoshop, my acans are being nibbled on by crabs I think. Mine love to be target-fed, they light up.

Jonreefer · Jun 9, 2014

i love everyones always like photoshop photoshop cause it seems to be the hip thing to say these days. Meanwhile 90% of those people wouldnt know the difference if it bit them.
Anyway it also looks like your runnig a much more 10k spectrum it looks yellow and the pic was taken with a bluer light to make colors pop alot more. Some contrast seems to be added but overall i think if you threw it in a 20k light tank it would look pretty much the same

Pete polyp · Jun 9, 2014

Jonreefer said:
i love everyones always like photoshop photoshop cause it seems to be the hip thing to say these days. Meanwhile 90% of those people wouldnt know the difference if it bit them in the ***.
Anyway it also looks like your runnig a much more 10k spectrum it looks yellow and the pic was taken with a bluer light to make colors pop alot more. Some contrast seems to be added but overall i think if you threw it in a 20k light tank it would look pretty much the same

Yeah, no Photoshop there.... They just have some funky cyan colored frag rack...

trido · Jun 9, 2014

I haven't bought on line for years but do know a couple of the folks affiliated with Reef Gen and highly doubt that they would overly PS a coral to sell it. Did you get it directly from Reef Gen or did you get it from someone who says its from them? Or is this just a picture of a coral that is supposed to look like your coral.

The poster who stated that the lights you have it under are more 10K is pretty spot on. Try 20K lighting for a while and maybe less light and it should color up better. I have a hard time believing that your Acan is the one in the Reef Gen pic. They usually have to take a lot of punishement to pale out and lose as much color as much as your is compared to the picture.

Not to pick on you, but on your frag rack, I see cyano or diatoms, and it also looks like somepossible algea on the zoa's in the forground. If your conditions are less than ideal all your corals will brown out .

Jonreefer · Jun 10, 2014

if the pretty color acan photo is under LED then the frag rack looking like that is no surprise. LED do goofy things to camera sensors and make them go a bit wacky. Just because something in the background doesnt make the photo a lie. If shot under LED or anything for that matter someone trying to color correct the main focus of the image the acan to as close as the eye can see can cause small other things to go a bit out and not look right in the background but no one is focusing on the background. but lets chant photoshop cause its the hip thing to say around here lately.

The other thing people seem to dont understand is 99% of the photos NEED photoshop to be able to clean them up. Especially with LED. If you take a photo right out of the camera from a LED tank its not going to look like it does to the eye. ALL photos need to be edited and PHOTOSHOPPED to get them to look as close as they can to what it looks like in person. Some will say mine looks close to it out of camera and I will bet that person is shooting with some point and shoot which basically in camera processing already adds a ton of contrast and saturation to the image to make it look like it has alot more punch. SAME thing as doing some photoshop work its just doing in camera cause its geared towards the crowd who doesnt want to do ANY extra work. now shooting a DSLR that same image will be alot flatter looking and colors are not as vibrant and that user will have to do ALOT more in photoshop to get the image correct. So that person is wrong because they are doing it externally in photoshop but someone with a pointnshoot that saturates the hell out of the image and adds boat loads of contrast is wrong cause it came out of the camera already photoshopped. So unless something is just stupid looking and colors that would never happen then most times photoshop is needed.
Just like my photo here someone tried to claim I shopped it. Nope I took my RAW file adjusted color temp for white balance and that was pretty much it. I would be willing to give anyone a RAW file to use in Photoshop to do my exact settings of a color temp change and see that it is true to the photo.

these where shot with a Canon 7D and 135L
So if you would like to continue the little debate photoshop go and join one of those threads where people like to talk about it like they know anything.

declanisadog · Jun 10, 2014

Jonreefer said:
if the pretty color acan photo is under LED then the frag rack looking like that is no surprise. LED do goofy things to camera sensors and make them go a bit wacky. Just because something in the background doesnt make the photo a lie. If shot under LED or anything for that matter someone trying to color correct the main focus of the image the acan to as close as the eye can see can cause small other things to go a bit out and not look right in the background but no one is focusing on the background. but lets chant photoshop cause its the hip thing to say around here lately.

+1 On this. I've gotten a few acans in the past that were way worse than this one that are now super colorful. IME putting them in a nice shaded spot with, and regular feeding seems to help immensely.

Pete polyp · Jun 10, 2014

Jonreefer said:
if the pretty color acan photo is under LED then the frag rack looking like that is no surprise. LED do goofy things to camera sensors and make them go a bit wacky. Just because something in the background doesnt make the photo a lie. If shot under LED or anything for that matter someone trying to color correct the main focus of the image the acan to as close as the eye can see can cause small other things to go a bit out and not look right in the background but no one is focusing on the background. but lets chant photoshop cause its the hip thing to say around here lately.

The other thing people seem to dont understand is 99% of the photos NEED photoshop to be able to clean them up. Especially with LED. If you take a photo right out of the camera from a LED tank its not going to look like it does to the eye. ALL photos need to be edited and PHOTOSHOPPED to get them to look as close as they can to what it looks like in person. Some will say mine looks close to it out of camera and I will bet that person is shooting with some point and shoot which basically in camera processing already adds a ton of contrast and saturation to the image to make it look like it has alot more punch. SAME thing as doing some photoshop work its just doing in camera cause its geared towards the crowd who doesnt want to do ANY extra work. now shooting a DSLR that same image will be alot flatter looking and colors are not as vibrant and that user will have to do ALOT more in photoshop to get the image correct. So that person is wrong because they are doing it externally in photoshop but someone with a pointnshoot that saturates the hell out of the image and adds boat loads of contrast is wrong cause it came out of the camera already photoshopped. So unless something is just stupid looking and colors that would never happen then most times photoshop is needed.
Just like my photo here someone tried to claim I shopped it. Nope I took my RAW file adjusted color temp for white balance and that was pretty much it. I would be willing to give anyone a RAW file to use in Photoshop to do my exact settings of a color temp change and see that it is true to the photo.

these where shot with a Canon 7D and 135L
So if you would like to continue the little debate photoshop go and join one of those threads where people like to talk about it like they know anything.

I find this hilarious because you seem like you want to argue that PS wasn't used and then say its necessary. You took the RAW image and adjusted it in PS, so yes its been PS. If the white balance is adjusted correctly then white will be white in the picture no matter what lights it was taken under.

returnofsid · Jun 10, 2014

Let's stop with the insults and name calling! If members refuse to act like respectful adults, Staff will motivate those members to act like respectful adults! Offending Posts have been removed.

Here's the deal...

Our modern day cameras do not know how to handle the blue lights of our reef tanks. We humans are able to 'see' white, even with the blue lighting. Our cameras are NOT able to 'see' white, with the blue lighting. Because of this, we have to 'TELL' our camera what white 'looks like,' under the intense blue. We do this by either setting a Custom White Balance OR by Adjusting the White Balance, in post processing. Usually, this is NOT done in Photoshop, but prior to Photoshop, in the RAW editing. After the White Balance is adjusted, then the photo is sent to Photoshop.

Photoshop is a useful tool, for any photographer, even when shooting other objects than our reef tanks. I use Photoshop all the time, because I shoot everything in RAW. Shooting in RAW REQUIRES post processing. When shooting in JPG, post processing ALWAYS takes place, IN THE CAMERA. The camera decides how to process the image. When shooting in RAW, I decide how to process the image, taking the decision away from the camera.

Photoshop CAN be overdone, to make a coral look much different than it actually does. This use is unethical, IMO, especially if used to sell. However, Photoshop can be used responsibly as well.

Pete polyp · Jun 10, 2014

returnofsid said:
Let's stop with the insults and name calling! If members refuse to act like respectful adults, Staff will motivate those members to act like respectful adults! Offending Posts have been removed.

Here's the deal...

Our modern day cameras do not know how to handle the blue lights of our reef tanks. We humans are able to 'see' white, even with the blue lighting. Our cameras are NOT able to 'see' white, with the blue lighting. Because of this, we have to 'TELL' our camera what white 'looks like,' under the intense blue. We do this by either setting a Custom White Balance OR by Adjusting the White Balance, in post processing. Usually, this is NOT done in Photoshop, but prior to Photoshop, in the RAW editing. After the White Balance is adjusted, then the photo is sent to Photoshop.

Photoshop is a useful tool, for any photographer, even when shooting other objects than our reef tanks. I use Photoshop all the time, because I shoot everything in RAW. Shooting in RAW REQUIRES post processing. When shooting in JPG, post processing ALWAYS takes place, IN THE CAMERA. The camera decides how to process the image. When shooting in RAW, I decide how to process the image, taking the decision away from the camera.

Photoshop CAN be overdone, to make a coral look much different than it actually does. This use is unethical, IMO, especially if used to sell. However, Photoshop can be used responsibly as well.

I agree completely, and PS is something that needs to be used responsibly.

mrcoffee2 · Jun 10, 2014

So to shift focus off of PS here and more towards the problem I am having lets talk about my lights and what I can do to optimally bring out the color in these corals. The picture I took was with an iphone under ONLY cool whites. Here is what is normally running.

For lighting I have an AI Hydra over a 16G IM tank.

My RGV colors come on for 8hrs a day peaking at 50% intensity for 4 hrs with a 2hr ramp down on each side.
My Cool White comes on for 6 hrs a day peaking at 40% for 2 hrs with a 2hr ramp down on each side.
My Royal Blue and Blue comes on for 8hrs a day peaking at 90% with a 2 hr ramp down on each side.

What can I do to my light schedule to color up this acan as much as possible?

As for the Cyano, I will be getting an MP10 this week that should help.

As far as placement the acan 2 inches from the bottom of the tank.