Bubba's SPS Journey

Fudsey · Feb 2, 2019

marvelousone said:
is this part from a skimmer.

That's an Avast port hole camera attachment

joeyvu · Feb 2, 2019

After spent several hours a day for more than one week, i finally finished reading all these pages, i really admired your reefing skill, bubba. Your corals and your tanks are awesome.
I have my tank setup same as yours, just an oversized skimmer and chaeto and it is still young, only six months old. I still trying to achieve stable po4 and no3 level and alk as well. I have to copy your way of handling these nutrient level control if you don't mind.
After looking at your beautiful corals photos, i don't want to look at mine any more. :(( . Yours are breathtaking!!! I might have to ask for a TBD pack one day when my tank is more stable.
Great job, sir!

sawdonkey · Feb 2, 2019

Do you use the regular port hole or the long one? I just ordered the long one, but I’m a little worried I’ll need to crop it out of my pics. However, I like that I will be able to maneuver it more without taking on water.

Big E · Feb 2, 2019

Yes, I shoot everything in RAW with a custom white balance. It's always worked well with my old camera.

The new camera so far has not been easy to get the custom white balance set right.........I may be setting it incorrectly, so there's that.

erk · Feb 2, 2019

Big E said:
Yes, I shoot everything in RAW with a custom white balance. It's always worked well with my old camera.

The new camera so far has not been easy to get the custom white balance set right.........I may be setting it incorrectly, so there's that.

I've always avoided setting a custom white balance myself and just fixed it in post. But since Bubba shared those white balance cards, I guess I'll give it a try.

litenyaup · Feb 2, 2019

bubbaque said:
Thanks Ed!

I was always under the assumption that white balance didn’t matter if you took pics in raw. I started talking to a few people who take great pics and they said it does slightly matter as the data that’s saved in the camera is more accurate.

Those more recent pics were taken with a custom white balance and no filter. I set the white balance by buying one of those cheap white balance cards off amazon, setting it in the tank, taking a pic of it and setting it as the white balance.

I’ve noticed my pictures seem more accurate after doing it this way.

Here is a link to the cards I bought.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00GSC97HG?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_pd_title

I like the cards but i have always just used a white piece of printer paper. Worked out well most of the time.

bubbaque · Feb 2, 2019

joeyvu said:
After spent several hours a day for more than one week, i finally finished reading all these pages, i really admired your reefing skill, bubba. Your corals and your tanks are awesome.
I have my tank setup same as yours, just an oversized skimmer and chaeto and it is still young, only six months old. I still trying to achieve stable po4 and no3 level and alk as well. I have to copy your way of handling these nutrient level control if you don't mind.
After looking at your beautiful corals photos, i don't want to look at mine any more. :(( . Yours are breathtaking!!! I might have to ask for a TBD pack one day when my tank is more stable.
Great job, sir!

Thanks for taking the time to read through the thread, I know it's long now. I appreciate the compliments also.

Nutrient levels are handled with chaeto and the corals absorbing them. I don't use my skimmer much for nutrient export as I rarely clean it but mainly use it for gas exchange.

If you are ever looking for a pack of corals send me a message and I am sure we can put something together for you.

sawdonkey said:
Do you use the regular port hole or the long one? I just ordered the long one, but I’m a little worried I’ll need to crop it out of my pics. However, I like that I will be able to maneuver it more without taking on water.

I originally started with the long one but recently bought the short one. I like the short one better as sometimes when I took pics in the frag tank the long one would cast shadows on some of the corals when I would try and get close. With how deep your tank is you will probably like the long one better. On my short lens I have to try and center it perfectly to try and make sure it doesn't include the porthole in pics. Sometimes it still shows the porthole but then I crop it out.

Big E said:
Yes, I shoot everything in RAW with a custom white balance. It's always worked well with my old camera.

The new camera so far has not been easy to get the custom white balance set right.........I may be setting it incorrectly, so there's that.

The cameras for sure handle white balance differently. My old camera seemed to accurately portray corals with just having the white balance on auto. When I got the new camera it seemed no matter what setting I used for white balance the pictures looked weird, especially when I took pics under the radions. If I wanted to take pics under the radions I started using a brown a filter and it seemed to help tremendously. I didn't really like using a filter as it darkened my pics and made me increase my ISO. Using the white balance card got me away from the brown filter and seemed to help with my weird picture issue. For $10 it was worth a try and I am glad I did. I still have to set the correct temp in lightroom but pictures no longer look weird.

erk said:
I've always avoided setting a custom white balance myself and just fixed it in post. But since Bubba shared those white balance cards, I guess I'll give it a try.

That is what I was able to do with my old camera. With my new camera it didn't matter, the pictures would still come out with this weird hue to them and would be really dull. Your camera probably handles it much better but again for $10 it is worth a try and see if it makes it even better.

bubbaque · Feb 2, 2019

litenyaup said:
I like the cards but i have always just used a white piece of printer paper. Worked out well most of the time.

I was surprised to find a white balance card isn't really white but dark grey. For a while I tried to take a macro pic of a white frag plug and setting it as my white balance but it didn't help.

sawdonkey · Feb 2, 2019

bubbaque said:
I was surprised to find a white balance card isn't really white but dark grey. For a while I tried to take a macro pic of a white frag plug and setting it as my white balance but it didn't help.

Hmmmmm. Interesting. I sometimes use a piece of the top of a salt bucket (pure white) and my white balance comes out looking really green.

joeyvu · Feb 3, 2019

Thank you, bubba.
I will pm you when my tank us ready. :))
About the skimmer, mine does not skim as well as before. Lately, it doesn't produce any skimmate at all. I thought because I hook the intake line to the outside air. It brings my ph up to 8.31 without using co2 scrubber. That is a good news then. :))
Thanks again for your reply.