Those are very nice pics indeed. What's your secret?

Thanks :D :D

I took some notes from a two part presentation by Felicia McCaulley, the ex photographer of live aquaria. Basically, she suggested to take fish pics with fast shutter and flash and corals pics at a very slow shutter (I took mine with 2' shutter) and very small aperture (f/20) with tripod. Worked like charm :D I have a flash gun coming in from amazon and that should produce some better shots :D

great pics! Looks like the new camera is doing well for ya!

Thanks Kien. Yah my photography is evolving :lol:

Just an FTS from a noob reefer :)

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3773/1...f5126747c2.jpg
FTS by md. raied, on Flickr

A lot has happened
 

Well, its been a while since I updated this thread. Just passing busy days since my degree is coming to an end (defense is on 17th Jan, wish me luck :) ).

Anyway, a lot has happened, both good and bad, regarding the tank:

1. Velvet outbreak:

Well I had a velvet outbreak which caused the following casualties:
Platinum clown (x1)
False perc clown (x1)
Lined chromis (x3)
Blue throat trigger (x1)

I still have the red hawkfish kicking around; its probably got immune to velvet.

2. Nutrient outbreak!

Since so much death occurred in the tank and I could only pull out one clownfish, the remaining was left in care of CUC. Luckily, I didn't get any sort of algae outbreak other than brown film. Did get the nitrate to some really high level along with phosphate. That's probably the reason I am still fighting cyano. Nitrate is now below 5ppm but phosphate is still around 0.1ppm. Hopefully, the zeo will take care of it. I couldn't start zeofood yet (because of high nutrient) so I am a bit off the road with zeo. I did some massive water changes (which lead to another problem) and sucking up as much cyano as I can. It goes away for few days (thins down) and then comes back with rage. I guess I just need to give it some time. Can't use chemiclean since it got an antibiotic which can throw zeovit to the dark side so don't wanna take the risk.

3. H2ocean bad batch!

Well H2ocean is known for its consistency but apparently, I got a batch whose parameters at 1.026:
Ca: 250ppm
Alk: 7dkh
Mg: 750ppm

Well before you start judging my ability to mix the salt at proper level, I had the salt tested at LFS and they also found the same parameters. Before taking it to the lfs, I contacted H2ocean about this lot and they were like "we are 100% confident that you are making some mistakes" and when I informed them that the lot is actually bad since I reconfirmed the results, they didn't reply back :) My emails were polite BTW, no blame game.

Basically, I used this batch to change 25 gallon of water in my tank (without testing the salt, thinking its H2ocean after all) so caused my ca to drop to 350 and mg to drop to 900ppm. Luckily it was for few hours and I was able to pick up the parameters. Got a new bucket of h2ocean with proper parameters and did a large WC and things are fine now :)

4. UM BALLING YO!
Yap, I have resorted to full balling now :) I wasn't particularly happy with 2 part (used to dose c-balance and I was happy with that but became hard to get). I really don't want to start any debate but since I spend a lot of money on what's in the water, I can spend extra $30 every 2 or 3 months to buy an aquarium grade dosing solution :) I was a bit surprised on how quickly the powders dissolved than 2 parts (possibly due to being purer). I have put a fish street doser to dose the 3 parts. The best thing I found about TM is that, you have to dose equal amount of each solution (the mixtures are concentrated in such a way that equal volume of the solutions will raise the Ca by 12.5 for every 1.75dkh alk: the ratio of ca and alk consumption). Here's a picture of the setup (nothing fancy but works; and I don't have a wife so don't have to care about how things outside the tank looks :P):

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3715/1...7fd3f567_c.jpg
2014-01-11 14.36.34 by md. raied, on Flickr

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3824/1...72ccb961_c.jpg
2014-01-11 17.40.15 by md. raied, on Flickr

5. New LIGHT!

I gifted myself with an ATI 6 bulb dimmable T5HO fixture. :) Hanged it from the wall today using brackets and butterfly anchor and DAMN! That thing is BRIGHT! The reflectors are WOW :O I broke one bulb while trying to take it out from the old fixture so only one channel (4 bulbs) are working and its putting out more light that the 6 bulbs in the old fixture did. Hell lotta light and the colors are popping insane :D Here's one picture (I will take more once all the bulbs are lighted):

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7305/1...f31e8ede_c.jpg
2014-01-12 16.53.53 by md. raied, on Flickr

6. I WON THE GHL PHOTO COMPETITION! :mrgreen:
So GHL held this photo competition and I came 4th place and the only submission from Canada to win :D :D :D I was initially at 6th place but the 1st and the 2nd positions cheated and was eliminated so I was bumped up by 2 positions but the voucher was of same value. I have a GHL supplement LED and the driver coming in (yes LED!!!!) to add some shimmer to the tank :) They even shipped it for FREE :D Awesome folks back at GHL :) I was really happy how they communicated (they even took care of the extra that I was suppose to pay for the order). I got a whole new respect for GHL now :)

So yah, that's all the updates for today; I will try to get some pictures up ASAP :)

That really sucks, velvet is such a PITA. I use H2ocean now you got me all worried :P, they do recommend mixing the salt after you get it because the heavier stuff evenly settles to the bottom through vibrations and movement. I put the salt in a big rubbermaid container and manually mix it before I use it. However I don't think this is your case since there was such a big discrepancy.

That light is awesome eh! I love the look of T-5s :) Let us know how the Balling method works out.:biggrin:

Yah the mixing increases your parameters by a slight amount (did it for the old bucket; took out the whole bucket and gave a good old-school style mix and that brought up the parameters by few 10s). If your lot is 06101316, you might wanna check your bucket too :P

Yah this fixture is just blew me away. Everyday, I am growing my taste on German products. Although they really lack the appeal when it comes to packing an expensive equipment but they make up for it. Can't wait for the GHL supplement LED :D

What do you mean when you say you're afraid chemiclean will " throw zeovit to the dark side " ?

The antibiotic can mess up the bacterial strains of zeovit. That's what I read in zeovit forum.