I've had the Sebae anemone for over three years, but tonight it decided to do something I've never seen previously. I mean, if water quality goes to crap, anemones may respond accordingly. Or during a full moon, they may choose to spawn into the reef. But when everything is just like it should be, a mundane day at that, seeing it go from Super Saiyin to something a tenth of its size is noteworthy.
I'm behind on blogging - and that's not good. Overall, things are just growing quietly. I took a bunch of pictures, primarily from above. That's because the best view is from that vantage. If you aren't making it a point to look down on your reef from time to time, you're definitely missing out.
All pictures were taken with a Nikon D90 and a 35mm lens with a low f-stop.
As hobbyists, we appreciate the need for a variety of interesting chemicals at our disposal, and usually we use them without incident. Tonight however was different, way way different. About a year ago I received a package with a few bottles of 35% peroxide.
A video is coming in Spring 2015, but for the time being here are the guidelines:
I sell acrylic baffles cut to fit your aquarium via my shop: http://www.melevsreef.com/product/baffle-kit Once arrived, this is how to install them.
If you mimic the layout of the Model F on my site, you will be creating three zones. The layout is Skimmer zone on the left, Refugium zone on the right, Return zone in the middle.
I wanted to discuss that feeling that you get when you take a picture of your aquarium. Everything looks perfect to your eye, but the camera gives you a blue picture that seems less focused, slightly rounded, and overall it seems rather meh. Nothing that makes you want to share those images with others, at least not with any sense of pride.
Continuing from the previous blog, here are a few more actinic shots. I really wanted to capture a decent reflection shot, but the blue lighting doesn't help make it easy.
Taking pictures when all you've got are blue LEDs shining can be frustrating. Bottom line, it's unlikely you can take and share them instantly. The best method is to load them into some photo-editing software, and do some color correction to share something pretty others would appreciate. I took about 100 pictures over the past 24 hours, and these were the ones that I felt were the most worthy. I used Lightroom for post-processing.
Did you know that if you get a harem of female Lyretail anthias, you'll end up with one or more males at some point? Lyretails are beautiful bright orange fish with a purple eyeliner like Cleopatra, when female. When one decides to change to male, the fish will turn bright purple, extending a spike on their dorsal fin and will express dominance over the females. This pictures today were unintentional, the fish swam into my field of view so I snapped a couple to share.
First, here's an example of a female.
Sometimes we may notice tiny pockets of air building up in the area where the sand touches the glass. Occasionally you'll see worms, or pods, or just an empty tiny cavern to peer at, but this time I saw something different. This is a typical view, captured with my iPhone:
While taking a picture of the blue tort acropora that was recently mounted to the aquascape, I spotted something on the coral that I didn't want to see. To know for sure, I took a few more pictures with a couple of different lenses, trying to capture the exact spot I'd seen the first time. It turned out to be real, I found two red bugs in my reef today.
