Ak77's Nano Journal

[AK77]

Out of the QT and into my display tank. Smudge's new friend... Cali (kinda looked like a calico lol).

Oh, on a side note... My sister was going past my LFS today, so I asked her to call in and pick me up some hermit crabs for my birthday last week. She asked one of the assistants who was working on the tanks where the hermits were and he told her "We don't have any. These ones are all dead".

He was removing in the region of 30-40 crabs (that my sister could see anyway - they usually have them in several different tanks that are all interconnected so there were probably more dead ones). So my ones dying was nothing to do with my tank at all!! It was theirs!! Both the blue knuckles I got from my LFS popped their clogs and whatever they had, took 3 of my Mexican reds with them

I R not impressed at all

Note to self... it does help to include the link to the picture when making a post about a picture

 

[Morri]

Hi AK just a quick question what depth of sand have you gone for in your DT?

Just adding mine thinking off going to about 50mm mixed fine and coarse.

 

[AK77]

About 50mm mate

 

[seffieuk]

Lovely picture of the clown that is when you remembered the link

Would you add it to the 'fish of the week' clowns thread please with any litttle notes you might like to make

Seffie x

 

[AK77]

Done Seffie

I was experimenting with my new camera the other day and a macro lens. Still struggling with the DSLR and the tank, mainly due to the fact I only have 36w of lighting in there. Low lighting = lower shutter speed. Moving fish and lower shutter speed = blurry images. Wish I had my 300w of MH , although on my little nano tank, that would just ever so slightly be overkill lol. Using the flash can be awkward, due to reflections etc and the fact that the lens body casts a shadow and the light can be quite harsh too. Bumping the ISO up to 800/1600 can render the images grainy, which is annoying.

Anyhoo, here's a couple of macro shots of some green star polyps. You can't see the little jagged bits on them with the naked eye. I was surprised when I looked through the lens.

 

[seffieuk]

Really nice, if only I understood a word of what you said

Seffie x

 

[AK77]

Me too Seffie. My photo's might be a bit better then lol

 

[seffieuk]

Me too Seffie. My photo's might be a bit better then lol

I don't believe a word of it

Seffie x

 

[Morri]

Hi AK I find the same on my orca with lighting and shutter speed hoping to get better results under the LEDs but will be a week or 2 before I add something to photo I am very impressed with the light shimmer just like proper sunlight

 

[AK77]

Hi AK I find the same on my orca with lighting and shutter speed hoping to get better results under the LEDs but will be a week or 2 before I add something to photo I am very impressed with the light shimmer just like proper sunlight

Same here mate. I ordered two of those car LED strips, which look very bright. I know they won't be much cop for corals due to their colour rating, but they will definitely come in handy with the picture taking. I ordered another 12v adapter too, so I'll just wire them into that since they are designed to hook into a car wiring loom.

I think there are 48 bulbs in all, so hopefully they will light up my room like a christmas tree. That way I can increase my shutter speed and lower the ISO for better images, without the need for flash and maybe even decrease my aperture size for a greater depth of field.

I sound like a right old David Bailey... even though I'm more of a Rumphole of the Bailey

 

[seffieuk]

I sound like a right old David Bailey... even though I'm more of a Rumphole of the Bailey

Seffie x

 

[AK77]

My Mithrax decided to put in an appearance and actually sat still like a good little crab. Due to its position under the rock I had some difficulty obtaining a clear shot initally. After buggering about with different lenses and settings, I managed to grab some ok shots. Here is one of the crops at 1280x1024 (which photobucket has resized to 800x600). I'm amazed they came out as sharp as they did, considering the shutter was open for about 5 or more seconds . If the crab had moved during this time, I'd have had a blurred mess. That'll do crab..... that'll do

 

[AK77]

I've made an upgrade to the tank in the form of a Redsea Prizm Pro skimmer. I used to have the normal Prizm on my old Rio 180 tank, which after some inital buggering about, worked well for me. I managed to get the pro, which is a hell of a lot bigger than the standard, for £60. Not bad considering they cost well over £225 for a new one. Initially I had it hanging on the back of the tank but I discovered that it had a very tiny leak. As luck would have it, the skimmer actually fitted into my sump with literally 1mm to spare! Ye Gods be praised!

Earlier this week I ordered some corals and invertebrates to go in the tank. Its been a while since I added anything and so was keen to get the ball rolling on some more eye candy. I bought a 6" leather toadstool and some reddish brown mushrooms on live rock, as well as some hermit crabs and snails. The box arrived on Tuesday morning at around 11am. Everything looked fine apart from the toadstool. I think it was too far away from the heatpack and it succumbed to the cold during transit. I acclimated everything over a couple of hours and added it all to the tank. The toadstool really didn't look well but, I hoped for the best.

By Wednesday morning, the toadstool was disintergrating in the tank and by midday I had to remove it for fear of it nuking my tank and killing other corals due to the toxins released. After a few precautionary water changes, I added some activated carbon to the skimmer to absorb some of the unwanted pollutants from the water. Within about 6 hours the water was looking crystal clear. Everything else appeared to be fine, although the green star polyps and xenia had retracted somewhat and suspect it was the toxins released by the deceased toadstool.

As all my hermits had snuffed it and the mithrax disappeared 3 weeks ago, never to be seen again, I decided to order 5 hermit crabs. I got them for a very good price. In the 5 were 3 species. 1 is a tibicans, I'm not sure on the other two, but have had them all before in my 180L and they all played nicely together. I also ordered a tiger nassarius snail and some bumble bee nassarius too. The tiger is awesome and the bumble bees a very cute addition.

I'll have some more goodies coming next week and so will update more then. In the meantime here are some pictures of the new additions to the tank.

Skimmer in sump. You don't get a tighter fit. The top section of the skimmer comes off too with about 5mm clearance of the cabinet top. The sides touch the front and rear pane of the sump.

This inconspicuous looking object is in fact part of the tiger snail. It buries itself in the sand leaving this appendage poking through. It obviously serves as some sensory organ as it seems to be able to taste food added to the water and unearths itself like something from the night of the living dead lol.

Here is the tiger itself. Beautiful colouration of the shell and it moves so gracefully around the tank.

Here are the bumble bees dotted around the tank

And on the new mushrooms

And a macro shot of them

One of the hermits that posed for a shot. Check out those hairy legs.... worse than Seffies

 

[SBL]

This thread and the "Nemo Diary" may actually lead me to persuade my Grandparents for me to get a 20 gallon. Grandad can get ahold of some plexiglass, so no problem building a tank and I might need some help with filtration. But, all this will wait a good year or 2 cause I'm pshing it getting a 100 gallon for Christmas.

 

[seffieuk]

Amazing photo quality as always - the one of the hermit looks like it came straight out of a horror movie

Seffie x