Mike and Terry's 300g Reef

Fieroguy19 · Nov 16, 2011

Wow, you have awesome photo taking skills plus a bunch of hot wrasse in your tank.

dtpollard · Nov 16, 2011

Looking good guys. nice pics. w@@w

Mike&Terry · Nov 17, 2011

Murfman said:
Incredible build! What lighting are you running? Please tell me more on how you get such great pictures. I know you said you experiment a lot but I can't get my pix anywhere near that quality.

Thank you Murfman! We appreciate the kind words. I'll try to answer your questions...
Lighting: (2) 20k Radiums (1) 14K Ushio (2) Super Actinics, (3) Blue LED Stunner Strips

Camera: Nikon D300s
Lens: Tamron 90mm f/2.8 macro lens

I shoot in RAW and in general, here are the settings I used for the recent fish pics:
Manual Focus
No Flash
Shutter Speed: 100-250
ISO: 200-400
White balance: 10000k

Our fish are very active and I've found I get better results using manual focus and panning with the fish to get a good shot or two. I do experiment w/different shutter speeds and aperture settings to get the amount of light I want. I also try to keep the camera facing the glass straight on to avoid distortion. You can click on any of the pics to go to Flickr and you will see a link to the right of the picture for the Nikon D300s camera settings I used for that particular shot.

I do use the flash as well, especially when just the actinics and led stunner strips are on. For macro shots of the corals, I keep the lens against the glass to avoid distortion.

Hope this helps.

Fieroguy19 said:
Wow, you have awesome photo taking skills plus a bunch of hot wrasse in your tank.

Thanks Fieroguy19! and we do LOVE our wrasses!

dtpollard said:
Looking good guys. nice pics. w@@w

Thanks so much Dave!

Mike&Terry · Dec 4, 2011

It's been a while since our last update. Spent today rearranging some corals and did a bit of much needed pruning. We also replaced our MH bulbs with new Radiums. Thought we'd share an FTS taken tonight.

skinz78 · Dec 4, 2011

Looking awesome!

FlowerhornNYC · Dec 4, 2011

Looking great as alway Mike & Terry

revhtree · Dec 4, 2011

AHHHHH Gorgeous!

Aquaph8 · Dec 4, 2011

Looking beautiful M&T. How are all my favorite wrasses doing? :bigsmile:

Mike&Terry · Dec 5, 2011

skinz78 said:
Looking awesome!

FlowerhornNYC said:
Looking great as alway Mike & Terry

revhtree said:
AHHHHH Gorgeous!

Thanks guys! We truly appreciate the compliments.

Aquaph8 said:
Looking beautiful M&T. How are all my favorite wrasses doing? :bigsmile:

Thank you Brett... as for the wrasses, sadly, we lost the Rhomboids. The female ended up with swim bladder disease. we moved her back to QT, but she did not make it. The male mysteriously disappeared about a week later. Anyway, after 10 weeks of QT, I had become quite attached and am still really upset. Here's a pic of the male a few days after he was introduced to the DT:

RIP

If we try a Rhomboid again, it will be thru LA DD...

The male Bellae is doing great in the DT. The female is really tiny - lengthwise, smaller than our neon goby. The female was struggling due to the high flow in our tank (5 Tunze's and our closed loop) and having trouble competing for food. We put her back in the acclimation box for a week and released her again. After finding her plastered to the overflow box, not once, but twice, I made the decision to move her to our frag tank/refugium. She is now residing quite happily with a lone false perc that hosts an RBTA and a quirky little One Spot Foxface Rabbitfish. I know we will inevitably end up with two males, but I just wasn't willing to risk losing another fish. I'll have to try and get a pic of the little cutie soon.

-Terry

Aquaph8 · Dec 5, 2011

So sorry to hear about the rhomboids Terry, he looks so healthy in the pic too.

Mike&Terry · Dec 6, 2011

Thanks Brett. Terry and I took the loss pretty hard. On a lighter note, here are some pics Terry took of the male Bellae tonight:

Mike&Terry · Dec 11, 2011

spspirate · Dec 11, 2011

looking great guys!

falconerr · Dec 11, 2011

Tank looks amazing as it always does. Need to come by and see it in person again.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC

Aquaph8 · Dec 11, 2011

M&T, I keep coming back to stare at the bellae, such an amazing fish. Terry, nice job on the FTS too.

maroun.c · Dec 11, 2011

Amazing tank and breathtaking photography.
Thanks for Sharing.

Mike&Terry · Dec 11, 2011

spspirate said:
looking great guys!

Thanks Andy!

falconerr said:
Tank looks amazing as it always does. Need to come by and see it in person again.

Sent from my DROID BIONIC

Thanks Bobby, you are always welcome...

Aquaph8 said:
M&T, I keep coming back to stare at the bellae, such an amazing fish. Terry, nice job on the FTS too.

Thanks Brett! He is a very striking fish and the most active of all of them, lol.

maroun.c said:
Amazing tank and breathtaking photography.
Thanks for Sharing.

Thank you maroun.c for the compliment and for taking the time to participate in our thread!

Mike&Terry · Dec 13, 2011

We finally switched out the 2 Coralvue ballasts with Lumateks this past weekend. The tank definitely looks brighter. We also spent some time re-arranging corals and finally chiseled off the encrusting monti that was taking over on the top left.