fab

Simply test the tank. Clean it. Dry it. Put it on spacers above some cardboard so you can see under the tank. Fill it without spilling any water. Let it sit for several hours. See if there is any water under the tank or any discoloration of the cardboard. If so, it leaks. If not, it probably doesn't. If you are a skeptic, let it sit for more time. Often times a simple experiment takes the guess work out of an unknown situation. fab

Another way to pin the rocks together is to drill holes and use Acrylic rods as dowels. They can be smaller ini diameter than PVC and will not show if you do it right. You can get them at any plastic supply store. fab

Another way to pin the rocks together is to drill holes and use Acrylic rods as dowels. They can be smaller ini diameter than PVC and will not show if you do it right. You can get them at any plastic supply store. fab

Bendalat, Thank you very much. I spent an hour looking for that page and couldn't find it. I even used "sanjay" in my queries on google and on some forums. I appreciate this very much. fab

How heavy a tank do you think volunteers could manage safely? fab

There was an article posted or referenced in the forums earlier this year that showed pictures of a very large tank being moved onto its stand by putting it onto inflatable lift bags. The bags are then inflated to get the tank up to the level of the top of the tank stand. I'm trying to find that article and would very much appreciate anyone's help in finding it. Thanks, fab

Just shift your lighting schedule to match your schedule. Remember it is noon somewhere when it isn't here. fab

WoW! This goes beyond incredible. It is impossible. I agree with dhoch, HOW? fab

OK, so what's the good news????? fab

Unfortunately, I will not be able to join on the 19th. I expect to be out of town. Thanks for the invitation, though. fab

Is your flash controlled with TTL metering? Are your flash units(s) off-body? You could consider getting your flash checked out for its calibration accuracy. That costs though. How does it work for normal, non-aquatic scenes? Do you get good, even, balanced flash exposure? What is your flash-object-lens geometry? ...... I don't know Chris. What is going on on the 19th? fab

WRT the cropped image of the macna acro... Yes I think that can be a more interesting shot also. Try it in a vertical format since it is a naturally vertical object. Also make sure, just as you did in this version, not to center it. The other thing I would recommend is that you set your white balance. You will need a white object that is being lit by the same light that is lighting up your object. Maybe you have white sand at the bottom. If so you can balance from that. fab

Properly exposed flash will not wash out color. Overexposure will and does. With through-the-lens flash control you must know the minimum distance from which you can shoot with flash. If a flash is too close to the object, the controller will not be able to turn off the flash fast enough and you will get a hot spot in the image. If any region of an image is overexposed, then I regard that image as being overexposed. Flash will paint your corals with their true colors and will give the best looking, most vibrantly colorful photos. If you are used to looking at your corals under blue light then you are used to not seeing their true colors. Taking long exposure shots lit only by your normal aquarium lighting will give you photos that are color tuned to that lighting. If you like that as your product then fine. If you'd like to produce the stunning photos you see in magazines, you'll most likely have to use flash or studio lighting to bring out the real colors. Also, with a digital camera it is very important to calibrate your white balance before shooting. Something a lot of people don't factor into their shots is the fact that water doesn't reflect light from your flash back into the lens. So only the reflective objects in the field of view will participate in returning light to the camera. You will not light up the water with a flash unit. In my underwater photography, I use through-the-lens metering for aperture control and that controls turning the flash on and off based on the light returned from the object I am shooting. I always operate my camera on aperture priority for underwater shots, particularly macro photography. That means I set the desired aperture and let the camera select the shutter speed. That way I am in contol of depth of field; that is the control I prefer when shooting underwater. I take my light readings on a central spot basis that only uses a small region near the center of the lens to determine the shutter speed setting based on my manually set aperture. In macro, I normally leave the aperture set to its smallest setting. In my case that is f64. I take my light reading from the object I am photographing then I focus on the part of it I want to be the center of interest and then I reframe the image for composition. Since there are no natural up, down, left, right underwater you really have a lot of freedom in composition unless you are including the sea or aquarium bottom or the surface of the water in the image. Of course in aquaria, you also have to worry about other man-made objects in the image such as vertical tank edges and pump heads and the like. They have to look natural, also. That's generally not a problem in the ocean. To assure good exposures on a shoot, I calibrate my camera and flashes using a procedure that is a PITA for shooting underwater photos. I do this before a trip because I have to get my film developed before I can finish the procedure. My camera has an aperture offset feature that allows 1/3 f-stop incremental settings above and below the control apeture setting. I shoot a test scene at a couple of shutter speeds and aperture settings, varying the aperture offset from -2 f-stops to + 2 fstops, in the minimum aperture offset increment. Then I evaluate each image to determine which aperture offset provides the best exposure. I then use that aperture offset for the shoot. It produces excellent exposure results. You do have to shoot beyond a minimum range or the flash will not be able to turn off fast enough to preclude overexposures. Since you would be doing this in your home and probably are using a digital camera, you can do all this much more simply by just experimenting with over and under exposure control. If your camera doesn't allow you to crank in a set amount of over or under exposure you can achieve the result by moving the flash units farther and farther away from the object until you get no overexposed regions in the picture. To do this you need to have off-body flash units with long enough electrical control leads for your geometry. If you are using flash you don't need a tripod for the camera. You can take images fast enough that movement will not blur the image you have worked so hard to get set up and sharply focused. On the other hand having tripods for the remote flash units is a wonderful advantage. It provides a lot of convenience. fab

I posted a reply under dhoch's posting in which he is excited about his new macro lens. It ended up being more than a passing remark. After I posted it I realized that perhaps it should have been a standalone posting for people who are photographing their aquariums. So you can read it here: http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=10685 There are special considerations to be understood when using macro lenses if you want "WOW" photographs. It is a lot of fun and very rewarding to do macro photography well. I've tried to pass on some tips. I hope this posting helps you folks out there who are trying to capture really nice shots of your marine scapes and critters. fab

Macro lenses are fun to work with. Success in your macro photography will provide you with memorable images and great, artistic material to adorn your walls at home and at work. You will have lots of opportunity to learn how to use it well and to have fun with it. If you don't mind, I'll offer a few tips on the subject, using your pictures as examples. Macro photography of our marine scapes and specimens can be one of the most rewarding ancillary activities to being aquarists. First of all, good macro photography is not easy. It is hard. But, when it works, it works. It can be spectacular. Our little microcosms of the oceans cry out for us to take really neat macro shots. One thing you have to learn about macro photography is that you have only a handful of millimeters of depth of field to work with. You must shoot with the smallest aperture (largest f-stop number) that you can. That will give you the most depth of field. Still though it won't be a lot. Your lens probably has very high f-stop numbers on it compared to normal lenses. That is because of the aperture requirements to get the depth. Using a flash is pretty much the only way to get adequate light to get away with the smallest apertures. Composition can really be tough because of the depth of focus limitation. Good composition of a scene in the photo frame is one of the big challenges in macro photography. The depth of field problem is clearly evident in the shots of your Leng Sy cap. Notice how few of the details are actually in focus as you move from the foreground to the rear of the picture. Then again in the blue pink stylo notice how few of the white tips are in focus. Then go look at the real objects and observe how narrow a distance range those white tips that are in focus fall in. It's probably in the order of a half inch or less. That is the depth of field. It's not much, is it. When you look at the work of the best macro photographers you'll see they often orient the picture to have the smallest distance range of interest in the photo oriented more parallel to the lense, placing more of the interest in the shot within the expectedly small depth of focus. Shooting macro shots across objects emphasizes the depth of field problem because only a narrow distance range of the object will ever be in focus. This is evident your shot of the macna acro. Also, when shooting macro photography, an important skill to develop is choosing the right feature to be in focus and making sure it is sharp. The human eye is naturally drawn to the part of a picture that is in focus. So that's how you make sure you draw the eye of the observer to the interest you are trying to establish in the photo. An example, in the macna acro shot the topmost part of the object is in the frame. It is a natural feature that draws the eye to it. But it is not in focus. That makes the eye have to search for the region in the frame that is in focus, which turns out to be about 1/3 of the way up from the bottom of the object of interest. In a specimen shot like this one it would be better to do either of two things. First way, frame the shot so the peak isn't in frame. Then focus on the blue tips of one of the detailed features that is facing forward or almost forward, and re-frame the shot so that feature is well off-center in both the horizontal and the vertical directions. That type of shot makes the bulbous shape and its tip the obvious point of interest. The second way is to frame the shot much as you have it now, but make sure the topmost blue tips are sharply focused. Also, reframing the shot so the long axis of the stem is oriented at an angle within in the picture frame with the very tip top being about 1/3 down from the top and the bottom of the stem being about 1/3 up from the bottom, would improve the composition. When shooting critters, you ALWAYS want the eye or the eyes of the main critter in the frame to be in focus. The human pysche doesn't cooperate with photos that violate this rule. Try violating this rule and see if you can ever come up with a photo that makes someone say WOW about the impact of the photo, itself, not of the specimen in the photo. You probably won't succeed. The masters follow this rule strictly. In my own underwater photography I use two off-camera flash attachments when shooting macro shots. Neither of these flash sources can be very close to the camera or you will get back scatter, or in shooting aquarium shots you'll get reflections of the flash, itself. When I say close, I mean it in terms of the angle that is formed between the line from the flash to the object and the line from the object to the lense. 35-60 degrees is often about right. One flash wants to be somewhat overhead shooting down and the other wants to be coming in from above and off to a side. The one coming in from overhead can be a much as 90 degrees, shooting straight down to the object. Shooting through the tank sides really makes these geometries hard to work, as its flat surface adds another dimension to the problem lighting geometry problem. You should also consider using a black drop cloth behind the you and the camera to eliminate ambient reflections from the glass or acrylic surface. Have fun and good shooting, fab

Look into sliding barn door hangers and rails. Cheap and easy to work with. Strong and won't bend under a lot of weight. Example at top right of this page: Example of sliding barn door hardware (Not an endorsement or a specific recommendation, just an example. Google it yourself to find a suitable one.) Alternatively, check with NAGA for automatic light movers for the fancy approach. fab

You must be excited to be getting a tank from NAGA. He does quality work and insists on quality fittings. You should really enjoy this large tank. I did a couple of calculations for your tank. I hope that they are useful to you: It will displace 292 gallons, that is the exterior volume (39 cu. ft.). It will hold 10.8 gallons per inch of water depth. It will hold 237.5 gallons at 2 inches below the brim, 259 gallons to the brim. The interior volume is 34.6 cu. ft. to the brim. fab

Gatortailale, Thanks for your recommendation the link to the Marine Angelfishes book. It is now in my library. fab

I recommend you simply make a decision on what you think is best for you. Don't rely on others to decide for you. They don't have the direct and detailed knowlege of all the details of your situation and your capacity to deal with it. fab

Looks like a Heteractis Magnifica to me. fab

You guys need to go to bed. fab

What is the "LT" in "LTA" ? fab

Overheating can cause a short in the motor that isn't there when the motor cools. Hot wires expand. Cold wires contract. That can set up conditions to make a circuit when the wire expands (hot) and to break the circuit when the wire contracts (cold). You could try experiments with hot and cold water, somewhere other than in your aquarium or sump to test it for hot/cold failure. fab

Gotta be the salt. ... or the ozone! fab

Acryllic looks a bit thin for the 18" tank depth. I'd ask what the material is. Polycast? thickness? then I'd post the thickness and get someone knowlegeable to advise if it is thick enough to be used without a top brace. I know the baffles can be regarded as providing some bracing, but I'd get the number and get some advice. good luck, fab