Tek's 90 gallon macro tank!

[catran]

Absolutely beautiful! Great photo's too. Wha kind of camera and lens are you using?

 

[tektite]

Thanks! I used my Canon 5D mkII, with its 24-105 kit lens.

P.S. - Its nice to meet another Cat That's my name too.

 

[catran]

OOOOooo, way out of my price range, but thanks! I'll just live vicariously through your pictures then. lol
Yes, Cat is my real name... at least part of it. That's what my friends call me.

 

[tektite]

Lol, its out of my price range too, I got lucky and convinced my boss to give me it as a sign on bonus when I started working for him a couple years ago. You should be able to get nearly identical pictures from pretty much any SLR or high end P+S (though depth of field will be different with P+S). Just a matter of getting the right settings and a little patience

 

[Uslanja]

Nice looking tank! We have tried a few macros but the amphipods destroy anything we put in there in a day or two. We like the pods also, so we've decided to hold off on any more macros, at least for now. But it sure is nice to see your tank!! Feel free to post many, many more photos!!

 

[tektite]

I'll post plenty of pics as the macros grow or die, the tank continually changes. Like the green hair algae looking stuff in front of my red goniopora - I put it in the tank the other day and my blue leg hermits descended on it and it alone in the whole tank and have torn it to shreds! Oh well...

I had a lot of problems with amphipods too, they were eating my macros alive. My copperband butterfly and mandarin dragonet have helped with that issue

 

[tektite]

These guys were hiding last night, but can't neglect them! I think my she mandarin is really a he, that spike has definitely grown since I got it.

 

[catran]

Oh yeah, there's no way I could get those kind of pics on my p/s camera. Beautiful color on both fish. I love the deep blue and green of mandarins. Nice fish and pics.

 

[tektite]

Well, not too much going on with the tank. Mostly just rearranging macros to fill in the gaps from moving the corals out. Also added a ton of ghost shrimp, love those little guys My dragon's tongue halymenia is also making a comeback finally, have a small section in the back of the tank.

My favorite part of the tank:

Ghosties everywhere:

Halymenia coming back:

***I just figured out that photobucket automatically saturates pictures when you upload them I've compensated for that mostly, have to remember to do so in the future as well...

 

[catran]

Nice... Tek, did you read the Aquarium Fish International article on Macroalgae? You might really be interested in the current issue-June 2011. IT's an article on Macroalgae Forests. Talks about "seasons", fish, macroalgae forest animals. Very good article.

 

[tektite]

I skimmed it over quick at a friend's house. Interesting, but quite different from my tank. For one, that tank is kept so cold! Though it would be awesome to be able to keep metridium anemones.

 

[catran]

Yeah, the metridium nems are cool, but so are the beadlet nems....and you can keep them in your tank, if you can find them!

 

[DesertOrchid]

May I ask where you get your macro algae? I've been looking online as there are no LFS around here. Not having much luck. Thanks!!

 

[tektite]

The majority of my macros grew out of my TBS liverock. My favorite places online to get them are reefcleaners.org and Gulf Coast Ecosystems (live-plants.com). Their stock is seasonal and available as collected, so you may have to wait to get a particular type.

 

[DesertOrchid]

Thank You! I will check those places out!

 

[tektite]

Saw this cute little red scooter blenny at a LFS and brought her home She's really tiny right now, only about 1".

New girl in town:

Target (the Copperband) checking the new girl out:

 

[Reefmack]

Nice addition Tek - I really liked that second picture too!

 

[catran]

Cool pics, one inch is tiny!

 

[Robzilla]

Love the new addition! Target looks really healthy too!

 

[tektite]

Target loves PE mysis I soak the mysis in selcon before feeding him twice a day. In fact, I had noticed the copepod population rising lately and was wondering why, my green mandarin is still very fat. Come to find out that the mandarin has started to go after the mysis too, despite thousands of pods in the tank! Quite awesome