bert2001

I shoot with a Cannon Digital Rebel XT so I think I can help you with this problem

Does your camera have multiple focus points when you look through the viewfinder? ie. the little squares that flash when you push the shutter halfway down. If they do then all you have to do is put a square over what you are focusing on and keep pushing the shutter half way down until it turns red. This means that is what it is focusing on. Since you are shooting with a Cannon this I am assuming your camera has this.

You can also mually move your focus points by pushing the button that looks like a grid with the plus sign colored in. This will move you points one at a time until the one you want is selected. It is a little more complicated than I make it sound, but if you read your owners manual it should be in there.

Hope this helps, but by the looks of your photos you don't need much help at all. They all look great.

rifter098

your tank/fish/photos are all amazing! nice going getting it up and running so quickly! cant wait to see more pix...

mathas

Well, my order from AHSupply arrived yesterday. The first thing I did was take out the new 10000K bulbs to do a lighting comparison.

Here is a 9325K bulb on the left, with a 10000K bulb on the right:


Then when I went to do a full-tank 10000K shot, I promptly dropped one of the 20-minute-old bulbs and broke it! However, I left it 9325K/10000K for a while to see if the 10000K bulb would grow on me like the 9325K bulb did, and it did not. The light was too blue for my tastes, which made the reds in the tank look dark purple and the yellows look greenish. The 9325K bulb is by far my favorite of the three I've tried.

Shortly after cleaning up the glass shards, I decided to look at the bright light kit. I'm not exactly a skilled electrician, but everything I'd read said that the instructions were easy to follow. I'll be honest, I was quite overwhelmed at first, it looked like it would be really complicated when I got everything unpacked and sitting in front of me.

I took it one step at a time, though, and it wasn't that bad. I hooked up the first ballast, gave it a quick test before screwing everything down, and to my surprise it worked! I secured everything and moved on to the second ballast.

Unfortunately, the second half did not go as smoothly. One of the bulbs powered up and almost blinded me (those reflectors are amazing), but the other was barely lighting up at all. I rechecked the connection, tried a different bulb, connected the endcap to the other ballast... no matter what I did, that particular endcap would never fully power a bulb.

I called AHSupply this morning and spoke to Kim. He apologized, and said that they test everything before it gets sent out, so he couldn't imagine why it wouldn't work for me. He asked me a few questions about what I had tried, then said I should receive a new endcap on Monday. 1 hour and 34 minutes later, I received an email with a USPS priority confirmation number... talk about great service!

So, no pictures yet of the new fixture. I'm currently only running at 3/4 capacity, which is still a huge improvement, but I'll wait until it's running at 100% before I post pictures of it.

I also ordered more plants to fill in the tank, including a few portions of weeping moss to get started on a moss-covered cave. Those should arrive hopefully on Wednesday of next week.

Christian Patti

amazing tank.. a planted tank is my dream someday

Red1313

Wow... ... I'm in awe here, your tank is gorgeous and your pictures... how do you get them so good!?! My photgraphic attempts with my tank usually don't work so well.

mathas

As promised, my new endcap arrived today from AHSupply, and it solved the problem! I'm now running at the full 210W, which should make my plants happy.

Here is a full-tank shot with four GE9325K bulbs:


If you look in the lower right-hand corner of the tank, you may notice a new cave. I ordered it along with some food from http://www.kensfish.com, it's the Cichlid Rock #620. So far, I've seen a couple of rams, the corys, and one of the plecos going in and out of it. Seems to be a popular addition for less than $6!


Now that my angels are settling in, it's pretty apparent that only one of the seven is actually a platinum, the others are gold. I'm a little disappointed, but my local LFS has said they are willing to accept the ones I don't want for trade-in. I'll keep one gold, the platinum, and add a couple of other specimens and hopefully end up with a non-matched pair (i.e. different strains). The first such one I've added is this lovely black marble:


My bolivian rams are settling in, and have started to display their colors:


They always look like they're smiling:


Dinner time!


These pellets are so good, there are scuffles over the last few:


I wish I'd been focusing on that ram when the angel swooped in, but even blurry it's shows how much my cichlids love these pellets. They're Ken's Premium Sinking Bits, from http://www.kensfish.com.

On the way for arrival this week is a beautiful red tiger lotus, Alternanthera reineckii, and some weeping moss to try and fashion another cave.


Good lighting, a decent camera, lots of practice, and a healthy share of luck

clinton1621

I have to agree, you take amazing pics... great looking fish and tank setup

My pics never come out anywhere near that good =(

morganrules

beautiful tank and fish i love the little cory cats you got

mathas

And I thought I was done for the night! Part of my order from Ken's Fish also included spirulina wafers, which I dropped a few of in the tank about 5 minutes before the lights went out. The entire tank went nuts for these things! The plecos sought them straight out, the angels weren't far behind, then the rams and rasboras started in too.

Looks like I'll have to wait until after the lights go out to drop these in the future, I really wasn't expecting that reaction.

This picture has nothing to do with the new wafers, it just shows off the new angel again :


The angels ganging up on a wafer:


When tired of fighting other angels, some try stealing from the plecos!

Darlene

Beautiful pictures and fish. I love your rams.

jack--sos

Amazing tank!! excelent job

hope oneday i can have a tank as good as this

Blub

Great tank! I love Platinum angels (I'm thinking of one for my 48gal when I get some plant cover in) espeically when when on mass! Isn't it funny how all the fish go for algae wafer? Have you tried your Pleco on cuccumber out of interest?

mathas

Nope, zucchini only so far. They love it!

mathas

No stocking changes in this update, but I did play around with the aquascape.

I added 1x red tiger lotus (Nymphea lotus 'Red'), 3x Alternanthera reineckii 'roseafolia', and 10x Blyxa japonica. The Alternanthera isn't doing as well as I'd liked, but I'll wait it out and see what happens. In addition to adding the aforementioned plants, I had to remove most the Marsilea minuta. Between the snails and the rams, I woke up one morning to find that most of it had been uprooted and shredded. There's still one small clump left, but I doubt it will last long enough to spread. Time to start looking for another carpeting plant, I guess!

I also added some weeping moss (Vesicularia ferriei) and a small terra cotta pot, but I apparently don't have the DIY skills to turn it into a moss-covered cave. So instead, I have a clump of the moss attached to a small chuck of wood right next to the pot, maybe it will spread

Anyway, onto the before/after! Yes, the first picture has been posted already, but it's on a previous page at 20 posts-per-page.

8-25-08:


9-04-08:


Not bad for only a week and a half You can really tell the difference the increased lighting has made in how the wisteria is growing. In the before picture, the leaves were very spaced out and thick, while they're much more dense and intricate in the after picture.

cognizant

Still love it! Every time you post a picture I am even more amazed.

SkyCrystal

Oh my gosh! This is a beautiful tank you have here! and this also deserves a

Blub

Definate imprvement there. FOr carpet plants, why not try either Dwarf harigrass or HC?

mathas

I've kind of lost the desire for a carpeting plant, actually. If the one bit of remaining Marsilea spreads, fine... if it doesn't, that's fine too.

The rams and corys seem to really like the open sandy areas of the tank, so I have no plans go out of my way to change anything at this point.

MissMTS

I love the pic of all of the cories They are so cute!

mathas

My water change today seemed to trigger something in the angels, and two of them have finally paired off!

Here you can see the male doing his job and fertilizing the eggs:


Here's the proud couple together tending to the eggs:

Fish Addict

Oh my gosh! My angels look almost exactly the same as yours! They're so pretty! Congrats on the spawn!

coyoteoverdose

oh wow where did you get that wood with the holes in it love it lovely tank

Jess

That is sooo exciting. Thanks for posting it.

angelfish220

Your tank is great!!!!

Once all you plants fill in it will be amazing!

PetSmart

Incredible tank! I really like the spacing with the wood in relation to the plants!

mathas

Thanks for the feedback! As expected for a first-time pair in a community tank, the angel eggs were gone the next morning. That's not a problem in my opinion, as I'm not equipped to rear fry.

I'm not sure which piece you're referring to, but all of my driftwood came from various local pet stores. I got pretty lucky in regards to finding almost the exact driftwood I had in mind

Now onto other news...

I said the other day that the water change seemed to have triggered something in the angels and got them to spawn for the first time; well it wasn't just the angels! I went to feed my fish this afternoon, and noticed that only three of my bolivian rams were doing what I call their "FEED ME!" dance at the front of the tank... that's when I saw the other two guarding a batch of eggs!

Here's the female, with breeding tube still clearly visible from having just deposited the eggs:


Here's Mr. Fish-of-the-Month September 2008 himself, the male of the newly-formed spawning pair (excuse the food particles in the water, as I said, I just fed them)... note the obvious difference in tube shape/size between the male and the female from the previous picture:


The male fertilizing the eggs while the female hovers anxiously nearby:


Here's a slightly out-of-focus picture of the male keeping a close eye on a nearby bristlenose pleco while the female fans the eggs:


A wider-angle shot of the area the rams are keeping clear of other fish:

angelfish220

Yeah!! are the angels and the rams your first 'breeding fish'?

mathas

No, but they're the first I've had in many years that exhibit interesting breeding behavior. The black molly trio I have in the tank also breed, but I've only seen a molly fry one time... they tend to get eaten before I can notice a 0.25" black fish swimming around a tank.

Jess

Can you keep Rams with Discus? They have such beautiful markings.

mathas

I'm not sure. I know discus prefer (need?) water that is a bit warmer than the rams prefer, but I don't know how well the rams would adapt to that warmer water.

It might also depend on which type of ram you're talking about... I've never kept german blue rams, so they could be less tolerant of higher temps than the bolivians are for all I know.