58g Planted w/overflow and sump

[fishorama]

Thank you for the bucephalandra push, you know I want them! I will try to limit myself to 1 or 2 kinds, I'll see what TB has next meet. Yes, I do remember your first ones & how excited & worried we both were but I thought you had co2 or at least Excel at that time...shows how much I recall, that's why I repeat questions on your long threads, ha.

Meh, I don't mind a bit of algae on the glass, green or brown...especially since my husband usually scrapes it, lol.

My crypt. hudorii doesn't get brownish/reddish edges (pretty!) but I thinks yours is showing better health than mine... Well, I just looked in my 75g & it is showing just a bit on the bigger leaves, maybe it's happier (& younger) than in my river tank. But not reddish like yours so far.

Oh, & those are the prettiest MTS! I have a jumbo-ish 1 that never seems to move much, it just waits for the Repashy to drop down in ~3 inch area, lazy snail!

 

[myswtsins]

Thank you for the bucephalandra push, you know I want them! I will try to limit myself to 1 or 2 kinds, I'll see what TB has next meet. Yes, I do remember your first ones & how excited & worried we both were but I thought you had co2 or at least Excel at that time...shows how much I recall, that's why I repeat questions on your long threads, ha.

Meh, I don't mind a bit of algae on the glass, green or brown...especially since my husband usually scrapes it, lol.

My crypt. hudorii doesn't get brownish/reddish edges (pretty!) but I thinks yours is showing better health than mine... Well, I just looked in my 75g & it is showing just a bit on the bigger leaves, maybe it's happier (& younger) than in my river tank. But not reddish like yours so far.

Oh, & those are the prettiest MTS! I have a jumbo-ish 1 that never seems to move much, it just waits for the Repashy to drop down in ~3 inch area, lazy snail!

Oh, I don't blame you for asking questions! It's too much to sift through again to look for random answers lol. I have not used CO2 in either tank but I did use "excel" for a little while in the 29g and basically the whole time in this tank. Buce in the 29g seems just fine without the excel now though, but no nitrates for a long time did make it a little unhappy. Added nitrates fixed that right up though!

The usteriana came with some brown/red stripes on it too. I figured maybe those were the leaves closest to the light? But It seems like a good thing....

I like my MTS so much. I intentional got these "prettier" ones years ago and seed all my tanks with them now. There is an even prettier strain I wanted too but I don't see them around anymore. Wow, that is a lazy snail! lol Mine are very active.

 

[myswtsins]

Slow and steady! Not too much has happen this past month but here's the highlights...

• Usteriana and Balansae has grow so long it is hitting the front glass and than some.
• Hudoroi has filled in a bit more and continues to have strong new growth.
• Affinis and Nurii getting more and more beautiful with every new leaf.
• Buce is certainly bouncing back and has picked up the pace in the past couple weeks even.
• Misc patch has some ID-able plants now and some are distinctly different than all the other varieties I have.
• Most of the Amanos have released their young, others aren't quite ready yet but more everyday. I didn't setup rearing tanks, too busy for that right now but maybe down the line sometime. Breaks my heart to think about all those wasted little lives!
• Still have the glass algae and even trimmed a few old leaves that had some BBA on them but still nothing to be concerned about in the algae department. Oh and some green fuzzy algae on the glass as well.
• Still doing manual dry ferts at a very low rate and just metricide. I figure this tank has been very stable and successful so why go and mess with it by adding the doser and co2. I pre-measure my ferts out into pill jars and use a syringe for the metricide so it's super easy to dose.

So this tank has been setup for almost 3 months, maybe it's time to start thinking about fish? We really haven't talked about that at all! I was super tempted to get some forktail rainbows from Mgamer2000 during his black Friday sale @$4 each cause I've always wanted them and they would LOVE this tank/water. Problem is this tank is kinda in a walkway where I pass by the tank closely and often so I need brave outgoing fish and forktails are know to be skittish so no forktails.

I've always liked black and silver mollys though and have never owned any mollys ever. Yeah, I skipped right over the easy beginner fish that love my well water, go figure! So, I'm thinking just a bunch of mollys and maybe some mystery snails and....done? Suggestions?


I haven't cleaned the glass in a few days and the feeding clip is still in the tank but whatever, you're getting pictures, isn't that good enough!?

Random FTSs - Let me know which angles/settings you prefer


We'll start with the Usteriana this time.


Misc patch


Buce and Buce/ Balansae


Nurii


Affinis/Hudoroi


All but 3 of these pics were taken at peak lighting which does wash out the colors a bit.

And just cause I happened to see the older pictures, here's an almost 3 month comparison. Not bad for a medium light slow growing species tank IMO. And considering all the melt in between too!

9/6/16

11/29/16

 

[dougall]

Is the difference in color rendering of the pictures due to the lighting, or processing of the pictures?

Inquiring mind(s) want to know.

 

[myswtsins]

Most pictured above (the ones that look the best IMO, darker with no white haze) are taken with lights a their peak brightness and the camera is set to "Shutter speed priority". Any others in the previous post are set to "auto" at the same time, except the first picture is set to "auto" but at a later time when the lights are dimming, sunset-ish.

So for the most part it is due to the settings not the lighting, but which setting I need to use is based on the lighting.

 

[dougall]

I suspect you might not be getting correct/accurate color representation in the pictures.

I suspect you're using a DSLR (Or bridge) camera, and should be able to save pictures as raw too, give that a try and open with something that will handle them (I've used Raw Therapee in the past with good results - http://rawtherapee.com/ it's free etc.) and try to process the picture for an accurate color representation, see if you like that better.

And I do prefer the 'darker' pictures too, I'm not too worried about the angle, as I'm wanting to see the actual plants, not an artistic photograph or such. So anything that highlights the intricacies and highlights the plants is cool with me.

 

[myswtsins]

No it's just a regular compact camera and I don't edit them in any way. I'm a novice with cameras, got this one cause it had some manual features but I honestly don't know how to use them. lol I know nothing about DSLR or raw photos.

The darker pictures are not that far off from the real colors actually. Now, when the lights are at peak (which I need to get bright enough pictures with the shutter setting) the colors are a bit washed out IRL even. At other times of the day the real colors are better but I can not capture it with my camera (or skills actually). I've tried aperture priority settings at those times but can't remember exactly why I didn't like that, will try again.

 

[dougall]

Have you checked the aquatic photography forums, now on MFK?


Maybe one day I'll dust off my camera and take some pictures, then you'll really know just how good yours are !

 

[myswtsins]

I didn't realize you thought the pictures were good. lol Thanks.

Played around a bit and then the battery died on me, like usual

Max lights with shutter speed priority


6pm lights with....I forgot! lol I tried a bunch of different stuff and lost track. Pretty sure it was aperture priority with something turned down. Whatever adjustment made it less bright and washed out. Certainly a better color representation but I'd still like a crisper image.

 

[dougall]

Yes... your pictures are good.

The thing I am mostly looking at are the colors of the leaves, and they look different in different pictures. Ultimately it is how you like them best.