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Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt' Journal finished.

Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!.

Hi,
with a big trim and new inhabitants i thought id post a week on update. Technically not quite a week on, but im away for the weekend so pop it up now.
All seems well, plants are improving and water clarity is great again. I feel circulation must have been hugely compromised with the plant mass and overall health seems much better after the clearout. Hygrophilas showing new and healthier shoots and the ludwigia arcuata has sprouted several new shoots from the cut stems so that should also recover well. Eleocharis parvula showing new growth too.
I am suffering an outbreak of planaria at the moment, horrible little creatures so ill need to get that sorted when im back.
The new fish have settled well now and i enjoy the sparring and dancing that takes place between the rosy tetras. They are beautiful fish but do still seem quite shy tending to like spending time in amongst the plants, but they are getting more brave. The emperor tetras are stunning fish and my photos dont do them justice, but managed to get one nearly in focus in the last pic. Im a little concered as Andy (Awtong) said about worms of some kind as i spotted something on a couple of them but these seem to have gone and they are colouring up much nicer now....ill have to keep an eye on that though!
Few pics:

feb20122645.jpg


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Cheerio,
Ady.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', Trim time.

Ady : I WANT THOSE CRYPTS !!! They look so healthy :) Pain about the planaria. I dont know much about them but I note someone else is asking about how soon the treatment should kill them at the moment on here.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', Trim time.

Antipofish said:
Ady : I WANT THOSE CRYPTS !!! They look so healthy :) Pain about the planaria. I dont know much about them but I note someone else is asking about how soon the treatment should kill them at the moment on here.
Click to expand...
Crypts are doing well, still suffer minor melt from time to time, but hey, im having to thin them out so theyre growing more than melting :thumbup:
Planaria are horrible little grey worms, dont know where theyve come from. I know its a sign of overfeeding, i dont think im doing that but maybe some small bits get trapped within the hairgrass etc. Anyway ill get some shrimp safe treatment and give it a whirl... if that doesnt work theres been some good advice on another thread about putting a prawn in a bag for a few hours when lights go out, then fishing the bag and prawn out complete with lots of greedy planaria!
Cheerio,
Ady.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

Took another little camera video of the tank buzzing with activity again after the new fish additions so here it is. I love watching the rosy's flaring at one another in particular :)



Cheerio,
Ady.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

Great vid Ady, thats quite some movement you have in the tank :)
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

Hi,
LondonDragon said:
Tank looks great Ady, congrats :) love the video
Click to expand...
Antipofish said:
Great vid Ady, thats quite some movement you have in the tank :)
Click to expand...
Westyggx said:
Looks good Ady!
Click to expand...

thanks chaps,
tried a little harder with this vid. Used a borrowed tripod whilst filming and added some slightly repetative 'you tube' background music :) Still not the smoothest transitions when moving and zooming in and out, but probably a little better than before. Still takes well over an hour to upload onto you tube which is very frustrating :twisted:

Water change night tonight, looking harder at the tank there has been a dramatic decrease in the snail population and ive found several empty shells (not an entirely bad thing). Maybe this is down to reducing the mineral salts ie softer water not good for snails? or could it be a result of the planaria, do they eat snails? Also a little more crypt melt... possibly again due to reduced mineral salts?... maybe need to up them slightly again. Hygrophila pinatiffida still not great, older leaves yellowing with spots and falling off. On the plus side the mosses are showing good healthy growth again, must remember to 'waft' it at water changes to remove detrius build up, i forgot tonight. The gsa has reduced to almost nothing above the substrate line, probably due to better circulation after thinning the eleocharis parvula....still there below the substrate line though but if it stays there its not so bad. Seems everything is swings and roundabouts for me :rolleyes: Im quite pleased with how the tank looks at the moment but i still cant achieve the 'really' lush growth seen in some of the scapes on here....keep plodding on :thumbup:
Cheerio,
Ady.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

Ady34 said:
.... but i still cant achieve the 'really' lush growth seen in some of the scapes on here....keep plodding on :thumbup:
Cheerio,
Ady.
Click to expand...

Your growth is pretty lush in my book. It may not be in the top 2 but there are few that are better than yours Ady. Like I said, all tanks have glitches. Mine went through a HORRENDOUS stage of all plants being filthy dirty and nothing growing. I seem to have got the light/CO2/ferts balanced about right at the moment as I am really pleased with how things are going. I took some pics last night but with only 1 24w T5 (the second one is now hardly worth having on. Its a pinkish spectrum anyway but has deteriorated to the point of having little use so I am about to replace it and blow the balance of the tank out of kilter at the same time probably but its got to be done) I just could not get a fast enough shutter speed. I wanted to retain a fairly open aperture to get most of the plants crisp but even at 1600 ISO I could not get much faster shutter than 1/30th :rolleyes: I was being lazy and could have got the tripod out but it was too much faffing around so I will wait till I get the new bulb.

Keep plugging away at it though.. You must be doing something right to grow balansae thats about ten metres long ! LOL
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

Antipofish said:
Ady34 said:
.... but i still cant achieve the 'really' lush growth seen in some of the scapes on here....keep plodding on :thumbup:
Cheerio,
Ady.
Click to expand...

Your growth is pretty lush in my book. It may not be in the top 2 but there are few that are better than yours Ady. Like I said, all tanks have glitches. Mine went through a HORRENDOUS stage of all plants being filthy dirty and nothing growing. I seem to have got the light/CO2/ferts balanced about right at the moment as I am really pleased with how things are going. I took some pics last night but with only 1 24w T5 (the second one is now hardly worth having on. Its a pinkish spectrum anyway but has deteriorated to the point of having little use so I am about to replace it and blow the balance of the tank out of kilter at the same time probably but its got to be done) I just could not get a fast enough shutter speed. I wanted to retain a fairly open aperture to get most of the plants crisp but even at 1600 ISO I could not get much faster shutter than 1/30th :rolleyes: I was being lazy and could have got the tripod out but it was too much faffing around so I will wait till I get the new bulb.
Click to expand...
Yeah, i do know what you mean, it seems that when one thing is going right the next spanner is thrown into the works just to confuse you a little more. Your in a sweet spot at the moment, but now you need to replace a bulb so may begin to encounter problems from the change in balance, its enough to make you :sick: Hopefully youll be ok though and you can adjust up if necessary :thumbup:
Shutter speed etc is well out of my understanding, although i did attempt some fish shots with a higher ISO setting as suggested by Ian..... i failed :lol: I found a setting on the camera that was close to what i saw when looking at the tank, then point and shoot was the order of the day :shh:
Antipofish said:
You must be doing something right to grow balansae thats about ten metres long ! LOL
Click to expand...
:lol: :lol: :lol: that made me actually lol.
Cheerio,
Ady.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

Creating an image (ignoring stuff like composition etc) is down to a triangle of three factors which have a direct effect on each other. Its called the exposure triangle ;

Shutter Speed:
This is how quickly the shutter 'opens and shuts' to allow light onto the sensor (previously onto the film). The slower the shutter speed the more light is let in as it were, and therefore the more information is captured and the brighter the image (called exposure).

Aperture:
Light travels through the lens via a circular 'window' that is reduced or enlarged in size. This window is known as aperture and is described by a number known as the f/stop. The lower the number... 2.8, 2.0, 1.8, 1.4 then the wider the aperture and the more light is allowed in when the shutter is released. The higher the number 11 16 22 then the smaller the aperture and the less light is allowed in when the shutter is released.

The wider the aperture when focussing on an object the more direct is the focussing, meaning if you have an aperture of say 2.8 or even 1.4 (on my lovely 50mm lens) you only get a small amount of the image in focus and the rest in front of and behind the spot you focus on is "out of focus" This area of "out of focus" is called "Bokeh" (dont ask me why !) Conversely the narrower the aperture (or the higher the f/stop) then the more you get in focus.

But there is a trade off. More in focus, less light in therefore you need a slower shutter speed to compensate. This is what was causing me the problem. I had a fixed amount of light. I was being lazy and didnt want to set up the remote flash or mount the camera on the tripod !! And I wanted a crisp pic with a lot in focus. This meant I had to slow the shutter speed down, but the slower you go when capturing moving objects (like fish or swaying plants) the more likely you are to get blurred images (especially when being a lazy blahblahblahblah and not using a tripod :rolleyes: ).

One more thing comes into the equation...

ISO:
In the days of film this was known as ASA or Film Speed. It was the sensitivity of the film to light. As sensitivity to light changees, the duration that light is required to create a correct exposure (not too dark, not too bright) changes too. The more sensitive (faster film speed) then the shorter the duration of light required. The less sensitive (slower film speed) the more light required.

You may say "why not just use the fastest film possible?" Sadly it was not that simple in the days of film as the more sensitive the film was to light, the more "grain" effect you got. (Reduces image quality and looks horrid, apart from for a few specific style shots for which it works well, but thats another story).

We dont use film now we use electronic sensors. But we still get increasing levels of grain as the ISO increases. In the digital world ISO is essentially a setting that changes the camera sensor's sensitivity. As it increases we still get grain, not because of grain as such, but because of electronic "noise" (the higher the ISO, the higher the sensors sensitivity to noise). So whilst you could whack your ISO way up the image will be horrid due to the noise.

I stopped at 1600 ISO which is more than a lot of cameras will give decent pics as and actually less than I could get a good image on mine, but then Im lucky and have a pretty expensive camera. I have had perfectly acceptable images at 6400 ISO.

Anyway thats enough for one night. Hopefully its explained a few things.

Its actually pretty easy. The more you play with these three settings and see how they interact the more you will get a feel for it. Set your camera on a tripod, FIX the shutter speed at say 1/125th second and take the same picture over and over at each of the aperture settings. Then do the same by FIXING the aperture but changing the shutter speed. Then repeat both exercises by fixing each of those two variables and changing the ISO setting on your camera. Do that a good few times and you will soon see the effect each has. Master the exposure triangle and you are more than half way there.

If you want some links to some free online tutorials PM me. :)
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

Thanks for that Chris, a pretty easy to follow breakdown, much appreciated. I may have a play, seems a bit like suck it and see really, trial and error to find what works best?
Cheers,
Ady.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

sometimes it is the best way to go around things...different tanks have different lighting, so my set up would be different for you tank. The vid is great also mate!
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

Ady34 said:
Thanks for that Chris, a pretty easy to follow breakdown, much appreciated. I may have a play, seems a bit like suck it and see really, trial and error to find what works best?
Cheers,
Ady.
Click to expand...

It can be trial and error, but the exercises above will give you an understanding of what changes you need to make. Bear in mind you will want a specific look... Sometimes you want crisp and focussed with everything visible, for say a FTS, and this is when you use a higher f/stop number. Other times you want just something specific in focus and you use a lower f/stop (wider aperture) for this. That in turn alters the amount of light coming in which means you need to adjust your shutter speed accordingly. (I wont go into exposure compensation at this stage, lol). If you get the hang of those two variables and then bring in the effect of adjusting ISO with those two things, you will get a feel for what settings to begin with for your image, which eliminates a lot of trial and error when actually shooting :)
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', nearly a week on!

awtong said:
Great video Ady.

Very helpful explanation for photography basics thanks Antipofish.

Andy
Click to expand...

No probs. Possibly not the best explanation but hopefully helps a little. My best advice is practice practice practice and try out lots of different settings to see how they inter relate. :thumbup: (I need to practice plenty more !!!)
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', Update.

Hi,
visited a local...ish aquatics shop for Fathers day and returned with 2 locally bred Rams and 2 male cherry barbs :? (insisted upon by my 3yr old son, one red one for him and one for his brother, wasnt even allowed to get a pair...the red ones were his favourite, apparently!).
Plants seem to be going downhill and am suffering some GSA on my hygrophila leaves (perhaps low phosphate), pinatiffida yellowing and loosing leaves, balansae fading a little and some melting, hairgrass at a standstill and overall doesnt seem to be in the sweet spot. C02 maximised, flow the same and lighting the same....im thinking ferts and the reduced health and growth of my floating plants seems to suggest this also. Increased dosing to 15ml daily of macro now, but also questioning the macro micro dosing on the same day, but need to research a bit more.
Cheerio,
Ady.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', Update.

:crazy: , last couple of weeks or so ive noticed some fungus appearing on my vine wood, i had some when first set up, which disappeared as youd expect. Nothing unusual there but i thought it odd to reappear now and wondered why, then coincidentally ive just been reading the latest issue of PFK and there is a 'tank decoration' article. Quote.."Vivarium wood such as Grapevine is too soft for aquarium use and will rapidly rot. In fact, for this reason, all softwoods are to be avoided." I bought my wood from an aquatics store which is also heavily into vivariums and as vine wood....coincidence, i think not, i think my wood has started to rot :wideyed: Will this cause serious issues? At the moment it is a white fluffy fungus which clearly ottos nor amanos are interested in.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', Update.

I am sorry I don't know :oops: but I hope it's not going to cause too much of an issue for you.Not all woods are created equal then. For what it's worth though thank you for letting us know Ady, because that's an important piece of information there for the rest of us.
 
Re: Fluval Studio 900...'Dragons Crypt', Update.

it will cause problems eventually Ady...does it smell at all?
 
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