How to Take and Make Great Photo’s By Shadowramy - http://www.shadowramysreef.com/photo-galleries One of biggest requests from people I get is how do you take those good photos of your corals. I must admit, I know very little about professional photography, just enough to shot corals. But even with a little bit a knowledge and practice you can take some very good photos or your fish and corals. In this article I am not going to cover specific cameras, I prefer to use a DSL and specifically a Nikon because I have always had excellent results with it. I have used some point and shoot camera in the past but I could never get the result with them as well as the Nikon DSL. If a DSL is just isn’t in your budget you can still follow along on most of the tip especially the post processing tips and tricks, you won’t have super nice macro shots but you can still have some very good photos using a standard point and shoot camera. Let me first go over some settings I use on my camera, not every camera is going to have all these settings but they should have the basics. Like I said, I know very little about cameras, just enough to take coral shots so I typically leave these...

Pest, Predators and Prevention – The Series Volume 1: Tegastes acroporanus (The Red Acro Bug or Red Bugs) Well its been awhile since my last article and with the recent developments in pest prevention I thought it would be a good time to do a series on reef pests and preventions. Additionally, at this years KMAC (2010) I will doing a workshop on this same topic but it will be more of a general discussion on all pest and prevention. Let us start this series off with one of the better known pests, Tegastes acroporanus or as most have heard of it as the red acro bug or simply as red bugs.

Several years ago the original school of thought was the higher the alkalinity and calcium levels, the faster corals would grow? Scientifically this is seems to be true, it has even been tested on porties species corals and seems to work. It has been the standard advice given to many new reefers for years, alkalinity levels of 10-12 dKH. Over the last few years many SPS reefers are finding that the high end of the dKH scale is not always better and that keeping alkalinity closer to NSW of 7-8 dKH has actually led to less issues of abiotic build up, excessive algae issues, RTN and even better growth results. From my personal experiences (7-8 dKH), I have found this also to be true. And during my research on this article I can now understand why my stability is better and why abiotic precipitation is much less. Before we get into what is a good alkalinity level, let’s take natural seawater levels (NSW) for reference: Alkalinity – 7 dKH Ca – 420 ppm Salinity – 34-36ppt pH – 8.0-8.3 Magnesium – 1280
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Alkalinity - How Corals Grow (Part 1) Shadowramy, 2009 For me one of the hardest concepts to grasp in reef keeping was that of alkalinity. Most of us reef keepers come from a background where the focus is on pH, alkalinity was always just a simple little test that gave results of good or bad. There are many excellent articles on alkalinity today by some major scientists and chemist therefore will “tread lightly” in my beginner friendly approach about this topic. At the end of this article I have gathered several reference articles that one should really look over for further information. As the reef hobby (or should I call it lifestyle) has grown we are starting to see shift favoring alkalinity opposed to pH in the reef aquarium. With the advent of ULNS, two-part dosing and balling systems we are finding that alkalinity has a lot to do with a successful reef as well as help us in troubleshooting issue such as poor growth, RTN and coral survival. Gone are the days of a simple calcium reactors that we set and forget, today we really need to pay careful attention to our alkalinity and avoid its negative impacts if we are to be successful.
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Those colorful flower looking things: Zoanthids 101 So my mother came to visit over the weekend and she has never seen my “fish tank”. After gazing at all the colors and wonderful fluid motion of the polyps she asked, “What are those colorful flower looking things?” She was speaking of zoanthids. I have recently become more interested in zoanthids but never really new much about them, so after researching some names and general information I decided to dig for some further information about these amazing animals. Most of us have heard them by their common names: button polyp, zoanthid, paly, or sea matt. We have also heard of their “designer names”; Amour of God, Purple Deaths, and the latest and greatest Purple Hornets. But today, there is relatively little known about zoanthids and a lot of debate regarding classification. The Integrated Taxonomic Information System list four families of zoanthids, surveys from the Galapagos and the east Pacific have identified three (Zoanthus, Palythoa, and Parazoanthus). Additionally, there seems to be a lack of standardization when it comes to a common naming structure and I could find very little information scientifically...

ZeoVit Basics Some say that ZeoVit is just the latest ‘snake oil’ to hit the reef market, while others praise the colorful results it gets. Still others believe the results but believe the system is just much too complicated and too expensive. First let me state that this article is in no way meant to explain scientifically how the system works or sway you one way or the other to buying into ZeoVit. I am asked a lot about the zeovit system so I really wanted to sit down and give my thoughts. I am mainly writing this to try and explain in laymen's terms what the system is about for those that are interested in knowing about ZeoVit. I have been running a ZeoVit system successfully for over three years now. Before that time I ran a basic Berlin system using live rock, live sand, and a skimmer with strong lighting. Later I added refugium full of macro algae to help nutrient export. Around 2005 prodibio came on the scene, people where getting some great colors using the system, others were not getting much of anything. I decided I would give the system a try.

How to Pack and Ship Corals Written by Shadowramy, Wednesday, 08 April 2009 There comes a time when you just have an abundance of corals; you have traded with all your friends and the local fish stores are already stocked with your cool frags. Well its time to consider shipping your corals. When I first ventured into the idea of shipping it seemed very intimidating too me, but I figured everyone was doing it, why couldn't I. I searched through Google but really didn't come up with many good sites and how to's on the subject. So I decided to contact some of the best sellers on Reef Central and ask them for their advice. It took me about a month to get a good system down, but to this day I followed the basic steps that where shared with me from some of the best shippers around. Basic tools and supplies that you will need