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Durand tank build (1 Viewer)

Ok camera guru’s Could use your help or suggestion‘s.
Struggling to get the pictures to look right. Everything is either really dark or really blue.
In manual mode, 1/125, F5, ISO 400. No phot shopped.

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What am I missing? Ive tried messing with the white balance did not change much.
 
It's too dark because your shutter speed is probably too fast? 1/125. It's like you try to capture a flying bird under sunlight or such. That's a lot faster than I usually set, which is 1/8 - 1/12 or something. For the color, try to adjust your white balance setting, move it toward more red or something like that 😆.
 
The photos look all right to me. But yeah, they look like they were taken under dusk light setting or something? 😁 .. But, here is something I just stole online. Maybe it'll help.

speedvalue_1.jpg

Also, if slowing down the shutter speed and such to the point where you get the focus you want but then the photo turns too dark, then you probably need to increase the ISO to compensate. So, instead of 200, or 400, you can try 800 or whatever for the ISO. I never think I have to use 8000 like you said before though. My camera also has the ISO setting where it can automatically adjust the ISO to a 'max' ISO amount instead of a 'fixed' point as well. ... And, the higher ISO, the brighter the photo, but the grainier the photo will be as well as it loses its pixels per inch (edited/correction). That's my understanding, other experts can chime in and correct me if I'm wrong 🙂.
 
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Thank you. Some of the problem might be the lights are not at full when I’m taking pictures in the evening. I mean the tank looks bright to my naked eye, but on camera they keep coming out pretty dark. Im going to try again earlier in the day when all the lights are on and then try those setting you mentioned. Thanks!!
 
reef junkie said:
Thank you. Some of the problem might be the lights are not at full when I’m taking pictures in the evening. I mean the tank looks bright to my naked eye, but on camera they keep coming out pretty dark. Im going to try again earlier in the day when all the lights are on and then try those setting you mentioned. Thanks!!
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Good luck! I was in bed last night while I was typing it on the phone and my brain was not better. I said 'dots per pixel' above and somehow that sounded even right to me. I meant 'pixels per inch'. I've corrected that :D.
 
I agree with Ken, likely not enough exposure time. Personally I find the best mode for shooting almost all pictures is aperture priority mode (the “A” on many cameras). This lets you fix the aperture but it decides what shutter speed it needs to get good exposure. I usually at least start there to see what the camera thinks it needs. Then if I want I might go to full manual and adjust the shutter one or two clicks up or down from what the camera thought it needed. But outside of that you probably won’t get nearly enough light in the camera.

Regarding ISO, Ken has it right. I’ve always thought of ISO as like how quickly the sensor can react to the light, at the cost of sharpness. So in dim light you can use a high ISO to enable a faster shutter speed (without it getting blurry from the motion during a long exposure shot), but the image itself will be more grainy. I guess personally
I always “try” to shoot at 400 or lower ISO (even in family photos or whatever) to keep the image less grainy.

Anyway, give the aperture priority mode a shot (pun intended) and see if that brightens up your image. If that mode is telling you that 1-2 second shutter is needed, then you’ll need to open your aperture (lower number F stop) to allow more light into the camera.

I guess while we’re at it, hopefully I’m not mansplaining here, but I’ll also describe why I use the different aperture settings. The biggest aperture (lowest number) will allow in the most light but the image itself will have a very narrow depth of focus. So if you have a big coral or something like a full tank shot, only one pretty narrow plane will be in focus. Everything in front and behind that plane will be slightly blurry. As you close the aperture (higher numbers) you increase the depth of focus, but let in less light per unit time, so it generally requires slower shutter speeds which can lead to blurry images, especially with all the motion we have going on in our tanks. Also, sometimes it gives you a cool image when only the one thing you want to shoot is in focus, so you might purposely use a low Fstop to give that effect.

Okay, enough of my blah blah. I need to go to work. :)
 
likely reiterating what's been said above but just incase: switch shutter speed to something like 60 as blindswordsman said, and switch ISO to 800 (shouldn't be too grainy but anymore and it will be noticeable)

Here's my flickr profile where you can click on any picture and at the bottom it will show all of the camera settings I used for that pick. Keep in mind I mainly use a 60mm macro lens and I also put my lights on full blast when taking pics, but should (maybe) give you an idea.

Keenan

Explore Keenan’s 877 photos on Flickr!
www.flickr.com www.flickr.com

Edit: I know my shutter speed is pretty high compared to what we recommended for you but I have familial tremors so it's kinda necessary for my shaky hands lol
 
You guys rock!! Thank you. Was starting to get a little frustrated watching YouTube and reef to reef and not getting what I was looking for. THis totally made it much easier. Feel like Im getting close to what im actually seeing with the naked eye. Some updated shots with still just ramp up lights on. T5’s not on yet.

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Dude how do you have that leptoseris on the top rock next to a tort?? Can’t believe it’s not getting fried!
 
Ok here is a new one. Last night while just hanging around the tank. I started to hear a water fall. Nothing alarming but noisy. So I take a look around and the overflow water level has dropped below my lowest tape mark by about an inch in the overflow. Water level in the sump is still at its normal working level. I decided to leave it and see what happens. This am woke to the water raised almost back to its lowest water level mark in the overflow. Normally at this hour it’s at the highest level. I decided to add water to the overflow chamber and see what happens. I dumped 1.5 litters directly into the over flow chamber in the display to get it about halfway between the two water level marks i made on the overflow. Now an hour in, water level is staying at that same level. I fully expected it to level off and raise the water level in the return chamber Or somewhat settle out in the return chamber. But no, I'm at a loss. LOL I sent a ticket into coralvue and see if maybe they have any suggestions .
 
Think I figured it out. Nutrient export mode creates a wave in the tank for a few hours each day. I just added the new mp10 so im sure this changed something. My theory is, the wave cause some splashing in the overflow or surges of water. This makes the water level in the overflow change and not the return chamber In the sump. I think once this happens or the program ends it takes awhile for the water level to get back to normal in both the return and overflow. If I left everything alone I think the water level would keep rising in the overflow changing the water level in the sump, kicking the ato on and eventually leveling out before starting the process all over again. This makes sense to me since the overflow did not change when I added the water this am because that is its normal running level or at least close enough that it will settle over the day at a very slow rate. Im going to turn off nutrient export mode and see if removing the waves keeps things in check.
 
I think the thing that is most vexing to me is this is a closed system more or less. The overflow is "dumb," it's just going to return the same GPM at all times, whatever is allowed through the gate valve. The sump is dumb, it's just gravity leveled between sections if you have the weir etc. So the ONLY thing that can or should change this I would think is the return pump output. Now, to your point, I do understand that if you have wave makers running that are pushing water away from the overflow (or towards it), maybe that would change the overall water level in the display/overflow? Maybe. But I think the driving factor here has to be the output from the return pump. Especially if you're changing by quarts/gallons. It's super weird.

I know on my tank if I decrease the return pump speed the overall display level will drop a little, even if I change the gate valve to compensate. I think what's going on there is the overflow weir processes X GPM, so if you increase the pump speed you actually end up raising the level slightly because of the resistance to flow of the weir. If that makes sense? But once it's achieved the new steady state, it's rock solid.

So knock on wood, I haven't actually touched the gate valve on this tank since I set it up in November. And it's all still rock solid. The only time my sump level changed was when I started running the skimmer, because the skimmer itself took 1/2 gallon of water or whatever to fill (makes sense). So I had to add saltwater to get my return chamber back to the ATO level so that it didn't just fill up with RODI. But beyond that, it's solid. And now when I shut off the return pump I hold the ATO/Skimmer off for 3 mins on pump restart, to let the water levels establish. The return is actually a little ABOVE the ATO sesnsor (since the skimmer isn't on yet). Power comes on and skimmer takes it's 1/2 gallon while the ATO is doing it's typical startup (Tunze always runs a bit for the self diagnostic). Then the levels are normal and away we go. It's just so strange that yours is fighting you so much. Sorry man :/ I wish I had more insights.
 
Received the MXM module yesterday and hooked up this morning. I really like this thing so far. Was able to add my 4 mp10’s to apex. Reprogram all 4 pretty quickly. And was able to program them to a feed mode. I did not add my ai primes yet mostly because ive been light shopping the last few days and didnt want to wast the time setting them up if I end up replacing. Plus I dont change the lighting at all from the current schedule so again sort of a waste to connect to Mobius and then apex if I dont need to.

After topping off the overflow yesterday and increasing the pump speed by 2% we are back to being stable. Will monitor over the next few days and see if we have any changes. My salinity had dropped down lower than I wanted so Ive been topping off as much as I can over the last week to get back to 35ppt. Im at about 32-33 right now so hopefully by tomorrow I’ll be back. Cant believe with all this back and forth with ph, salinty, etc corals and fish haven’t missed a beat. In fact I think my clowns are finally spawning. They have found a new place to hide under my large chalice and are very protective of this area.
 
Wanted to share in my struggle.

Today I decided to try and take a look at this various pump since Ben (@spsick) was nice enough to barrow me a pump. By the way this other pump is night and day different in terms of flow from the various. After removing all the parts needed to get the pump to work I brought in into the garage and put some tools to it. With all my might I was not able to remove the head to gain access to the propeller. Which if I think hard about it I’ve never been able to access the propeller. I’ve always just soaked the whole pump and put back in use again because I was never able to get apart.
Well I tried a screw driver in the hole. That didn’t work
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In then figured I have nothing to loose so I took a vice grip to it.
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And after for sure thing it was going to break
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Tada was able to get apart. And nothing broke. Just a blemish.
This is what it looked like when I took it apart.
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Well you see that little oval hole on that plate. After some investigation I learned that hole lines up with another hole.
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And you’ll be surprised to know that if you line up those holes and then put it back together. Not only does it come back apart really easy. If you put it in a bucket of water and turn it on it will blast what I can only guess is about 1000gph. 🤦🏽‍♂️.

Cleaned everything up. Made some new fitting to be able to put back online. Installed back in the tank and turned it on.
This thing shot water right out of the tank since I have the return nozzle pretty high to make surface tension.

I think I may have found the problem. Will let run a few days and see if anything changes come on the overflow. But this had to be the problem 🤷🏽.
Again this is how it’s been since I bough it. Never took it apart. Guess I need to pay better attention and look everything over before installing. Sure hope this does it.
 
Wow, did you buy it new or used? I’m not familiar with the internals, I wonder if they use that port for cooling the motor? Regardless, that’s amazing that it changed the flow rate that much. I’m with you Shawn, I hope that was the problem all along. Was this the same return pump you had on the old tank? All those troubles as well could have been the same root cause? Crazy man. And frustrating!!
 
reef junkie said:
Wanted to share in my struggle.

Today I decided to try and take a look at this various pump since Ben (@spsick) was nice enough to barrow me a pump. By the way this other pump is night and day different in terms of flow from the various. After removing all the parts needed to get the pump to work I brought in into the garage and put some tools to it. With all my might I was not able to remove the head to gain access to the propeller. Which if I think hard about it I’ve never been able to access the propeller. I’ve always just soaked the whole pump and put back in use again because I was never able to get apart.
Well I tried a screw driver in the hole. That didn’t work
View attachment 65722

In then figured I have nothing to loose so I took a vice grip to it.
View attachment 65723
And after for sure thing it was going to break
View attachment 65724
Tada was able to get apart. And nothing broke. Just a blemish.
This is what it looked like when I took it apart.
View attachment 65725
Well you see that little oval hole on that plate. After some investigation I learned that hole lines up with another hole.
View attachment 65726
And you’ll be surprised to know that if you line up those holes and then put it back together. Not only does it come back apart really easy. If you put it in a bucket of water and turn it on it will blast what I can only guess is about 1000gph. 🤦🏽‍♂️.

Cleaned everything up. Made some new fitting to be able to put back online. Installed back in the tank and turned it on.
This thing shot water right out of the tank since I have the return nozzle pretty high to make surface tension.

I think I may have found the problem. Will let run a few days and see if anything changes come on the overflow. But this had to be the problem 🤷🏽.
Again this is how it’s been since I bough it. Never took it apart. Guess I need to pay better attention and look everything over before installing. Sure hope this does it.
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Very very odd... I feel like this is pretty rare as I have not seen any other people report this (but then again I haven't looked on R2R much so who knows) and both my Varios 8's have been perfect out of the box. Glad you figured it out though and it was an easy fix.
 
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