A Year in the Life of Biocube 14

When I got the Biocube 14 on January 11, 2009, I did some searching online and saw that other people had taken photos of their tanks. I was fascinated by the larger tanks and the TOTM on ARC and reefcentral. Seeing these other tanks gave me the idea to take photos of my tank. With my camera stored close to my tank, I continued taking a photo a day.

After a week or two of taking a photo a day, I remembered some youtube videos where people had taken photos of themselves everyday for a year and created a short film. I thought this would be perfect way to record the progress and ups and downs of my tank during the first year. I was not sure how I was going to do combine the photos into a film Id figure that out later!

One day after a few months, I was viewing the photos and saw that Microsoft Media Player had a button, Make a Movie. To my surprise, to create this very simple film, the media player was all I needed. I am sure other programs could do a better job but I thought this one worked fine.

When creating the film, I did start using Adobe Photoshop CS4 to try and align the photos but found with my little experience it would take too much time to properly align the photos. I chose instead to use Nikon Pictureproject to do the photo editing. Photo editing included cropping, straightening, brightening, darkening, and sharpening.

Adding the titles and credits was also extremely simple. As I only have 10 or so songs on my computer, Beethovens Symphony No 3 won out over the obscure choices I had. Adding the music was a simple process as well.

It would been nice to have placed the camera on a fixed tripod but the location of the tank prevented this (I didnt want a tripod glued or screwed into my kitchen counter). I still wonder how the changing seasons time lapse photography works. I know now that a camera can move on three different axes, x, y, and z. Eventually, I found the best way without having a tripod was to align the sides of the tank with the sides of my camera view window.

With all attempts to capture a photo a day, I did miss a few days either from being out of town, not having a working camera or just plain forgetting. In the end, there are 281 photos each with a duration of .75 seconds in the film.

Cameras used:
1)Canon s500 until it demise
2)HTC Fuze camera
3)Nikon s230

I learned throughout the year that the sensors on the Point and Shoots (or PoS at times) do not automatically compensate for the higher Kelvin rating of light emitted by the PC 10k and actinic in my tank without creating the unnatural bluish hue. After some research, I discovered I had to do a manual white balance correction which becomes evident as the film progresses. I did get the opportunity to take a photo of the tank with a Nikon D200 at one point and found it captured a true to life photo without having to do a manual white balance.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Salt water
• reef
• Biocube 14

[ucfcastillo]

Did I just see a blue tang in your tank?? tsk tsk tsk. poor tang.

[macdoes]

@ucfcastillo Yes, one lesson learned. I always ask the fish stores if a certain fish is good for my tank. I am not always given the best response.

[millacd]

what did you do with all the creatures that didn't last til the end of the video???

[macdoes]

@millacd Gave some away, some did not make it.

[gz28]

Awesome Video! very cool! LOL you can tell towards the end you must have gotten a sand sifting goby or something the sand bed starts to change so much all of a sudden. :-)

[macdoes]

@RickyV97 Was trying to get the pipe organ coral growing again. Needed to protect it from some sexy shrimp that kept causing the polyps to close.

[camtizle]

really cool idea good job

[fernie528]

looks really good! Check out my 6 gallon Nano, Eclipse, I "liked" yours

[kevindashid]

did some of your fish and coral die or something?

[darkrizin]

what a great video to see how a saltwater aquarium can change and grow so much in one year

[DJDoubtIt81]

My Valentini Puffer is named Big Hoss. I hand feed him and he sleeps on his stomach in my fake silicone plants. I have a biocube14 with a Pajama Cardinal, Osc. Clownfish, Fire Fish and 4 blue leg hermit crabs. They all get along and never fight. By far he is the coolest fish I have ever had with soo much personality. Also have a biocube protein skimmer and replaced solid state power head with a slow rotating power head to mix up the water flow and they seem to enjoy it more.