I start a lot of threads, especially sales threads, by saying "This is one of my faves!" It really is true, I have a lot of favorites but the supernatural monti is certainly one of them. It's got a dark base with bright green polyps and just looks weird. I recently did an experiment to try and figure out what lighting intensity makes it look the best.
Example 1: I fragged this piece a month or two ago and put it underneath the frag rack. The PAR was somewhere around 80. I made sure that it wasn't actually covered up with by a frag on top of it and here's what it looks like now. I really like the dark base because it causes the bright green polyps to really pop. However, the polyp extension is reduce quite a bit when compared to the higher light specimen.
Example 2: This one was on the frag rack under a PAR of 120 or so. You can see the polyps are a lot brighter and they are quite a bit 'bigger' or extended out more. However, the base is quite a bit lighter. Some of the light color on the front side of it is new growth but, overall, the base is lighter but the polyps look a lot better. In this picture you can see the other one behind it and compare the polyps directly.
I'd really like to have the darker base with the larger, brighter polyps but I've got some more messing around to do. I know the pictures aren't all that great but what do y'all prefer? For any monti lovers out there, what are some of the steps you take to get better polyp extension?
Example 1: I fragged this piece a month or two ago and put it underneath the frag rack. The PAR was somewhere around 80. I made sure that it wasn't actually covered up with by a frag on top of it and here's what it looks like now. I really like the dark base because it causes the bright green polyps to really pop. However, the polyp extension is reduce quite a bit when compared to the higher light specimen.
Example 2: This one was on the frag rack under a PAR of 120 or so. You can see the polyps are a lot brighter and they are quite a bit 'bigger' or extended out more. However, the base is quite a bit lighter. Some of the light color on the front side of it is new growth but, overall, the base is lighter but the polyps look a lot better. In this picture you can see the other one behind it and compare the polyps directly.
I'd really like to have the darker base with the larger, brighter polyps but I've got some more messing around to do. I know the pictures aren't all that great but what do y'all prefer? For any monti lovers out there, what are some of the steps you take to get better polyp extension?
