Fish Tank Photography Tips!

 Here are some simple things I try to think about when taking photographs of aquarium fish:

1. Clean the glass, nothing as irritating as finally having gotten a clear shot and there’s dried water on the glass.

2. Stability, this could be a tripod, table or a pile of books. Especially important when not using the flash.

3. Lighting, turn off all other lights in the room and take the shot during the evening. Prevents annoying reflexion in the glass.

4. Flash, normally I tend not to use the flash as it is tricky to get an angle from which there is no reflection of the flash in the glass (and it might disturb the fish) but with fast moving fish it can be very useful.

5. Background, try to take shots of the fish when they are in front of something nice like plants or wood rather than the pump or heater.

6. Use crop when editing to get rid of that pump or heater

7. Practise on using the macro setting on the camera.

8. Try to focus on the eye or at least head of the target.

9. Take some time to try different settings on the camera, you don’t have to do this the manual way the pre-programmed settings will take you far. When you found one you like remember it! The photo conditions will not change as long as you don’t change for instance the lights and you can always come back to the one setting you know works well for one tank.

Good luck!

Melander

(These tips were originally posted on: http://www.irishfishkeepers.com/)

Corydoras schultzei black, first spawn!

I had a pleasant surprise today, my group of Corydoras schultzei "black form" spawned for the first time.

The group consists of two males and two females, approximately 12 months old, however only one female participated this time.

I was so delighted when I saw it and completely forgot to take pictures of the eggs, too busy collecting them I suppose.

There was no other trigger than weekly 20% water changes and regular feeding of catfish pellets, waffers and blood worms. In fact I had actually not done this week’s water changes yet. A possible trigger could have been the C. panda’s regular breeding behaviour.

Having these two species breeding in the same tank is slightly worrying as the last thing i want is hybrids. As I was monitoring the spawning today there was no interaction between the two species but I do need to move the C. schultzei group to their own tank.

Two males and one female took part in the typical cory T-position and the eggs were scattered on the front glass of the tank, right in the current of a wavemaker.

The egg count seems to be somewhere between 40 and 50, sadly at first glance many seem to be infertile but I hope the ratio will improve as the fish gain experience. They are now being kept in a breeding net in the same tank as the parents, hopefully everything will go well and there will be a positive update soon.


Readings:
Temperature: 24.5 °C
pH: 7