At the last CCA meeting that I attended, I picked up a pair of Apistogramma similis that the speaker had collected himself when in Bolivia. I’m hoping that they really are this species because they don’t exactly look like the pictures in my Cichlid Atlas Vol. 2, but they aren’t that far off either. In any case, Apistogramma similis is quite similar to Apistogramma inconspicua, with a different number of dorsal spines. The extent to which this species is distributed is unknown, being found a couple jungle rivers in the Bolivian province of Beni.

I don’t expect these guys to be terribly difficult to breed in my 75G aquarium, and hope that I’m able to garner a small population of them. These aren’t the prettiest apistos available, but still have their appeal, and if my juvenile specimens color up a bit, they’ll be nice to look at nevertheless. I’ll post updated pictures of these guys as they mature.

Photographing your aquarium is not an easy thing to do, as I’m sure anyone who has ever tried has quickly found out. Often times, the fish or plants are blurry, the tank is too dark, there’s a reflection on the glass, or it just doesn’t look like it does when viewing it in person. I certainly don’t have all of the answers, but I’d like to share a few tips that I’ve picked up from other hobbyists/photographers that have helped me take decent pictures of my tanks.

Often, it is best to plan for photographing your tank, then to simply decide that you want to snap a picture. If photographing for an aquascaping competition, this planning might need to start 2 weeks in advance, ensuring that all of your trimmings are timed perfectly, so that on photo day, all of the plants are in their perfect state. I’m not going to cover how to do that, but just rest assured that it’s something to consider.

At the very least, it’s often helpful to have done a water change the day before so that the water quality is very high, and free of particles. Additionally, when doing the water change, make sure you scrape the glass. Prior to shooting, turn off the filter/powerheads/sumps/etc, allowing enough time for any particles in the water to settle. By temporarily disabling circulation, you’re helping to avoid blurry plants that wave in the current. Finally, the name of the game is light; if you have any extra strip lights that you can put over top of your tank temporarily, do this now.

Now that the tank itself is ready, it’s time to focus on the camera side of things. It’s obviously very helpful to have a nicer camera with lots of manual options and high quality lenses, but if you don’t, that’s still okay. The two most important things to remember: 1) Turn off your flash, 2) Use a tripod, or sit the camera on a stool, etc…

Ideally, you want the camera to shoot quickly, so that the fish in your tank will not be blurry. This is where any extra light you put over the tank will help you. I’d recommend trying to shoot at 1/100 seconds, but nothing slower than 1/40. If your camera only shoots in auto-mode, you may have to take what it gives you. In order to achieve the faster shot, I use aperture-priority mode (Av) on my camera, and usually increase the ISO to 400-800 until the speed is what I want. Admittedly, this will produce a slightly grainier picture, but I’d rather that, then have blurred fish trails across the tank. Again, the more light above the tank, the lower the ISO you’ll need to achieve this. Additionally, I’ll lower the F-stop a little bit, but I much prefer to keep it around 5.6 or higher for depth of field, but again, if you have to shoot at F/2.8, you may as well do it, and see how it turns out.

On the tripod, center the camera inline with the center of your aquarium. Then, raise the camera up about 6-8 inches, and angle it down slightly in the front, so that the camera is looking down toward the tank. Through the view finder, you can see that this will make it so the aquarium no longer appears rectangular, but we’ll fix that later. The reason you do this is because it shows a bit more depth of the tank, and provides a more natural viewing angle. Rarely do you ever get down on your knees, and look head on at the aquarium. No, you’re usually standing, and looking from a top-angled view.

Notice how the sides are not vertical.

Now you’re all set. Start shooting, and shoot a lot. You’ll find that the position of the fish makes a big difference to how the overall shot looks, so don’t be afraid to take 100 pictures, waiting for all of the fish to converge in just the right area. Also, as you’re taking pictures, notice whether any of the tops of the plants look overexposed (white). If so, you may want to decrease your ISO, or raise your F-stop, which will result in an overall darker picture, but that’s okay.

Now that you’ve taken you shots, it’s time to do a small amount of post processing. After you’ve selected the picture that looks best to you, we need to correct the issue where the sides are not vertical. In Photoshop, this is easy. Simply select the whole picture (Ctrl-A), go to Edit -> Transform -> Perspective. Now, drag the bottom corners of the picture outward until the sides of the aquarium line up vertically with the edge of the picture. Once you’ve done that, use the crop tool to cut out any extraneous parts of the photo. You can use the Levels/Curves tools to adjust the brightness/exposure of various portions of the photograph. After all of that, you should end up with a decent picture.

The same picture with the perspective adjusted in Photoshop.

Nancy Rybicki of the US Geological Survey spoke at GWAPA’s May 2008 meeting in Silver Spring, MD. Being the first club meeting held at a meeting hall, rather than a member’s home, we had a pretty good turn out with 27 members showing up. Nancy gave an excellent presentation detailing the current state of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the Potomac River system, which flows into the Chesapeake Bay.

At first, she described why SAV is so important to the ecosystem. In tests, they have determined that in rivers that are lush with aquatic plant life, 10-60% of all nitrate in the waters are absorbed by the plants. This prevents these extra nutrients from eventually ending up in the Bay. So, her team worked to find out what the ideal conditions for SAV to survive are, and they found that ultimately, light is an important factor. The amount of light (13% needed by freshwater SAV) that reaches the plants is dependent on a number of factors. Water clarity is vital, but can be disturbed by algae blooms, wind storms, or high water flow that stirs up and introduces silt into the water.

Fortunately, since the 1980’s, many areas are experiencing a period of increased SAV. Improved sewage treatment methods have reduced that amount of nitrate that’s introduced directly into the Potomac. Even when faced with threats from exotic plants, such as Hydrilla or water lettuce, beds of Wild Celery (Val. americana) continue to do well in many parts of the river. This can largely be attributed to the fact that Val’s tubers provide energy stores that let them establish themselves in the riverbeds earlier in the season than the exotic plants can. Of course, environmental conditions vary yearly, and the state of the Val./Hydrilla competition does likewise.

I was interested to find out that one of the local native plants Nancy referred to was Stargrass. In the aquarium hobby, this is of course, Heteranthera zosterifolia, but to the local scientific community, they are referring to Heteranthera dubia. In addition, Nancy has helped on many efforts to introduce native plants back into parts of the Anacostia River to ensure a diversified selection of SAV in the river. By ensuring multiple native plants, they are increasing the likelihood that one of them will outcompete the exotic plants, and increase the health of the water ways.

Also, Nancy wanted to stress to all hobbyists that they continue to enjoy the aquatic plant hobby, but properly dispose of their plant trimmings. This means, throwing them in the trash or compost bin, instead of flushing them down the toilet, or dumping them into a local stream or river. Even better, use more native plants in your tanks. All in all, a very interesting talk about the plants/habitat in our own backyard.

It’s been about a month since the last shot of my 75G aquarium. Since then, the Eleocharis sp. ‘Japan’ has continued to grow in, and is still exhibiting the fantastic downward sloping growth it’s known for. The Cryptocoryne pontederiifolia in the foreground/middle has really started to explode. I suppose the roots have reached critical mass, and now there’s no getting rid of it. (not that I would want to!)

Otherwise, I have a few signs of collectoritis showing on the right-hand side of the aquascape with stems of Pogostemon stellatus, Ludwigia sp. ‘Cuba’, Eriocaulen sp. ‘Type 3’, and Ludwigia sp. ‘Pantanal’ all growing in close proximity. I ought to decide on just one of those, and go with that. Not to mention that I’ve totally mixed up Limnophila aromatica and Limnophila hippuroides in the middle of the tank! Honestly, I’m wondering if what I bought as L. hippuroides is really L. aromatica anyways because they look the same to me. Finally, the Java Fern sp. ‘Fingers’ in the top/middle/left is looking fantastic! All-in-all, for not paying much attention to this tank, I can’t really complain too much about its appearance. It could definitely benefit from a couple good trims, but otherwise, it’s maintaining itself pretty well, I think. However, suggestions are always welcome!

I recently had the opportunity to get a batch of the new shrimp from Sulawesi, Indonesia. It appears that these are starting to appear in import lists, which indicates that the shrimp farms overseas are starting to figure out how to breed them. With many varieties to choose from, the first one I wanted to try and breed was the Orchid Shrimp, shown below. Outside of one, none of these shrimp are scientifically described as anything other than Caridina sp.

Orchid Shrimp

I chose the Orchid Shrimp because it has white marbled nicely throughout a red body. The one described species, Caridina spongicola (sold as Celebes Beauty Bee), may be even more striking, but I had read that it is more delicate than the others. Unfortunately for me, the Orchids didn’t ship very well either, and the one shown above is the only one I received. I’m hoping to get some replacements in a few weeks.

Six Banded Black Bee Shrimp

Otherwise, I wanted one of the black shrimp that I had seen pictures of. Originally ordering one by the name of Power Blue Bee, I had to end up substituting for the Six Banded Black Bee due to availability, shown above. When I received the shrimp, they were nearly transparent, and I was a little bit upset. Overnight, the bodies have darkened up considerably, revealing the six light bars across their backs. One of mine was carrying eggs, so I’m hopeful that they will readily reproduce so that I can spread them around a little bit locally.

Overall, my first impressions of these shrimp are that they’re smaller than cherries, and much more timid. As you can tell from the pictures, they’re not hanging out in areas of the tank that are convenient to photograph. I have them in a 10G tank with crushed coral in a bag under the substrate, and 3M ColorQuartz sand. I’m keeping the temperature around 80 degrees. I made the mistake of using black sand, which makes finding the shrimp a bit of a bear. Otherwise, I’m glad that I went through with this order, and really hope to successfully breed them. I’ll be sure to update the website with their progress.