Bunnie1978

There's a whole section in the forums about photographing aquariums. You don't need to use the flash though. You can turn all the lights in the room off, and use just the lights on the tank. And if you unplug any water flow things, like the filter, then you won't have much if any movement in your tank.

gypsyhoops

i did some research on specifics for planting each plant and rearranged things quite a bit after giving the plants some more attention before just putting them in the substrate. I split up the microsword a little more and also my crypt a little bit, as well as shortened the stems on the ludwigia so it wasnt just a long bare stem with no leaves until the very top.

and here are some pics

FTS (still a little blurry but working on that):


Close on the micro sword:


and my little crypt field (on the very left is an echinodorus "kleiner bar" that i took from my tank downstairs that only has kleiner bars in it at the moment):


when i took a close look at my chain sword i saw that pretty much all the leaves were dying and in my novice-ness pruned it pretty low, i put it back in with relatively healthy roots intact just to see if anything will grow but i dont have high hopes.

Tex Gal

If those are the plants px'd above, I think your chain swords will be ok. They need time to acclimate to your tank.

gypsyhoops

thats the micro sword, the chain sword was literally all yellow, its really hard to find it in the pictures its so short

Bunnie1978

What is the furry plant in the back right? Looks like maybe myrio?

gypsyhoops

its Cabomba caroliniana

gypsyhoops

after a few weeks now of soaking the driftwood i've finally added it to the tank and rearranged everything. I've also added some fish since i last updated: 2 cory cats, 2 amano shrimp, 4 long-fin danios, and 2 oto cats (one of which died ). Here's some before and afters!


Before:

FTS


This is growing in VERY slowly






After:

FTS


Left


Middle


Right

gypsyhoops

been practicing a little more with my camera since i finally found the settings that really let me play around a little with what im getting for a shot and decided to take some pictures of my new german blue rams. i'm terrible with blur and was basically just using a cardboard box in lieu of a tripod. I turned the exposure down since at first the pictures were overly bright but i think i would have been better off with a little less of a variance, anyway here's what i came up with:

nicer FTS the day before i picked up the rams


one of my pairs cuddling (really dark):


same pair, their blues were really popping though in the lower exposure which was really cool


a few single shots