New member! Identify my loach!

[nike]

First of all, hello all! I am a new member of the forum, and I love my loaches!

Quick introduction - I have been keeping fish since I was a kid, all goldfish until I moved to Australia. There, I was lucky enough to start a freshwater tank, and acquired kuhlis! I fell in love with them immediately. A few years later, back in the US, I wasn't too into aquariums anymore, though I always had brown kuhlis around. Recently, my boyfriend (who is a huge aquarium fiend, and is a member of one of those aquatic plant associations ) and I decided to restart our tanks. I found Zodiac loaches and fell in love with them! Now, my interest in loaches has been re-kindled! I currently have 2 zodiacs, 2 brown kuhlis, 1 neon pink, and 1 "zipper" loach - though I don't think it is one... and also a dojo with my goldfish. And, I just can't get enough! My biggest want right now is a regular kuhli (the striped types) like I had in Australia. Strangely enough, I have NEVER seen them in California except only one recently at Ocean Aquarium in San Francisco... but we were unsuccessful in netting him for me to take home

Anyway. To my main question!
How do you guys take such wonderful photos of your aquarium? I'd like to take some photos of my loaches, including one of the "zipper" loach which is very small/young, so it doesn't have identifiable adult markings. Care to share any tips? My biggest problem is taking close up photos. It all ends up very blurry. All I have is a regular digital camera. I'll put up the few photos I've managed to take...

Thanks!

EDIT:

There's Pickles, one of my zodiacs.


Zodiac...


Zodiac...


The unknown! What is it? It's only about an inch long at the moment.

Sorry about the blurry photos!

[dconnors]

Welcome! I am quite new here myself. Not sure what that bottom loach is...maybe a Schistura species of some sort? Here is a link to a pictoral species index: http://www.loaches.com/species-index/pi ... e-pictures
Give that a try and see what you come up with. Good luck!

[nike]

Thanks. I looked more closely at that, and it might be Physoschistura shanensis... my guy truly does not like to hide! Although I don't know how rare this fish is.

[Martin Thoene]

Hi nike and welcome to LOL. I don't think that fish is Physoschistura shanensis from what I can see.

First question as regards photography is what type of camera do you have?

Martin.

[Jim Powers]

Maybe this?
http://www.loaches.com/species-index/sc ... notostigma

[nike]

Hey Martin. It's just a digital camera, a Canon Ixus 801S.

I should have been more specific - the first 3 photos are of my zodiacs being silly. The last photo is the unknown little guy. He is gray, those stripes only go up halfway and then it fades to gray for the rest. He's got a black spot at the base of his dorsal fin. He doesn't hide under any of my logs, and just enjoys sitting in the corner of the aquarium.

[Martin Thoene]

There's seldom any such thing as "just" a digital camera these days. Your camera has a lot of optional settings and you absolutely need to read the manual and experiment, experiment, experiment........and practice.

It has Macro focus down to 3cms which is pretty darned good. Here's a review on it. Ignore the SD 1100 IS title, it's the same camera.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canonsd1100is/ click through the pages.

You've got 8 megapixels to play with. I've had 3.2 Mp pictures published, so you're way ahead of the game in picture quality potential with that camera.

Martin.

[TrebleClef84]

http://forums.loaches.com/viewtopic.php ... highlight=

I posted something similar a while back. It's definitely a schistura, but other than that it's hard to tell.

[madhu]

Can't conclude anything from that pic. Could be a Schistura semiarmatus. Check out if it has a tear drop marking below its eyes and black spots throughout the body, if not the anterior half.