June 2009 - Kitchener Waterloo Aquarium Society

J U N E 2 0 0 9
So what did I learn? Heiko normally collects Discus at night
when they float up nearer the surface and can be scooped up by
flashlight. In the light of day they may dive to 4 and 5 metres of
water where they hover in schools for protection. Eighty species
were collected in the Jutai river including a new and interesting
Angelfish, a myriad of characins and catfishes, and the smallest
needlefish in the world, the Belonion.
Next up, Heiko returned with a unique trip to North Eastern
India. Nagaland as the area between the Himalayas and the
waters of the Bay of Bengal is called, is off-limits even to many
of India’s citizenry. The Brahmaputra River winds down 4000
km from Tibet into this indigenous region. An interesting
revelation was that two familiar genera share an identical
habitat but on two very different continents. A biotope shot
from South America’s Apistogramma family could easily be
confused for one where India’s Badis fishes can be found.
A diverse collection of fishes from Aplocheilus (killifishes), to
dwarf Channa (snakeheads) jumped to the projector screen as
did Heiko’s challenge to find the fish in an image of a dip net he
had lifted from a Nagaland stream. The projection screen may
have been huge but not sufficient for any among us to spot a
fully grown Darion, which at breeding size is a mere 9 mm in
length.
Gary Lange got the coveted ‘first speaker of the day’ spot
Saturday morning and led with how to photograph your fish
and embarrass your friends (translation blackmail perhaps?)
Aside from the usual primer on what Fstop and ISO should
mean to the wannabe fish photographer, Gary suggested a few
tips for those early risers who caught his opening act. Firstly
you need a digital camera with a manual focus feature to be
truly successful – now he tells me after I’ve replaced both of our
cameras already. Next, shoot fishes at the higher Fstop settings
(16-22) as you will enjoy more of the fish being in focus and
always, always, always focus on the eye of the fish. Nothing
else will save your photo if the eye is out of focus. Lastly you
cannot spend enough time on acclimating the fishes and
cleaning the glass before hand. There is always Photoshop but
imagine cleaning up the accompanying photo. Lastly if you’re
doing digital – shoot lots of shots, says Gary, digital film is free.
Bob Fenner made his debut with a slide that teased ‘Algae can
be your friend’. Bob proved a consummate entertainer and
teacher as he drew his audience through an understanding of
micro and macro algae, from diatoms to kelps and from
phenomena known as red tides to aegagropila balls which
themselves are an algae but are purchased by hobbyists to outcompete
lesser algaes and thereby suppress them from our
display aquaria.
Bob’s hints during this session were to understand the specific
algae in order to plan its demise. Frozen foods for example can
release unwanted nutrients into the aquarium while prethawing
and rinsing those brine shrimp is a simple
preventative. Bob also advocated having a duplicate set of
sponge filters so that a fresh filter can be inserted to the
aquarium while the used one is cleaned and permitted to air
dry between uses.
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