Sun, 01/16/2005 - 02:46

Man, I almost got a picture of the Peppermint Shrimp releasing her (its?) eggs tonight. I saw it crawling up the coral as I was aptasia hunting, her belly ready to burst. I dashed to get my camera and a flashlight pointed on her, but before the camera could find her and focus, BOOM there were a million little shrimp everywhere in the water. This time I netted a few, and took about 100 pictures.

Essentially these little guys are mostly clear at this point, and very tiny. Trying to shoot them in super macro mode was impossible in a small dish of water, so I decided to drip them onto a black background in a small puddle.

Using my famous 5100K refugium lightbulb as a source of light from the side, I was able to take these pictures. These were the best out of 73 shots. Due to the speed these little guys zip around, I used IS0 400, no flash, Aperature Priority, f/2.8 with a Fuji S602Z.

Remember, the three dots are the tail, and the larger end is the head section with a pair of huge eyes apparently.

And here for a sense of scale, near a penny.

Also, all my lights & reflectors were cleaned this evening, the skimmer was cleaned and the Phosban Reactor was loaded up with ROWAphos, this time with at least 2 cups worth of media.

Btw, the cerith's are laying eggs everywhere in the tank.

And for giggles...