I am having fun with my new camera - Mandarin gobies

[Tomoko Schum]

Hi y'all,

I am beginning to get more comfortable with my camera that I got for Christmas (yeah, it's about time...)

Hope you don't mind me posting more fish pictures. I have had these two mandarin gobies for three years in my tank. The blue one is a male and the orange one is a female. Although they are two different color morphs, they love each other :inlove: I wish I can take a picture of them swimming together. I still need to figure out how to take a high speed shot or a video with my camera. That should be my next thing to study.

Here's my blue male mandarin. I did not know how purple his cheek was until now:

My orange female:

Tomoko

 

[GCamp13]

Nice pics

 

[kartracertj]

Nice fish, what camera do you use? I just got a canon S5 Is and I have to say it is a great camera. How do you post the larger size pictures? when I post them they always turn out small on here.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Mine is Fuji Finepix S700. I use Photobucket to post pictures.

Tomoko

 

[timrandlerv10]

how do you keep the flash from reflecting on the glass?

 

[Tomoko Schum]

I am practically up against the front glass to take these pictures. If you angle your camera so that it's not perpendicular to the glass surface, you can avoid the reflection. I find that I don't need a flash for taking pictures of my corals, but I do for fish.

Tomoko

 

[mltmtascp]

They are LOVELY! Some of my favorite fish.
Monica

 

[kiran523]

Tomoko, do they eat dry or frozen food?

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Hi Kiran,

No. Mine are so spoiled that they don't even look at anything but live food 8Ball has one that used to eat frozen mysis. Nicole mentioned that some people train their mandarin to eat pellets. I saw Melev's video of his mandarin eating Formula 1 pellets in a coke bottle diner he made (to keep his Tangs out.) Some people are so lucky...

Tomoko

 

[kiran523]

I think the reason they don't look at anything else would be because you spoil them. I think the size of their bellies agree with my statement.

 

[MaryBebo]

Great pics Tomoko!

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Thank you, Mary

Tonight, my male mandarin was huffing and puffing, trying to scare anyone that comes into his hunting ground. I've never seen him do this. I believe that Leopard wrasse started getting on his nerve.

See how he got his fins all spread up? He is puffing out his cheek, too. There is a little bit of Leopard wrasse showing at the top left corner of the picture. Because my Mandarin is so plump, he looks more comical than scary.

Tomoko

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Tonight I took some pictures of my mandarin pair doing their courship dance.

Here they are swimming together:

The male kissing the female?

I finally learned to take a video. I hope you can see this video clip (please click on the picture.):



Tomoko

 

[mltmtascp]

Cool Video! Thanks, for sharing.
Monica

 

[Tomoko Schum]

I am glad that you can see the video. I tried to upload some pictures and video to my blog from photobucket, but I could not get it to work for some reason.

Tomoko

 

[PaPa_Johnny]

Video was very nice . Thanks for taking the time to share with us.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Thanks, PaPa_Jonny.

They start their dances usually around 9:00 pm and keep swimming together at least till the light turnes off at 10:00. I sometimes see them spawning which happens really quick. My fish usually follows them around to catch their eggs.

Tomoko

 

[timrandlerv10]

(here it comes...)

have you ever tried raising their fry? i imagine food for the fry would be pretty tough here...

 

[Tomoko Schum]

No, it's not for me. It's just too much to even think about capturing the minuscule fertilized eggs (just a watery fog), let alone hatching them. They have to be suspended in the water column with an egg tumbling device you have to rig up and then the microscopic food that you must find...

Tomoko