African Cichlids

These are pictures that I took of my fish that are now hanging up in my local fish store. Tank photography can be really challenging but a lot of fun.

Hi Minde,

Glad to see your new work. I prefer the second one. What is this showering os stones, behavior? I've never seen that before. Are they grabbing a mouthful to get at fungi etc embedded there?

Aquarium photography is indeed a technical challenge for the reasons you mention. Look at some of the work by others here. Here, for example, is just one set of images by fish photographer, Ron Morse. You'll find more by searching under, "Fish Photo" or Ron Morse.

Here's another one by Brandon Jones.

Thanks for sharing,

asher

I used to operate a sport fishing camp here in Venezuela. Our main attraction was the peacock bass, one of the larger versions of the cichlids. They are much easier to photograph like this.

Asher, I have seen Rons work and admire his photos very much! A lot of it is all about the lighting and I haven't at all mastered that part of it. African Cichlids are highly teritorial fish and can be quite aggressive. They like to dig out holes for spawning and hiding from the bigger fish. This is normal behavior for this species.

Clayton, thank you for sharing that photo. All of the peacocks that I have seen max out at about 6-8 inches. Quite a difference in size! Beautiful fish though, was this your catch?

Not my catch, though I have caught several like it. This one is about six kilos- they get twice that size.
There are several cichlids in the Orinoco and Amazon watersheds. Seems that Lake Chad was once the headwater of the Amazon.

I use to keep these fish as well, and when my daughter can along, time was not on my side, so the fish had to go. I still love them and there personalities they have.....good to see some images of these guys.

Here are a couple more that I took playing around with shadow.