Fish are the staple of just about every type of aquarium, its why we get aquariums, its why we want to look at aquariums. Comparing saltwater fish to freshwater fish is like comparing gold to tin, the fish are so much more colorful, and come in so many different shapes and sizes. Problem is there is a lot more research that needs to be done with fish, are they compatible with other fish, are they reef safe, are they too small for my tank, what do they eat? Lots of questions to answer, you can't just have a bowl with a air bubbler in it and toss flakes in every day. But the rewards are worth all the trouble, there is just no words that can describe having your own slice of the ocean right in your house.

My fish are "community" fish, meaning that I have none that will eat other fish, while some of them are territorial in a large enough tank like I have that's really not an issue. All my fish are reef-safe too, atleast to a certain degree, what people define as reef-safe varies from person to person, some think reef-safe just means won't eat coral, some think reef-safe means they won't munch on all the things crawling on your reef to keep it clean (all inverts) nor the coral, I fall into the later catagory. I didn't buy some of these creatures so they can become a quick snack for someone. Some people like to do the aggressive fish tanks, and while they are nice sometimes, having a working mini ecosystem that clicks and grooves is much more pleasing to me.

That being said, fish are not exactly easy things to photograph, atleast not without some high speed photography equipment. Fish move fast, and to catch a fast moving object you need to use a flash, since the flash will bounce off the object and that light is what the camera records so it snaps a more or less motionless picture. Problem is flash photography is tricky when you are working around reflective surfaces like glass, and unfortunately the aquarium is glass, so it requires some level of understanding to take pictures at angles relative to the glass, often having to set up the camera at a certain angle, and then hope the fish swims into the frame of the camera. So as such I dont have many good pictures of my fish, and some I don't have at all. Minor side note I'll refer to all my fish as male unless I know otherwise, just so I don't use the impersonal 'it' as a description.

Tomato Clownfish(Amphiprion frenatus)
The darker one was my one of my original two saltwater fish that I got when I first started out. I named him Tom, but then found out that all clownfish are hermaphrodites when born, and as they get older the dominate one (or in the case of only one) will turn into a female, but who says a girl can't be named Tom! I've had it for about 7 months or so, it wasn't quite as dark as it is now which shows it maturing (dont know how old it was when I got it).

The smaller one still is a young one, and light colored, but not super young (as a tomato has 1 stripe when older, and often has multiple stripes when young that slowly receed as it gets older) and this one only has one stripe. I wanted a 'mate' for the other clownfish and the best way to do that is just to get one you know is a juvenile and hope it becomes submissive and doesn't get killed. Upon introduction the new clownfish was very timid, occasionally the other one would come around and poke and prod but luckily I saw it 'seizing' with its side shown, which is a display of submission, now they both are happy and tend to stay near one another or the anemone they stay by. The younger one I've had maybe a month or so.

A younger Tom, mid April 04

Two two fish somewhat together, the younger one new his place and stayed away. Tom is in my brown bubbletip (which isn't looking to good nowadays), and is noticably darker than the previous picture, where the younger one is cowering off to the right hiding behing an Astrea snail. late May04

Blue Damselfish(Chrysiptera cyanea)
The other of my original first two saltwater fish, they are the guppies of the saltwater world, hearty, easy to keep, and I hear as they get older they get meaner, luckily I haven't seen any mean streaks yet. I nicknamed the fish Dart because my original tank I had a fake plastic piece of drift wood with the end hollowed out and she would often sleep in the hole, darting in and out as she is very agile and can swim fowards or backwards quite well. Quite a pretty fish with bright blue scales that almost seem to shine, and a little black dot right on her ass end meaning she's female. When stressed out they can turn a very dark grey color, I learned this when moving the fish from the small tank to the big tank, she got super dark but after putting her in she colored back up in no time. No pictures yet, but you can see her in the in some of the tank photos, only pure blue fish I have.

Blue/Green Reef Chromis(Chromis viridis)
This group of fish were the next group I got, I ordered them with the large portion of my maintence crew. Originally got 6, there are 4 remaining, they like to swim in groups like a school, but occasionally do split off and sleep in seperate areas. They have a very neat iridescent quality about them if you view them from underneath they're almost white, and as you move up viewing the fish at different angles they turn a light grey to blue to blue-green to green. No pictures yet, but a few can be seen in the whole tank photos.

Coral Beauty Angelfish(Centropyge bispinosus)
This was the next fish in my tank, it is truely a nice specimin. It is in the dwarf class of angelfish, which obviously are smaller, and it is a good beginner fish that's beyond the level of damsels or chromis. It is mostly reef-safe, I say mostly because it is in the class of angelfish and they are known to eat coral although some more than others, with this one being in the far extreme of not really caring, that being said I dont have many corals to really choose from so maybe he just likes the other food. They are algae eaters so if you have an algae problem these are great fish to get, they scrape and pick at rocks (perhaps this is where someone might think they are coral eaters) to get algae although they have no problem eatting meaty foods too (mysis shrimp, dead fish, etc). These fish can do ok in smaller tanks (30 gallons) but like all fish having a good area to roam is always a good thing as they like lots of caves and places to swim through and look for food. The fish is very noticable by its vibrant dark blue almost purple outline with a fade to red towards its belly, truely a pretty fish.

Here's a picture with the flash, the rock is way over exposed, but this guy doesn't stop very often.

Kole Yellow Eye Tang(Ctenochaetus strigosus)
This was my latest inhabitant (well technically the second tomato clown was, but this was the last new species), and at first was quite skitish, hiding behind some rocks, and occasionally swiming a couple feet away and coming right back (never when I was infront of the tank), but soon he became quite comfortable and now loves to just flap his fins and take long strides through the tank. While some tangs like the yellow one are strict vegetarians and eat macroalgae this one, like the Coral Beauty, is a rock scraper trying to scrap algae off the rock, but also like the coral beauty after he found out how good meat tastes he has a taste for that as well, and when feeding time comes around he will eat mysis shrimp and try and gum silversides to get the meat off them. When I saw this guy in the tank I just had to have him, he's got a really neat pattern to his body too a brownish-maroon color with alternating stripes, and of course the yellow outline around the eye which makes it look like he's always staring intently at you. This is a fish who likes to swim, it has such little fins that it flings but it manages to glide almost effortlessly through the water, behind the rocks, through the holes, sometimes apparently just for fun, so a larger tank is definately a good requirement (70+ gallons). This picture was another flash picture as the rocks are way over exposed, and even though it might look like he has white splotches on him, that's the glass, it was on the dirty side and this guy is so elusive it was the only decent picture I was ever able to get.