Aquamojo

The F0 Managuense from La Cieba, Honduras are breeding again. When that happens they not only color up well, but are extrememly easy to photograph. Here's the male at 9"....completely psychotic: The female is not happy to have me poking my lens at the glass either: Momma and fry:

The pair of Breidohri have set up breeding area behind the foliage in the tank. Every once in a while they would pop out to see what I was doing with the camera. Here's the male: Here's the female. Happy to say I DO have a female Yellow Labridens from Media Luna. Here she is in hot pursuit of one of the males. I have the five fish in a 150 gallon tank. Right now all of the males are hiding on the left side...the female is in control of the remaining 80% of the tank. A few more pictures of the P. Fredrichsthali from Cenote Escondido. Male: Male in pursuit of a female: Anyone who takes pictures of their fish knows that there is always that milisecond of a delay between when your brain instructs your finger to take the shot. Sometimes it works to your advantage. I was framing this shot of a male...as I hit the shutter release another male intervened. It happened that quick that I didn't even realize it until I reviewd the pictures on my computer. One more... of an uncooperative Freddie making a turn as the shutter was released.

Some additional photos of the pair. Here's the female with her new batch of kids. Not the best photo of the pair. The male is a little out of focus...but not enough to hide those teeth. Just the kids. This shot was done with two flashes. I used a main flash on the camera and a slave back fill. It shows the intense color of this awesome Parachromis. And one more with the camera focus more on the fry.

Picture of the breeding male at 9".

It's the same camera I use for most...Nikon D200. The lens is what makes the photo...Nikkor 105mm Macro with built in vibration reduction. Excellent lens.

Female Parachromis Loiselli SP. Honduras Some odd and ends left from my session photographing the Zonatum.

LOL...You would think, right? I have 23 tanks totalling 7,000 gallons plus a 1600 gallon pond in my basement.

More photos of the Zonatum. As I said before, I moved him to a bigger tank. For some reason he turned into a"sponge junkie"...tearing huge chunks out of the sponge filter in his tank. He had done it previously but only recently started to do it with fervor. The tank I moved him into is perfect (at least in my opinion) for photos...so I took advantage and shot a couple hundred pictures this weekend. I literally stood in front of that tank for an hour and a half...camera in hand. ONe of the techniques I use for some of the more responsive fish is something that only could be called "fish wrangling". It's really a conditioned response that I help develop in the fish over a period of time. It works well with the more glass-banging agro fish. First thing I do is set my flash and lights to the part of the tank that gives me the best background...in this case the plants. Whenever the fish would swim "out of range" I would move my face close to the tank...the fish would respond by banging the glass. I would tease him in this manner all the time moving toward the staging area with the flash and plants. He would follow and when in place I would step back and shoot. It worked well with the Zonatum who started to turn his attention from the sponge to the silk plants. I noticed that he was constantly moving the plant around with head. Every once in a while I would see him bust through the middle. That was the shot I wanted...so I waited and was rewarded with this. Here's he is after just smacking the tank front. I thought it looked like he was taking a bow. I had a shot similar to this a while back. You can see that the fish is to the left of the flash area. I liked the effect and got several similar. I set a small kicker flash to the left to illuminate the shadows on the back end of the fish. That flash is triggered as a slave and set at about 1/4 power. One of the other things I would notice is that he would extend his dorsal fins up whenever I put my hand over the top of the tank. This shot required me wrangling the fish into place then when there...holding an open hand over the top...stepping back and shooting. This might be my favorite shot of the group. Again...I shot literally a couple hundred pictures. I will post more when I get a chance to get them off the card.

This is one half of a beeding pair of Breidohri. He is currently 10". I have a total of four, two males/two females. The other male is half this size. The fish is F1 from a wild caught pair that I received from Rapps. Jeff said the fish came from the Netherlands. Really good looking fish.

These are the Green Labridens. They are getting ready to breed. More on that when it happens. Munching on a TOO large pellet. These are H. Labridens "Blue" sp. Tanninul. I had males and a buddy had females. He was kind enough to gift them to me for breeding. Here's one of his females shortly after being put into the tank. Here's my big male:

There was a lot of talk a while back about the "Unknown Species" that we caught in Honduras. I have to be honest. I want more of these! I've kept some form of Managuense for well over twenty-five years...and never seen fish as colorful or agressive. Just awesome specimens. (@8")

Honest...this fish makes it easy. All I have to do is sit back and wiggle my toes at the front of the tank glass. I can get him to move from side to side...flare his gills...turn left...right...LOL. He's insane. Literally thinks he owns the room. I shot these close ups....thought they came out great.

This large male is one half of a breeding pair. What make him unusual...the pair unusual...is that after the courtship is over and the eggs laid, he takes total charge of guarding and hatching them. The female is forced to watch from the other side of her divider. Even thought there are some infertile eggs shown their success rate at having a lot of free swimming fry...is great. That plus the fact that they breed like rats with fins.

I've kept many Managuense over the years...but never Managuense that looked like this. Awesome colors.

Rio Cazones...aka "Turquoise" Carpinte. It came from a gentleman named Don Danko...a well respected aquarist. That's the ID.

Here's some stuff you don't see very often. I pulled some fish from the pond. Green Umbee male at 14". We will be going to Panama next April on a collecting trip. With any luck we'll be able to bring back some additional Umbee. So far all of the Green Umbee in the hobby originated from Rusty Wessels pair. This fish is F1 from that pair. Shortly after taking the photos I put this guy back into the pond. I got this Carpinte from Jeff a few years ago...and have photographed it when small. It's now around 11" Really a very colorful Carpinte. I got it as a "Turqoise"...but I;m pretty sure it's not. It's as colorful as an Escondido...but pretty sure it's not that either. I sent pictures off to Juan Miquel to see if he can ID the locale. I love the way the blue lays on the scales. Also out of the pond is four very chunky Chuco Intermedium. Really nice fish. I kept three of these out to try and get a pair. They bred once or twice in the pond.