Koi-lo wrote:

"Richard Sexton" wrote in message
...

No, but I can try it. Thanks. :-) I've tried all kinds of angels but

there is either glare or flashback or the pics are overexposed.
That's why
I always had so few pics of my tanks on my pond/fish webpages. I never
tried turning the camera....


Also, if your camera can take shots as close as a couple of inches
(My $35 Fuji does so I expect real cameras do) then put the lens
of the camera in contact with the aquarium glass. This should eliminate
the glare and might only give you hassles with depth of field and focus.
But at least you have no glare.


My digital camera is a HP, several years old and ran around $165.00 as I
recall. Close-ups are usually slightly blurry and almost always
overexposed. It has an auto flash thing. Maybe I'm not doing something
right with it. :-( The booklet that came with it doesn't help much and
doing anything with it other than snapping a picture is so confusing.

It doesn't do anything but stay powdery looking and spreads out from
small
black spots. Where it gets more light, it seems to be a more reddish
color.
The goldfish are nibbling it off the back glass I've noticed.


Reddish? Brownish maybe?


Yes, you could call it a reddish brown. I don't mind green algae but
this stuff is so ugly.

Diatoms if so. Put a bright light on it and tell me what color you think
they are now.


OK, I just looked close. There may be two kinds. The stuff on the
glass and what's spreading on the plants looks sooty black - not
brownish or reddish. What's spreading on the bottom stones looks a
brownish red color. I'm afraid this crap is going to smother and kill my
swordplants and water-wisteria. :-(

Think I have the same stuff in my Malawi tank - it's the only one that
suffers from this. Reddish/brown/purple stuff on the glass - comes off
easily and is powdery. Then darker stuff on the rocks and the plants - I
suppose sooty could describe it. I've always put it down to the lack of
plants and the hardness of the water from the Ocean Rock leeching
limestone into it. Plants are nigh on impossible to grow in this tank as
their leaves get covered in the stuff although I have noticed that the
Plec is starting to clean them up a bit. I also sometimes move them into
another tank and the otos lap the algae up...seen them clean an
anubias to as good as new in a couple of hours that I had despaired of
before.

Have you got any algae eaters in the tank? Might be worth trying....

Gill