Today in the Fishroom~ 11/01/12 Toxotes jaculatrix "The Archer"

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Aquamojo

Aquamojo

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Another awesome fish from my Segrest Farms shoot...the Archer fish. This species has always been on my short list of "gonna haves". Couple things I remember specifically about this fish while I was shooting. First was that it was the MOST skittish fish I have ever photo'd. I've taken thousand of photo over the years of different fish. This fish would dart as soon as I licked the shutter. It was weird...as the flash was going off it was moving. I can only think that this had something to do with the eyesight of the fish. The flash, prior to firing would send an Infra Red signal to the slave flash units. The only explanation is that they saw that and darted exactly prior to the flash going off.

You can see the water turbulence at the top of this photo.

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My shutter speed was 1/320th of a second..so stop action wasn't an issue. I did get some shots that looked like this:

AQA_6000.jpg


And I do like my head on shots. Looks like a bird in flight.

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This fish has a very peculiar means of getting food...one that fits the common name...the Archer. It spits a stream...very accurately I might add...out of the water knocking their food into the water. I took a bunch more that can be seen in Segrest's Gallery: http://goo.gl/qDY4l

Anyone keep these in their tanks? Do you feed them like they eat in the wild...or, and I assume they will...take food tossed in the tank? Deadly accurate spitters.
 
Don't have jaculatrix but I've got blythii's and boy are they aggressive towards each other! They eat pretty much anything I throw in the tank. Awesome shots and fish!
 
I.used to keep them hense the username, but ive gotten out of them too mean plus keeping them in brackish conditions is a pain. I really want to get into keeping them again once my 55 is freed up and empty. I could never get mine to spit though. Really cool fish all around.

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archers said:
I.used to keep them hense the username, but ive gotten out of them too mean plus keeping them in brackish conditions is a pain. I really want to get into keeping them again once my 55 is freed up and empty. I could never get mine to spit though. Really cool fish all around.

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Click to expand...

They are amazing fish...one of my all time faves. I'd recommend checking out the latest TFH, I wrote a short article about the Microlepis Archers which are a true freshwater archer. I keep some myself and have also noticed they're far less aggressive towards each other than the common archer.
 
Aquamojo said:
Mike...what was that place we visited that had all the Archer fish in a vat?
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That was the UF Tropical Aquaculture Lab down the road from us...what a cool place. We work with them on research & development to determine potential new species for aquaculture here in FL. They had been working on the archers for a while but I'm not sure if that was successful. But yeah, the ones they had there were full grown and very used to being hand fed. The staff there puts a glob of blackworms on the wall of the vat and they instantly start spitting at them.

Funny archer-related story (you'll like this one Mo): I had a couple Burmese Clouded Archers in one of the photo tanks in my office a few weeks back, and they had started spitting at the light fixture above the tank every now and then. Then one morning Sandy (my boss) walked over and was standing in the doorway to my office- at least 8 feet diagonally from the tank- and before she could come in they both spit at her! She didn't get hit but it was awful close.

Now I'm thinking I need to get myself an archer tank in there to keep unwanted visitors out...;)
 
Very cool fish. I would love to get some. My plans are to have them in a half filled 55 with plenty of driftwood and then a critter cage so I could put insects on the driftwood and watch them shoot them down.


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Tucc185 said:
That was the UF Tropical Aquaculture Lab down the road from us...what a cool place. We work with them on research & development to determine potential new species for aquaculture here in FL. They had been working on the archers for a while but I'm not sure if that was successful. But yeah, the ones they had there were full grown and very used to being hand fed. The staff there puts a glob of blackworms on the wall of the vat and they instantly start spitting at them.

Funny archer-related story (you'll like this one Mo): I had a couple Burmese Clouded Archers in one of the photo tanks in my office a few weeks back, and they had started spitting at the light fixture above the tank every now and then. Then one morning Sandy (my boss) walked over and was standing in the doorway to my office- at least 8 feet diagonally from the tank- and before she could come in they both spit at her! She didn't get hit but it was awful close.

Now I'm thinking I need to get myself an archer tank in there to keep unwanted visitors out...;)
Click to expand...

That was an awesome tour. Rarely do you ever see ponds full of Arapaima, Pacu or Red Tail Cats. LOL

I did get some photos of the Archer fish shooting down the black worms. No action shots unfortunately. If I as to own this fish, you KNOW that would be the reason. LOL

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I think some of the other shots on your FB page are better than the ones above....really easy fish to photo.
 
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