What to view and photograph very very small critters with?
 

Title sums it up pretty well, I started looking closer at what is crawling around on the acryllic in my small Pod Farm tank. OMG! I need something to view and possibly take pictures of all these things. I'm not sure I want any or all of them in my DT yet.I have been searching Lionfish Lair among other sites trying to identify them. There are so many different things I hadn't noticed just casually looking at the things I can see with my eyes and a 10x glass. There's a whole new level of microscopic life in there.
I believe I have even seen some large Ameobas and things many many times smaller.There's no way to take a photo with the zoom and autofocus on my phone. Is a camera with a special lense required or a microscope with a built in CCD? OMG the wife is gonna kill me when I open up this can-o-worms LOL.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=70096
harp copepod

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/pi...ictureid=70094
pompom crab zoa

definitely use a celestron microscope with a celestron digital microscope imager.
basically take the eyepiece out of the microscope and slide in the camera piece. plug it into a usb and away you go... amcap software.
as for what the wife will do....lol..... i told mine i wanted one and i had to save my allowance up.... lol....
i make sure i'm using it all the time where she can see me using it...

gogo7, ballpark cost?

Smokey Stover, a 'good' camera with a macro mode (and some even have 2 macro modes) can get pretty darn close in on small stuff. But noting like a microscope.

Somebody also sells a magnifying glass lens /glass cleaner porthole. The glass cleaner is inside the tank and the magnifying lens is outside. It ain't cheap, it kind of cool, but nothing like a microscope or even a good macro on a camera. And don't leave it in the tank all the time. The inside half of mine, and of a couple of other people I know, had them break down. Take it out of the tank when you are done with it and wash it on fresh water and dry it off.

hey ron...i found the microscope at the local telescope/camera shop... the microscope was about 350$cdn.... the digital imager about 120$..
not cheap...but it blows away the plastic microscope i was using.....i use a 42 inch tv as a monitor so the images are nice and big. also the image files are massive...