Micro aquarium

[Tony T]

Useful for photographing small aquatics such as this mosquito larva:

[rjlittlefield]

Excellent!

How do you clean the glass? Or do you just make another one if crud happens?

--Rik

[puzzledpaul]

Interesting setup / idea ... and wondered if you'd tried / considered clamping the assembly with pegs / bulldog (myers?) paper clips etc - which'd easily facilitate breakdown for cleaning as Rik mentioned.

I suppose a (simple ply?) 'exo' frame with screws / wingnuts might be another idea, if resources / tools available?

(I find car / truck / bike inner tube rubber great for this sort of thing, btw - also useful for wrapping round lens parts that often get rested on rough surfaces in the quest for support)

Good pic, btw

pp

[Tony T]

Thanks for the comments. Easy to clean with paper towelling wrapped around a flat popsicle stick.
For larger bugs I use the folowing:


such as this Gomphus exilis live larva

[DaveW]

I have seen a similar thing done with two pieces of glass and some thin rubber tubing looped into a U shape, as with the hole in your rubber, and clamped together with bulldog type paper clips.

Also devices using a dish similar to yours with a movable glass that can be brought forward to confine the subject in the plane of focus.

Another thing is you can put a background paper behind the "aquarium" painted with splodges of green and brown paint to look like out of focus water weeds for a more realistic in situ effect.

DaveW

[Harold Gough]

If you have access to laboratory materials you will find that the blank glass plates for TLC (thin layer chromatography) are very flat and fairly thin, such that they would be good top focus through if used to make a small tank. Photographic print frame glass might be similar. They are easily stuck together, at the edges, by silicone rubber cement, as used for full size aquariums. It is strong, waterproof and non-toxic.

Cleaning, of grease in particular, including fingerprints, is best done with some alcohol (meths) on the cloth or tissue. Don't do this to your lenses or filters!

Harold