Hi all, Goldiegirl asked if I would give her some of my tips on taking pictures of fish, so I thought I would share...
(1) First of all I move the aquarium light to the very front of the tank (still leave it on top of the aquarium) this will get some illumination onto the fish and reduce some of the shadows, then turn off any lights behind you so they dont reflect off the front of the tank, watch out for other things reflecting off the tank as well, like sunny windows, if this is a prob, do it at night...
(2) A digital camera with a manual mode is essential... for the picture below I turned the flash OFF as it refects off the front or back of the glass and create a hotspot in your image  ...  
(3) With most cameras that have a manual mode (and some that dont) you can change the ISO film speed (old film camera jargon)... If you can set it 800 or above (that will help stop some of the blur), you will get a bit of grain in your image, but that is one of the trade offs. In the image below I set it to ISO 1000...
(4) The last setting you will need to change is the white balance setting, set it to fluorescent if this is your aquariums light source or tungsten if you use an incadescent light (like a ordinary light bulb)...
(5) Last of all the cameras aperture and shutter speed have to be set, for the image below I used a shutter speed of 1/125 and an aperture of F4 with a 40mm lens, you may need to experiment (digital cameras are great for this as you can just delete it if the exposure is off) but try to keep the shutter speed around or faster than 1/125 to stop the fish blurring, if need be adjust the aperture to tune your exposure. Because fish are mostly on the move you may still need to wait until the fish slows down a bit to get a sharp pic...
I only have digital SLR cameras but I just checked and I was was able to do these settings on my partners compact digital camera which does have a manual mode ...
Hope this is of some help and my explanation is not too complicated, hope to see some great pics... cheers all > Ron.

   No, Im not a pro but there is always hope, wildlife photography has always beeen my hobby and passion... and I read a lot of photography books and magazines... also one of the components of my education was instructional design (lol) good to be able to use it... hope you were able to follow it all... cheers fantailer > Ron

PS: forgot to add one of the other ways you can try to get a good pic is by tracking the fish with the camera while snapping the pic (try to use a faster shutter speed 1/250 or faster and ISO number over 1000) also you could try using a tripod or similar (for this you need to have your fish be reasonably still).... > RH

Great info! Gotta look into it when I'll grab a newer and better camera

Are you an expert? Never mind

Oh yeah.

Can you please post them?? Provided that they're photos of your fish

THANK YOU, RON!  Wonderful tips, I can tell you really know your stuff! It was great of you to write out all of your tips and tricks for getting a nice photograph, karma  . I recently got a new digital camera and am still learning how to use it, and your suggestions have been very helpful. Cheers as well 

Thanks a bunch!  Any tips for video?

Hi Bob and Nicole, with video I think from memory you can also set the white balance to an indoor light setting, also the video camera's autofocussing may try to focus on the glass, you can reduce reflections off the front of the glass, by turning off the lights behind you, that may help a bit, you can also try using the manual focus but on the modern compact video cameras I find its a little impractical and not that easy to do...
Bob, I have done a few pond pics here at (Link is not visible to guests. Please register to view.) ... the one real problem I had with taking these pics was trying to reduce the sky and some of the surrounding trees etc  from reflecting off the water surface and causing what looks like a double exposure on the image, I had to find a position where the refections were not a problem and shoot from there... as for white balance use the daylight, or cloudy or shade setting (whatever is applicable)...
as for ISO speed, I used 800 that day (it was cloudy and F.B moves a lot) but if its bright outdoors set it to 400... with the aperture I used F5.6 and shutter speed was 320 and 400 (cloudy day and the light kept changing), a faster shutter speed will give you sharper pics if your fish are constantly moving around like F.B. was that day... hope this is of some help and if I have missed anything feel free to ask... > cheers Ron

Awesome picture! This would work so well me for me...if I had a tank light and a good camera! Doh. >.<; lol

cheers Skwishee, and I agree most fish are very hard to photograph, capturing moving subjects takes patience and time...

I had fun reading to comments. Thanks for sharing tips about marine fish keeping though.