Spurred by the PBS Stay Curious campaign I set out to explore the watery regions of our fish tank. Our fish normally reside in a little backyard pond but since it's so little they have to winter inside. This year I upgraded their winter home to a 20 gallon tank, which is probably still too small for the larger Koi fish but all that their budget will allow.

For today's experiment we employee a sturdy zip-lock plastic bag, a digital camera, and various hand tools to help the bag to sink. Sealed in the bag the camera is setup for a timer shot and then lowered into the tank, towards the back wall. I'm a few feet in front of the tank, with bag held at arms length (I don't completely trust the sealing integrity of a ten cent bag with the fate of a four hundred dollar camera) and wearing the best smile I can muster for a fish tank.

Luck is with us as a fish passes by during the snapshot to provide a departing tailfin for perspective. Still, I should have cleaned the tank water a bit...it looks like I rubbed vaseline on the lens. Not exactly what I anticipated, thinking fish-eye-lense type of light warping, but less scary than I anticipated. A more realistic picture might have had Zeke and I sprawled on the couch, eating chips/dog biscuits, zombie-eyed watching a movie.

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