I just bought myself a digital camera and took a lot of shots of the aquarium and found that it is harder than I thought to get good ones. I'll try to tell you everything I know. If you don't know what "shutter speed" and "aperture size" mean look on the internet it should be easy to find an article about camera basics.
1st I HIGHLY suggest a digital camera or else about 20 rolls of film. It is very hard to get good shots. Some people mess with all the settings (aperture size, shutter speed etc.) - but I found that the auto mode on the camera was a whole lot better at this than me.
With the flash off: I loved the look of the aquarium especially when the room lights were out. The colors looked great and so did the general look of the aquarium - you know the sort of "glowing" aquarium look. But the fish turned out blurry because with the dark subject and the flash being off the camera put the shutter speed to a sixth of a second or so. This gave the fish too much time to move while the picture is being exposed. I have 40 watts in a 29gal and think that more wattage would help make it a little easier to take pics.
With the flash on: The camera set itself to a sixty-th of a second and the fish turned out a lot clearer. But I lost the "look" of the aquarium. It was like looking at an aquarium in a brightly lit room with the aquarium lights off. There was also the reflection of the flash to worry about - but this is easily fixed by taking the shot at an angle to the glass instead of head on.
My conclusions: when taking photos of plants leave the flash off. When taking photos of fish put the flash on (unless your fish don't move). When taking pics of both - upgrade the lighting in your aquarium.
