I got a microscope! Now... What are all these things???

[mythesis]

So Santa was kind and let me get a microscope .

Just took a sample of algae water from the fuge and took a look.

I'm pretty sure there's some pods in there.

Then a bunch of spiral things I assume are baby spiroids?

Then some other stuff??

What do you guys use to identify all these things?

 

[mythesis]

Scraped some algae and saw this things in the middle.

Any ideas what the giant Trisolarian creature is ?

 

[mythesis]

Well this thing is *huge*. This was at 80x magnification. Eating the smaller cells which I assume are algae

 

[keepingfishwithnoidea]

Woah @ISpeakForTheSeas this is so.ething intresting

 

[thedon986]

Well this thing is *huge*. This was at 80x magnification. Eating the smaller cells which I assume are algae

Those smaller cells look like dinoflagellates. Cool to see something eating them.

 

[mythesis]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have dinos (part of why I wanted to get a scope).

Guessing these cells are the problem?

Also, what resources do you all use to identify this stuff? I feel bad just dumping tons of images with a "what's this??"

 

[mythesis]

I also have some video, but need to scrub the sound of my children loudly eating next to the phone while I took the images

 

[keepingfishwithnoidea]

It's ok after all there children

 

[Reefering1]

Following

 

[smitten with ocean life]

those are really neat pics! very interesting!

 

[mythesis]

Ok, here's a ... something... with a very full stomach going to town:


A smaller dino/diatom going around:


"Demolisher" worm trucking around:

(Sorry, we've been playing factorio!)

Zoomed in "Demolisher" Worm:

 

[mythesis]

It's ok after all there children

And they are *loving* getting to see this stuff (as am I!)

 

[Kingsley_Reef]

What scope did you buy I really want to get one now lol

 

[mythesis]

What scope did you buy I really want to get one now lol

I did this one: Amazon product

But, I'll tell from 2 days of experience, the 100x lens is almost never going to be used, because it requires oil and the chromatic aberration at either 2000x or 1000x is just way too high. I just bought the $20 cell phone mount today, waiting for it to come in --- I think based on 24 hours of experience, something that easily connects to a larger screen would be way more useful than going up above 800 magnification. Most of the above were taken at 200-400x.

Like, I "scraped" off some red slime from a rock and took a video:


Hard to really id what's going on in there at 2K magnification, because the light just blurs everything out so much.

This guy was cool at 2K though. No idea what it is, but it's definitely one of it!

 

[mythesis]

Scraped some algae and saw this things in the middle.

Any ideas what the giant Trisolarian creature is ?

According to this video: , this is the skeleton of a sponge. Given I have pineapple sponges in abundance, that makes sense!

 

[mythesis]

This one moving with a tiny flagellum:


This looks to be an Ostreopsis according to this guide: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/dinos-dinos-dinos.1059087/post-12649321

 

[mythesis]

And, based on that guide, looks like some Centric/Pizza Diatoms (mmmm...pizzza)

 

[BrettE]

According to this video: , this is the skeleton of a sponge. Given I have pineapple sponges in abundance, that makes sense!

I believe there are diatoms that have that shape too. I'm not clear on how to differentiate the two.

 

[mythesis]

Ok, here's a ... something... with a very full stomach going to town:


A smaller dino/diatom going around:


"Demolisher" worm trucking around:

(Sorry, we've been playing factorio!)

Zoomed in "Demolisher" Worm:

@ISpeakForTheSeas any ideas what this top critter would be?

It looks like it's eating the dinos (which are likely Ostreopsis based on other pics), so...would love to roll out the welcome mat to get this one to eat more!

 

[mythesis]

Well this is incredible.

Don't know what the thing is in the middle, but the Ostreopsis were definitely "fighting" it.

It's been about an hour, and seems the Ostreopsis are winning, but I can't be sure.

Anyone know what it is?