Cell Division In Ciliates

[Mitch640]

Last week, I started a Microbe sample aquarium in a 3 gallon covered jar. Already, it is producing some fine specimens. It's keeping me busy making slides, shooting stills and video and I now need to keep the computer running all night again, just to mix down the video files I get. Lot's of fun while it snows outside.

Here are some stills of an unidentified ciliate I am finding in clouds in the aquarium. They come to the side of the glass closest to the light and look like tendrils of white smoke clouds starting at the waterline and hanging down into the depths. A single drop sucked out with a pipette collects thousands of them, and here is what they look like, magnified a couple hundred times. It's simply amazing to me, that whole civilizations can be living just at the corner of my desk.

Here is a video of them going about their lives.

If you look closely, you can see two round ciliates that are close together, and one or two that have what look like pinch marks going across their mid sections. The two round ones are actually still stuck together, in the final stages of cell division. They broke apart and went their separate ways a few minutes later. Pretty amazing to watch the process happen.

[john sp.]

Hi Mitch, thanks for sharing this update on what's happening in your aquarium. I'm intrigued by how the populations of differrent critters come and go over time. Clearly, these guys are in a boom phase. Although I'm no expert, I'll put in my 2 cents worth towards an ID. I'm thinking some sort of Colpodea, perhaps Colpoda cucullus.

John

[Mitch640]

Hi John. For me, a noobie to all things microscopic, I am finding everything I see just fascinating to the point of distraction. LOL, I am glad I am retired or I would probably quit my job to spend more time with my microscope.

The aquarium is changing every day. It now has a fine sheen of scum on top, with some small shrimp things that swim around and other much smaller things that I con only see when they congregate by the millions.

I can't wait to see where this goes over time.

[Wim van Egmond]

Hi Mitch,

Yes, microscopy is great and I am sure you will enjoy many of these 'micro space travels'. There is such an endless amount of subjects.

Wim

[Mitch640]

Wim, that is exactly how I imagine it, space travels. A world we can see, but never really visit ourselves, and yet, there is a connection with the things that live there. A direct connection through time, from them to us.

Today, I found some mold on a piece of Walnut wood I had put in a covered bowl, with some water and a sponge in there. It was to place a wet slide in, to keep it from drying out overnight. When I looked at the mold, I saw the mold stalks and heads, and some spores, and what I thought were other spores, but turned out to be thousands upon thousands of testate amoebas in the process of conjugation and division. I got some stills and am now mixing down a 15 minute video. I am still in shock at finding that.