A fungus that moves!!! I, too, will very much like to know what that alien is.
Loh K L
I found this inside the shrimp tank. It is attached on the Fissiden and mosses. I was thought it was the snail eggs. But then they will move and reacted like the mushroom in marine. Once you touch it...it will shrink and move to other direction.
But never see any shrimp or shrimplet trap on this. Please advise.
My new blog about field trip, aquascaping, DIY and etc. http://dominicanrepublica.blogspot.com
A fungus that moves!!! I, too, will very much like to know what that alien is.
Loh K L
Hi,
It looks like a plasmodial slime mould, but with only a photo it is just guessing. When they run low on nutrients they cluster up and travel around, although they are general something from land.
So it is really a big guess, it might be a fungus, since some can move - actually some are predatory and will capture nematodes for example. But it still sounds like too much movement for a fungus.
Could even be a cnidarian but none I know of look like that in freshwater, so i would "guess" a slime mould. But that is just a wild shot. There are lots of protozoans that could also look like that under the right conditions, but who knows.
Without a microscope i would bet my 2 cents it is some sort of slime mould if it moves like you say. If you had not mentioned it moving it would of been a much easier bet!
Hope that helps,
Scott
Thanks again,
Scott Douglass
Hi,
Mr. Loh, Dominic asked the same question in my forum, so here is my suggestion:
It could be a colony of Vorticellidae, in English called peritrichs. They are small zooids which consists only of one cell but some species can build colonies where they live together with other specimen. They eat bacteria, algae and other creatures of their size. So they are harmless to shrimps. A few days ago I saw some very similar looking creatures in a friends tank. They are interesting to observe and yes, they are able to move.
regards
Robert
Indeed they are peritrichs. Good job Robert. I did some Googling and found this image. Looks familiar?
Not sure of the species but image is from http://www.bewie.de/
Here's another link to the Vorticella spp., which I suspect is what is found in Dominic's tank.
http://www.microscope-microscope.org...vorticella.htm
There are species of vorticellids native to Malaysia but the most common are those from the genus Vorticella. There are two Sticholonche sp. found on the east coast of peninsular Malaysia but I can't find good images of those online.
Looks harmless though. They probably came in along with the moss species that Dominic collected from the wild. Maybe came with the Fissidens?
Fish.. Simply Irresistable
Back to Killies... slowly.
2 cents on it's way to Robert...
I never new vorticelli were communal. But there are some very strange "creatures" down at that level.
Scott
Thanks again,
Scott Douglass
How interesting!! I'm familiar with zooid, the word, but I have no idea what it is. Scrabble players love words like zooid. When there's a zoo on the board, you can add id for a possible triple word score There's also zo, dzo and zho which are useful words to keep in mind. I'm not sure but I think all 3 words mean the same thing - it's an animal, a hybrid between a zebra and an ox or something. The guy who came up with the hybrid couldn't make up his mind what he wanted to call his new creature. His confusion became a boon to scrabble players everywhere So the next time you play the board game, surprise your opponent by putting down zo. It's an acceptable English word although most would think it's zoo mispelled.
Sorry for sidetracking
Loh K L
Thanks for the info Mr Loh. Will keep that in mind.
Thank you all for the info. So, it is fine to keep inside the tank? I just used pipe water and washed it away...
My new blog about field trip, aquascaping, DIY and etc. http://dominicanrepublica.blogspot.com
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