Uh-oh, Dinos.

[Samw]

Originally Posted by Xadieu

Don't know if anyone had said this but apparently Fauna Marin algae x says in their description that it removes dinoflagellates. Hope this helps

http://www.canadacorals.com/collecti...-ultra-algae-x

Yup. I've started using it to treat dinos.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/sho...852#post789852

[asylumdown]

So my microscope was waiting for me when I got home!

1. My roomate and her boyfriend did a spectacular job with my tank. The corals grew more in the 17 days they were taking care of it then in the past 2 months!

2. The brown slime is significantly reduced, but it's not gone. By 3:30 today (right now basically), there's a light dusting on the rocks that had it worst.

3. Only one coral seems like it's being damaged by the slime, but it was never really doing that well to begin with. ANd when I say slime, I really mean a super fine dusting that you have to look closely to notice.

Anyway, I grabbed some of the brown slime and took a picture with my microscope's camera. Forgive the teeny tiny file, the driver that came with the camera won't work, so I had to get a freeware version and I have no idea how to work it yet:



Thing is, they move. A lot. These things that form these brown sticky mats are in fact million and millions of tiny watermelon seed shaped swimming cells. that pic is at 10X mag, but at 40X you can actually see the little skirt of... something. It looks like a skirt of cilia as they go all the way around them. Does anyone know if these are in fact dinos? I took a short video too, I'll try and figure out how to upload it in a bit

[asylumdown]

Here's one at 40X

[asylumdown]

What do you mean by commercially? Like through a wholesaler or at a place of business?

So far I've used this puppy 5 times and I've only been home for two days, so I don't know how you value their use, but I feel like I got my money's worth on the first try when I put my "slime" under the scope and saw thousands of little organisms swimming around under their own power. I didn't even mention the diatoms (I think that's what they are) that looked like two super elongated cut glass champagne flutes facing each other (cup to cup) with their bases snapped off that we're swimming around in with the Dinos, or these other organisms that looked like glass versions of the Mercedes Benz logo with the other ring removed.

So, might not have been "worth" 250 bucks because I'll never use it professionally, but I could make that same argument about the "value" of my skimmer, my lights, my pump, my whole tank. I have a salt water tank because I'm fascinated by the coral reefs and I want to watch one in frozen Alberta whenever I want. Half the stuff that's cool is too small to see, so a microscope to me seems like a logical investment in this hobby.

[asylumdown]

Originally Posted by daniella3d

That's some really nice results! I love looking at things under the microscope but mine is not producing such great result. Even then it is fun to watch all those creepy creatures. I sometime grab a bit of sand or scrape from the liverock to check it out and I am always amazed what I can find.

As soon as I have the money for it I will order that microscope too. It does look like dinos.

Thanks for posting.

Yah it's freaking cool! There's definitely a pretty broad range in what you can get from a scope I've noticed. I've seen photos online that I couldn't dream of producing, regardless of how nice the camera is. Some have high magnifications, but not necessarily great resolution. I thought I was spending a lot of money until I found a site that didn't start selling scopes until the $1000 mark. They can get ridiculous.