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Shamefully, I neglected to observe within five(5) days of collection, my specimen plastic bottle from most recent hike.

Always a joy to observe specimen jugs with unaided eye and a simple LED pen-flashlight. Meiofauna active, gracefully hanging hydras with tentacles slowly trawling the waters, copepods skipping along, the various colors in the sediments, and in the water column itself...it's relaxing as nighttime star gazing for me.

So shame on me, a recent NEGLECTED specimen jug left at my microscope bench.....had a baby fish in it!!!! Never before have I capture a 'fry' by mistake, with pond or swampland, or wetland samples collecting!

I fed this fry for three days with finger-pulverized flake-fish-food, then release it to an outdoor microcosm with dense floating surface plants (for the fry to safely hide within the dense tangle of floating plants, and avoid being itself eatten).

On the bottom sediment of this same neglected specimen jug...was a dead fry, with filmy cloud of recycleing organisms about it. I took a chunk of this 'composting dead fry', with a needle probe, placed the chunk in a wet-mount microscope slide, and observed with medium power magnification. Size does matter! charlie guevara NJ,US

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A huge cilliate which looks something like a species of Blepharisma to me, was solumly cruiseing about. At one moment a rotifer swept underneath this large cilliate, the cilliate in nearly the same size as the rotifer! And at times, the huge cilliate reminded me by its shape, well it sort of looks like a thick cotton gym-sock crumpled but lying flat on the floor!

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Rotifers and protozoans...nearly the same size in this simple wet-mount of the recycleing organisms thickly surrounding the dead fry.

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And the delightful surprize....huge dark BACTERIA! Bacteria, individual living/active bacteria...clearly visible in same size range (medium power/ 10x objective!!!) as the rotifers, and the protozoa. Look at them in the above images (please look?) !

All because I neglected to observe my collected specimens jug within five(5) days of collection...I had a dead fry in the jug actively being 'composted/recycled by rotifers, protozoans, and HUGE BACTERIA.

The large thread shaped bacteria did not spiral/squirm as they moved about...thus I doubt they are spirochaetes. And this delightful field observation of the wetmount with ONLY THE 10x objective!!

These bacteria formed dense twitching, actively moveing 'surf-zones'/ rows or shoals of density. The huge cilliate often plunged into the bands of dense bacteria...and stayed there for a while each 'plunge'.

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Size does matter, for fry-fish, rotifers, cilliates, bacteria! Such a wonderful outcome to encounter a fish being recycled...with only medium power (10x objective) , a simple wetmount slide preparation, and a simple point&shoot digital camera to share this session.

1) I forgot to use higher power objectives....ouch!!...I should have tried oil-immersion lens on the large bacteria! Next time.

2) I will watch for another dead fish in my backyard microcosms. To collect and observe the 'composting/recycling dead fish'. To watch if the same assemblages of: rotifers, large cilliates, huge thread bacteria again show up in my wetmount slides. charlie cuevara NJ,US

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Woow nice pictures :-) Those really were bacterias? That big?

Yeah beautiful shots. I'd imagine bacteria would be the primary recycling organisms there. Where did you collect your sample?

I found what I thought was a bunch of bacteria hanging out by some pond scum once. They all looked like little hot dogs, twitching about. Some of them were in the process of dividing. Cool stuff.

-Adam O.

Hi Adam O, and hi visitors! Say Adam, just for my microscopic observing pleasure, I have indoor, and outdoor aquariums with native fish/native plant assemblages. That shoal of huge bacteria, were a sample of 'the cloud of recycleing organisms surrounding a 4.0 mm dead baby minnow (a dead fry).

To make special 'microhabitats' for collecting observable protists/meiofauna/and algae, to achieve this with great results...I use a floating small styrofoam raft floating in my aquarium. Try these floating rafts...the fun is to bring indoors to your native fish/native plants aquarium..samples of algae/ protists/ meiofauna...and to litterally: stock your styrofoam rafts. One white styrofoam coffee cup can be easily cut with paper scissors into many curved-surface rafts...strands of native algae, or native water plants entwined with your areas algae. lay these specimens /drape these specimens on your curved rafts, water lapps along the curved saddle of each small raft..this is a key microhabitat in your aquarium. Time to time you can 'restock your rafts' with sample silt/ submerged strand of plants, etc. .

It really is a relaxing pleasure to have rafts from different outdoor sites, to periodically view wet-mount slides of pipett sample of each raft/ of key locales on each raft...see if themes of organism groups stabilly/repeatedly are encountered in your microscopic observing. I find favorite protists (huge green-blue Stentor ceroulius (sp?!!), smal cladoceran water fleas, etc. ), I find recurring encounters by periodically pipett sampleing the same rafts...weeks apart. And then you have seasonal changes to enjoy with your wetmount microscopy, Adam O. But aahh, those huge bacteria often turn up amidst a 'micro-carcass' being recyled...in my relaxing microscopy. charlie guevara, fingerlakes/US