Looking for ID. What are these?

[VibingOctopus]

There’s a red nubbin with hairy/flagellum-ish growths. It hasn’t moved at all, but it has grown a little and it’s “whiskers” seem longer as well.

There’s also these transparant/whitish growth. It has definitely grown, and once the rock was placed in a different location it has retracted as well, so it has some thinner spots/holes now.

Picture from 26 may: first 2
Picture from today 11 june: last 2

 

[AlyciaMarie Verified Admin]

Huh, never seen something like this. Maybe @ISpeakForTheSeas can help!

 

[Elisabeth GER]

Miniacina miniacea Red foraminiferan

Miniacina miniacea is commonly referred to as Red foraminiferan. Difficulty in the aquarium: There are no reports available yet that this animal has already been kept in captivity successfully. A aquarium size of at least 50 Liter is recommended. Toxicity: Toxic hazard unknown.

reeflex.net

VG Elisabeth

 

[EnterName]

The white growth is a sponge. For the red blobs I'm not so sure right now.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Huh, never seen something like this. Maybe @ISpeakForTheSeas can help!

A bit late, but yeah, the white is sponge and the red is likely a Foraminiferan like Miniacina miniacea or Homotrema rubrum, though I can't say for sure from the pics.

 

[VibingOctopus]

(Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been ill)

Oh wow, awesome!
I googled it and that does look a lot like it! I will try to get a better/closer picture of it soon, but it is positioned a bit difficult for now. The sites I found said no known successful aquarium, if anyone does know some tips for keeping it happy and healthy I’d love to learn more!

Here’s an update picture from last week, there’s a bonus chiton on it that Inwould love to know the species of if anyone knows it.
The spongue has developed whitish tubes in a few places in the past 2 weeks while it never had those before, what are those? I’d like to be able to google it to learn more.

Thank you all so much, really cool to have a name and be able to look up more about them!

 

[EnterName]

The spongue has developed whitish tubes in a few places in the past 2 weeks while it never had those before, what are those? I’d like to be able to google it to learn more.

Thank you all so much, really cool to have a name and be able to look up more about them!

Sponges filter water through their "skin" and the filtered water obviously has to go somewhere. It goes into the "central cavity" (Spongocoel) and is pushed out through the "Excurrent pore" (Osculum). I assume the tubes you are observing are just that: A part of the sponge body that offer surface area to filter water that can collect within the center of the tube (central cavity) and then be pushed out at one end.

Post #82 and #83 in my microscopy thread show some other fascinating properties of sponges + you get to see them up close. If you are on mobile and using the app which sometimes cannot jump to the correct posts: Page 5, second and third post.

 

[Elisabeth GER]

(Sorry for the late reply, I’ve been ill)

Oh wow, awesome!
I googled it and that does look a lot like it! I will try to get a better/closer picture of it soon, but it is positioned a bit difficult for now. The sites I found said no known successful aquarium, if anyone does know some tips for keeping it happy and healthy I’d love to learn more!

Here’s an update picture from last week, there’s a bonus chiton on it that Inwould love to know the species of if anyone knows it.
The spongue has developed whitish tubes in a few places in the past 2 weeks while it never had those before, what are those? I’d like to be able to google it to learn more.

Thank you all so much, really cool to have a name and be able to look up more about them!

Chitons

reeflex.net

Maybe

Best regards, Elisabeth

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Here’s an update picture from last week, there’s a bonus chiton on it that Inwould love to know the species of if anyone knows it.

Based on how scaly the girdle is, I would assume a Chitonidae species; with the scaly looking texture on the valves/plates, I would guess a Chitoninae species, but the subfamily can be confirmed by looking for their aesthetes, which in this family have ocelli (simple eyes that look like little dots) on them:

"The family is divided into 3 subfamilies, based on the positions of aesthetes - the minute light-sensitive organs on the shell surface - and the characters of the shell insertion plates. The insertion plates are pectinate througout the family. In the subfamily Chitoninae the valves do not have aesthetes and the girdle has closely-packed smooth or striated scales. In the subfamily Acanthopleurinae the aesthetes occur on the anterior part of the lateral area of the intermediate valves and the girdle is large and covered with a dense arrangement of spikes, spines or scales. In the subfamily Toniciinae, aesthetes are usually numerous and occur on all the valves, and the girdle bears microscopic scales and spicules."*

I don't usually ID these beyond just being chitons, so I don't know how to narrow it down to the genus/species just yet - sorry.

*Source:

Family Chitonidae

 

[VibingOctopus]

Thank you all so much for sharing your knowledge and expertise, I really appreciate it!
I’ll have some fun researching all that and learning more about this stuff. Really facinating. Really cool to have people here on this forums who know so much about the little things in the tank.

@EnterName, there’s some amazing footage in your thread, thanks so much for the link! I’ve bookmarked it so I can sit down later this week and take some time going through it. Would love to follow that along. As a kid I always loved to observe critters, your thread is really tempting me to get deeper into this

Oh btw. Small update, but I believe the Chiton had babies! Found 3 eeny tiny little ones on the glass yesterday.

 

[EnterName]

@EnterName, there’s some amazing footage in your thread, thanks so much for the link! I’ve bookmarked it so I can sit down later this week and take some time going through it. Would love to follow that along. As a kid I always loved to observe critters, your thread is really tempting me to get deeper into this

Thank you so much for the kind words!

All it needs is a cheap compound microscope and you can basically see all the stuff I'm showing in my thread as well. It might look a bit different as I'm using specialized illumination techniques, but you can definitely see the same stuff. I just ordered a few high-end objectives to hopefully increase the quality of my content further and will keep updating older posts as soon as I have better footage.

Everyone is welcome to post their microscope images as well . I won't be able to show everything, as (thankfully) not every hitchhiker people have to deal with lives in my tank. There are some things I will hopefully never see

Oh btw. Small update, but I believe the Chiton had babies! Found 3 eeny tiny little ones on the glass yesterday.

This could be a limpet instead of a chiton. Either way: Good guys, no need to worry.

 

[VibingOctopus]

Haha, yeah for sure let’s hope there’s some stuff you won’t run into! There is some real nightmare stuff out there.

So far the stuff that is still showing up for the first time in my tank after 2 months is amazing. It is only a pico tank and I got only 600gr of Indonesian live rock and the life in there is already nuts. My partner has fallen in love with it too and we got a slightly bigger tank and are going to get more rock when it is all set up. Really exciting stuff! I can only imagine the life a full tank gathers after years of accumulating from different tanks and environments.

Don’t tempt me, for real! I’m lucky my boyfriend fell in love with the tank too and has also adopted it but I can’t justify bringing in a microscope for yet another hobby right now perhaps in a few months though gives me some time to look into it and learn more about it, meanwhile I will enjoy your thread. I got a micro lense and a digital magnifier that will have to do until then.

I do wonder though, how do you keep your critters alive but unmoving? I still need to go through the thread fully but already saw some stuff that clearly showed the critters were still alive but mostly still. When I try to get footage even in a drop they will move around like mad and it becomes hard to get them in focus or in frame at all.

Oh! Yeah, it could be a limpet too I looked the marine versions up and can see it. I have not spotted any other limpets in my tank yet. These babies showed up a few days ago and at the same time a completely new bigger chiton showed up out of nowhere, so I kind of assumed it was pregnant before and hiding until it gave birth, but you are right I should not assume. The babies seem to be staying around the same area for now so I’ll keep an eye on their growth and update pictures in a month or so if I can find them. We’ll wait and see what they will turn out to be :)

 

[EnterName]

Really exciting stuff! I can only imagine the life a full tank gathers after years of accumulating from different tanks and environments.

The thing is... the tank I took all these samples from was started with 100% dry rock and sand. All this life comes from critters that survived the coral dip, macro algae, and maybe residues of live-food water. It's impossible to keep certain microorganisms out.

Don’t tempt me, for real! I’m lucky my boyfriend fell in love with the tank too and has also adopted it but I can’t justify bringing in a microscope for yet another hobby right now perhaps in a few months though gives me some time to look into it and learn more about it, meanwhile I will enjoy your thread. I got a micro lense and a digital magnifier that will have to do until then.

The nice thing about microscopy is that it's fairly cheap by now. Obviously, you can go nuts like me and spend thousands on it, but even cheap scopes produce decent results for the most part It doesn't have to be expensive.

I do wonder though, how do you keep your critters alive but unmoving? I still need to go through the thread fully but already saw some stuff that clearly showed the critters were still alive but mostly still. When I try to get footage even in a drop they will move around like mad and it becomes hard to get them in focus or in frame at all.

Believe me, I have the same problem. Those little critters don't like to hold still, but sometimes they take a little break and that's when you have to take the pictures. The worst part is: I'm usually taking focus-stack images, which means I have to take 10 - 60 images in succession during which the organism has to sit completely still

There are some tricks though: I try to keep the sample (usually a drop of water) as small as possible. After I add the cover glass I take a paper towel to absorb excessive liquid from below the cover glass making the sample as flat as possible without fully drying it out or accidentally squashing everything. If there is not a lot of space for the organisms to swim up or down they cannot swim out of focus and can only swim out of your field of view (which is already bad enough).