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Hi all,
I need help IDing this bacteria. I believe it is aerobic bacteria...which helps the bio on my tanks. I have it growing on the glass in several of my tanks as well! Thanks in advance for any replies.

Looks more like saprophytic fungal hyphae to me. Have you got decent quantities of wood or fallen leaves in there?

Hi Coelacanth,
They are all bare bottom tanks. Some of the pleco tanks have bogwood/driftwood and heaters, but the corie tanks don't. Those are my only filters in the tanks. Both types of fish have been breeding regularly. The filters are home-made pot filters. The black part is a round UG plate, and the white part is my pot (container). The only other part of the filter is red flint gravel...which is used by Shedd Aquarium here in Chicago, for thier filtration system.

Are you referring to the long stringy objects or the little white nodules? The former looks like fungal hyphae, the latter might be bacterial colonies.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to tell if the bacterial colonies are aerobic or anaerobic just by looking at them.

Well, it's definitely not fungus.
I bet those are the creeping stolons of a freshwater bryozoan.

Some examples:
http://www.civgeo.rmit.edu.au/bryozoa/p ... alpun.html
http://www.civgeo.rmit.edu.au/bryozoa/p ... edind.html

Close up, they look like this:
http://www.miljolare.no/bilder/artsbild ... bryo01.gif
http://zooexcurs.narod.ru/pictures/worm ... s2_mod.jpg
http://zooexcurs.narod.ru/pictures/worm ... sa_mod.jpg

Harmless filterfeeders.

Hi Silurus,
Thanks for taking a look! I appreciate it. I'm asking about the entire growth area. I've been using these filters for 36 years now. They are the only filters I've ever used...and I've bred a lot of fish while using them. I use them mainly because they are ideal for bare-bottom tanks, and cost about $3 each. The person that taught me about these filters (36 years ago)...had 40 years in the business. There is no doubt in my mind that it is aerobic bacteria (if it's bacteria at all). I am assuming this due to the main growth being under the UG plate...which creates an air pocket. Is there any place I can get this tested? I would really like a definite answer on this. Whatever the culture is...it certainly doesn't harm the fish. I've bred well over 100 different species of fish...and this is the only filtration I use. Even my zebra plecos bred with only 1 of these filters, in a 30 breeder.
Any additional help would be greatly appreciated!

Hi Mike_Noren,
We were posting at the time...and I didn't see your's until later. I think you might be right...as our tap water is from Lake Michigan. You said they are harmless filter feeders. Does that mean they are useful? Or should I clean them out of the tank?
I'll do a search to try to find out more about them. I appreciate your help...as I just thought it was aerobic bacteria.

they're harmless, very much so.

and for the microbiologist quite interesting. many grazing fish eat these; it's what a true "aufwuchs-eater" really likes to find in his algae-carpet; among other things.

Fishnut2,

I've seen the same stuff growing in my Koi pond's filtration and plumbing. They are harmless.

Hi all,
Here is a response from Uncle Scott. He is a well known and respected authority on killies/livebearers/and native fish locally (the Chicagoland area). Some parts were edited, as they were of a personal nature.
"You also were raising the right questions about
specific growing conditions vis-a-vis aerobic or
anerobic environments. It sounds like your filtration
system was doing a great job of getting O2 through the
gravel. I vaguely remember something like this on the
bottom of something in one of my tanks several
centuries ago. Intriguingly, I wonder how those
statocysts got into our respective tanks."
Scott was kind enough to forward my pics and questions to Robert Steinback...who teaches biology,botony, and all manner of related things at Elgin Community college (Chicagoland area) This was his reply!
"That is Plumatella repens. It is the most common
bryzoan in aquaria and ponds. it is harmless as can
be, but has great, "ewwwww" value....it may send
shivers up and down a spine causing a person to stamp
feet uncontrollably for a few seconds. 99.5% of its
victims recover with in a few seconds to live normal
productive lives; sadly the other .5% drain their
aquaria and place them on the curb still stamping
their feet while returning to their front door. It is
reported that these people live empty boring lives.
Fish don't seem to have such reactions.

The colony of Plometella is covered by an undigestible
protein which gives them complete protection from
fish, snails, and shrimp. They filter plankton from
the water by bilateral tentacles and reproduce by a
drought resistant black disc which floats on water and
is in the dust that falls into an aquarium. It is the
size of the resting egg of a Daphnia and is called a
Statocyst. When my students would bring in POND
WATER for protozoan cultures statocysts were always
common, but Plometella colonies never grew in the
protozoan culture until the culture died and the water
became aerobic like an aquarium."
I know that these Bryozoan are harmless to my fish...but my quetion remains: Are they doing any good in my tank? I will eliminate them, if they aren't helping my bio. I'm assuming that answer lies in the posts that have already been made...but my lack of knowledge is preventing me from understanding it properly.
Finally...thanks to one and all for your help!!! I'm a simple breeder and lack the advanced knowledge I needed in this situation. PC rocks

I see no reason to get rid of it. It may not do any good, but it also doesn't do any harm. It shows that your filter isn't anaerobic (which you can probably tell by the fact that the tank-water doesn't stink like a really bad sewer...).

If you did get rid of them, they'd probably come back pretty rapidly anyways, so it doesn't seem like a good idea.

Just leave them in there, and if they start disappearing, you can use that as an indicator of something bad happening to your water...

--
Mats

Thanks MatsP,
That is an explaination I can understand I never started to panic, as my fish looked healthy, and have continued to spawn. I did become concerned, as this was a situation I didn't understand. Now I can return to my true passion...breeding fish
Kudos to all!