First Pics!

[houstontx]

Taken with an iPhone camera through eyepieces

Algae from pond outside
100x PL Oil Phase contrast



100x PL Oil Phase contrast



fish tank algae water bug
A 40x

[75RR]

Congratulations on your first posted images.
Looks like you may have Scenedesmus in the first and second images, though I can not distinguish the spines.
These are very hard to photograph due to their very small size.
Beastie in the last image is a mystery to me.

[JimT]

Congrats from me as well. Look forward to more.

[mrsonchus]

Haha - you're off and running, great start and some nice pictures - well done & welcome.
The first picture has some interesting-looking creatures - someone in this fine forum will absolutely be able to ID them for you.
You've made a great start - keep up the good work!
very best

[actinophrys]

The last image shows a mite, which have a pair of palps at the front but no antennae. It looks like a larva, having 6 legs instead of the adult 8. The surrounding algae are some Oscillatoria-type cyanobacteria and little golden diatoms. These are all types that can't really be identified further without very particular details.

[billbillt]

These look very good to me....

[jwsmith]

Actinophrys----

Are "water mites" related to "sea-lice"?
Are these the free-swimming form, of the guys that attach to fish....suck nourishment from the fish....cause fish-scale eruptions...?
My GOOGLE search on "sea lice" and "water mites" revealed dissimilar images (for salt/fresh-water) but both are described as microscopic parasites.

I caught a 2-pound fresh-water trout last summer with scale eruptions on both sides.
I was "in the field"....no "collection receptical".....we ate the fish in camp....no evidence remaining.
Next time I will retain a scraping...look at it under the scope.

Judd

[actinophrys]

Are "water mites" related to "sea-lice"?

Not too closely. They're both part of the arthropods, a giant phylum of animals like insects, crustaceans, millipedes, spiders, and so on, which share segmented bodies with jointed legs. But within that group they are as far apart as possible.

Sea-lice are copepods, a class of crustaceans that also includes some of the most common zooplankton and many smaller free-living kinds in other aquatic habitats; an amateur microscopist can expect to run into at least the freshwater cyclopids sooner or later. There's also a separate group of parasitic crustaceans called fish-lice or argulids, which are the ones to worry about on freshwater fish.

Mites are arachnids along with spiders, scorpions, harvestmen, and others; this is the largest class that lack antennae and are nearly all fluid-feeders. Water mites do have a parasitic stage, but attaching to insect vectors, and the adults are predatory. And you do also find other groups of smaller mites in water, for instance feeding among aquatic plants.

[gekko]

Welcome and a good first effort. Keep up the good work!

[houstontx]

75RR

Scenedesmus is likely what they were, I could see the spines and curved shape if they were oriented differently.

[vasselle]

Bonjour.
Félicitation pour votre premier poste car les photos sont bien réussi.
Bravo pour votre travail.
Sur les deux premières photos ce sont des Scenedesmus.
Scenedesmus est un genre d'algues vertes d'eau douce microscopiques, de la famille des Scenedesmaceae. Elles sont appelées scénédesmes et sont des algues à structure cellulaire variée. Elles possèdent des chlorophylles de type a et b ainsi que des caroténoïdes. Ces algues vertes sont non mobiles et mesurent environ 5 à 30 micromètres de longueur et 8 à 10 micromètres de diamètre.

En général, quatre Scenedesmus se regroupent en cénobes (les cellules sont unies par une gelée et possèdent alors des épines ou aiguillons de défense). Dans chaque cellule on trouve un chloroplaste imposant avec un pyrénoïde, ainsi qu'un cytoplasme qui ne contient qu'un seul noyau.

Cordialement seb