Microcrustacea and Microinvertebrates - Now Pic Intense!

[Funky_Fish14]

Possibly the two coolest classifications of taxonomic awesomeness I've ever encountered in my life!

My what was originally supposed to be a refugium turned more into a planted reef. It was always supposed to house either pipefish or seahorses in the end, so it was set-up to benefit 'pod' populations. Now, I do have two black ocellaris clowns in it, but they seem to have had no effect on the population development. The tank was thriving, so I added a couple gobies; Gobiosoma macrodon, and Eviota pellucida. These are both less than 1" long, and zip around all day in the tank STUFFING themselves to near the point of explosion, still doing nothing to the population in the tank. Recently, I have noticed clouds of some sort of what I identified as 'zooplankton' near the surface of the water, and in different regions of the tank. I got curious, and began to look closer.

Just eyeballing from my 'reefkeeping knowledge', I identified there were copepods, amphipods, and isopods motoring around. I wanted to know more, so I looked around online for more 'real' information (avoiding 'reefer' info) about all these types of critters and the groups they belonged to.

Bumped into some good stuff, which connected some key words and taxonomical info to my bio classes. I probed for a book in the UofA library on the campus im at, and happened upon the bio/invertebrate section when I went to retrieve it. The first book got me interested and asking questions, have been taking and compiling notes and info on microcrustaceans and micro invertebrates since then. Today I left the library with a few textbook on the subjects. Earlier in the week I also contacted the school's bio lab and my cell biology prof to ask about bringing in some 'samples' to play with. I got a 'for sure, no problem!', and now my bio prof is interested.

Spent tonight reading sectional introductions getting me more and more addicted and interested in these critters, including:
Flatworms (Turbellaria and Nemertea), Rotifers (Rotifera), The subphylum Crustacea (which includes Amphipoda and Isopoda[members of Malacostraca], Mysidacea (Mysid/sis shrimp), and Copepoda.

I have collected a whole buttload (another scientific term ofcourse) of critters from my tank including some harmless flatworms, plant parts, a miniscule snail, some small 'bristle worms' (that are under 1/8th inch) what I think is snail eggs, some sort of 'centipede' that is about 1/8th inch long, and a multitude of 'pods' to take in to the lab. Im hoping I can get a better idea of what kinds of critters we can find or expect to find in our aquariums. Im hoping one of the scopes in the lab has some sort of camera, or if not a screen I can take pictures of. The copepods we can find in our tank I read (and see) can actually be quite colourful on a microscopic level!

Anyways, just had to share my interests. I will update this thread with info/pics as I can. As soon as I find some way of getting pictures of these critters right up close, I will post them! Not that anybody cares, and I know its been done before... but this is fun

Its so cool how this is connecting to my schooling, and I get to play with my darn fish tank while im at it! Anybody else ever 'dive in' like this? Would love to hear it!

Thanks for reading! Sorry for the essay.

Cheers,

Chris