Quote:
Originally Posted by DNA
Originally Posted by DNA View Post
Over the last 3 weeks or so I've done around 10 siphons of the sandbed.
One would expect to get less and less gunk out when it's done this frequently, but that is not the case.
The amounts are simply amazing every time.
I took a closer look at the lightest particles and found one type of special interest.
It has the color and similar shape to my ostis but is more uniform, larger and they don't move.
I kept wondering if these are cysts so I melted all the calcium based particles off just to get that possibility out of the way.
It surely looks organic.
Being in their millions in the sand that is close to solely inhabited with dinos it's tempting to assume they are cysts.
I calculated the average size of these particles to 44 microns, examined the photographs further and compared to material found on the web.
The size is good for both cysts and cells and since they come in various sizes it's not a dead giveaway.
The shape is a close, but not a perfect match to cysts so I think what I have are regular dinos that have lost their cell wall. (theca)
If that is the case all dead dinos do that since there is no other form found in the sample of thousands.
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Detritus collects in my overflow box.
Today I took a sample from the bottom of it and at least 95% are these particles.
Of the rest I assume 4% to be the same particles broken up and 1% unknown.
A quick conclusion could be that 99% of the drifting ditritus in my tank is dino related.
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Now turn on your brains and think for a while. I see this as another milestone.
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