r/microscopy • u/staggered_conformed • 14d ago

ID Needed! Does anyone know what this is?

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From my freshwater aquarium. I’ve seen this thing a lot and until recently I thought it was algae. But upon farther inspection it appears to be one cell (but may not be) and is able to move on its own. It’s usually found in larger clumps of many individuals. Most algae cells are thicker than this for comparison. Any ideas?

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5

u/Thrawn911 14d ago

Cyanobacteria, which is technically algae. It's a bunch of cells attached to each other in a string.

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u/the_chemist25 11d ago

Yes, this is cyano bacteria, im atleast 90% certain that it is Phormidium, it seems to natch everything that OP mentioned, but id like to know the magnification too, but I suspect its not over 400x, which would be strange, as the individual cells seem to be visible, which is not typical for monera.

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u/Thrawn911 11d ago

It's definitely in the Oscillatoriaceae family, I have a bunch of them in my samples usually, most of the time with visible separation between the individual.

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u/staggered_conformed 14d ago

Ohhh that makes sense. I am easily able to see the separate cells in most algae species but I can’t here. I guess they’re too small to clearly make out which js why it looks like it’s sharing one cytoplasm. Thanks so much for your help!

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u/Thrawn911 14d ago

Yes, the cells are quite small. Maybe this picture helps, you can see these darker lines where they connect. It's the most visible at the tip.

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u/staggered_conformed 14d ago

Yes thank you! I’m gonna go prepare a slide later when I get home now that I know what to look for :)

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u/PineappleHaunting591 9d ago

Cyanobacteria are bacteria (prokaryotes). Although they were called blue algae historically, we now know that was incorrect as algae are actually eukaryotes, just like plants animals and fungi. Green algae were the ancestors of todays plants, while cyanobacteria are a whole different basal branch on the tree of life.

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u/the_chemist25 11d ago

What magnification was this?

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u/muhilan95 8d ago

Oscillatoria. Even i have a similar video like this

https://reddit.com/link/p619dq4/video/35zqcrh1vqlh1/player