What is this stuff?

[Wycco]

So the bacteria moves around "as one". If you were to seperate part of George to form a new colony- I assume since these are single-celled bacteria that they would live perfectly fine and start a new colony a "mini George".

I wonder if the two would then live seperate entities as seperate colonies or if they would remerge when they met next.

 

[huffmagx]

Kind of like your own version of the pet "green Blob" - lets hope it doesn't get hungry! or if it does it's a vegan!

It does look interesting but whats the downside to having it in there, anything? If nothing hey you have the coolest pet on your block!!

 

[DeeDeeK]

Hey, I can't find a downside to good ol' George. If he scares me at any point I guess there's always the old erythromycin but I doubt it'll be a problem. There's been a few patches on a few noodles for months now. I just finally noticed they move around the other day. As far as I know, they only seem to form on the sintered glass media.

Any theories why the glass media? Could it be eating something produced by some other microbes that live there? Hmmmm...

It for sure is a cool pet, though! I think I like it better than my planaria and my copepods together!

 

[E's_Crab_Shack]

Wasnt there a huge algae patch that was eating everything in the ocean? Watch out when you sleep :uhoh:

 

[DeeDeeK]

Hey, I forgot to mention that I've overdosed w/flourish excel, five times strength for two days in a row, and all the algae except for that tenacious spot-algae and George, the green blob. I think my diatoms may have survived,too. Not that I was trying to kill George, just I thought he'd be a "friendly fire" casualty as I killed off the BBA.

Does anyone have a suggestion for some kind of invertebrate which might eat the blob? Cherry shrimp seem to ignore it and pond snails just cruise right over it and my MTS completely give it a miss - they're too busy burrowing in the sand. Maybe some species of shrimp? I don't want to eliminate George, just make sure he stays in check.

I'm sick of adding fish but I'd love to add some arthropods or what-have-you.

 

[Wycco]

George is a bacterial colony- not really algae so I wouldn't expect excel to be of much use in controlling "him".

 

[DeeDeeK]

Yah, I kinda figured the fact that Flourish Excel didn't do "him" in meant he had to be a pile of blue green algae bacteria.

By the way, I discovered that George has some "siblings," all living exclusively on pieces of bio-glass media strewn around my tank.

As long as they keep to the bio-glass they're welcome guests but one wrong move and it's the erythromycin!:hitting:

Darn it, I wish I had a microscope! I love a closer look at "George."

George is named after the Loony Toons character, the Abominable Snowman's name for his would-be pet: "I will love him and pet him and squeeze him and I will name him George."

 

[Fishy_Fun]

To tell you the truth this stuff spreads like wild fire!I will clean the glass at night and boom the next morning the glass is all blue/green again.This stuff will eventually cling to everything in the tank.If you brush it off something, it will fall to the ground and start growing right there.I seriously have to find a way to kill it!

 

[Wycco]

Apparantly "George" is quite a clever little individual. I googled him yesterday- whereas he is made up of single-celled organisms- different organisms in the colony can become specialised cells of one kind or another.

One kind of cell is a "colonising" cell- it will travel away from the colony to start another colony elsewhere in the aquarium.

Thus George will have "offspring" and you may eventually have lots of Georges. You may have George the first right now but it will soon be George the second, the third, etc.

 

[DeeDeeK]

Cool! Where did you find info on George? Can you give me a link or your search terms?

Specialized cells, mobility, colonization - I guess I'll have to put him down sooner or later but I love cool biology-stuff. I mean, Geo. sounds almost like a multicellular creature - sweet! I was just reading about the origins of metazoan (multicellular) life and I wonder if it didn't begin with something like George.

By the way, he's gone, except for a couple of specks of green left here and there on the noodle. There are, however colonies on other noodles already. I wonder where Geo. went? Did he disperse or did he crawl away.

Anybody know of any critters that eat the stuff? Shrimp? Some kind of snail? Something more esoteric?

Oh, thanks everyone for the feedback! I really like this site! Anyhow, without the input, I'd be clueless about George and instead you've made him very interesting to me! Yay!