The Tiniest Things - from the 'Cycles of My House' series
So, host and parasite. On the rare occasion a parasite makes itself known around here it kicks off an immediate round of appropriate treatment, but we do our best to stay ahead of those things where it's prudent to do so - a course of wormwood for the mammals every couple weeks to couple months, depending upon the season; a dusting of diatomaceous earth focused on spots the furred animals (indoors and out) like to frequent, every couple of years at the height of summer; clove oil and pressed garlic when new fish are introduced - and the little buggers seem to stay at bay. It helps too that we experience a fairly deep freeze (or have usually done, that may be changing as this past winter was quite mild) at least part of every winter that renders inviable many dormant eggs and larvae. Given that the host/parasite relationship is somewhat unique in being both dependent and destructuve, it cycles within other cycles and seemed a good place to start this series, in which I'll share my observations of the cycles of lives in the environments I provide, and their impacts upon one another.
If you followed my columns at the Owl Creek Gazette you know that I'm semi-obsessed with my fish tanks. I maintain them in as close to natural conditions as is possible, which is on the one hand somewhat challenging considering the difference in volume and water changeover between a fast-flowing or even slow-moving creek and any enclosed amount of water, and on the other easier than it seems it would be. It helps having a (very) local source of water I know to be clean, and friendly to aquatic life more complex than snails.
Life arises spontaneously everywhere that conditions are conducive to any form of it (that is to say, 'everywhere'), sometimes cycling quickly and sometimes barely inching along from one form to another, but the essence of it is always there, waiting to act upon and react to the world around it. The interactions of energy and matter take every possible form at some place and time in the multiverse, and according to current local conditions what works will survive and perhaps thrive, and what doesn't will dissolve back into essence and energy to be polarized differently and used in trying something new. On Earth this process takes place in a physical sense most quickly and readily underwater. In general and up to a point, the warmer the water the more quickly life forms will proliferate. Aquariums allow us to observe this process taking place, both in warm and cool water environments, and paludariums give us a perspective on what takes place at the water's edge.
Dude, Sr. enjoys watching the more complex organisms, the frogs and fish and shrimp and snails, for their cool, relaxing factor from time to time, while Dude, Jr. has specific names for the ones he enjoys, which run the gamut but mostly trend toward those who are in some way remarkable to him and which he finds most beautiful, not to be confused with those that are objectively remarkable or beautiful. I find myself also fascinated with the tiny worms, fungi, algae, and other organisms that inhabit the sand substrate and the water column alongside the fish and shrimp. Blackworms, for instance, are the smaller aquatic relatives of terrestrial earthworms - little tasty treats for fishes - and tubifex worms are the ones whose bottoms you see sticking up through the sand sometimes to collect oxygen from the water, waving like little flags, sayin', "Here I am! Eat me, fishies!" The fish willingly attempt to oblige, but the worms are quick and often retract to safety with more or less success, laughing as they go I'm sure if indeed they are equipped with a faculty for doing so. What the worms feed on there in the substrate is an ooze called 'mulm' made up mostly of decaying critter and plant parts and solid waste products, as well as the bacteria that are also consuming the DOM (decaying organic matter).
Other inhabitants of the anaerobic and semi-anaerobic areas from which the tubifex worms feed include certain fungi and algae. Fun-g[uy] is a good name for those little DOM-eaters. A quote from Freshwater Ascomycetes and Their Anamorphs:
The beard algae takes up algae-encouraging nutrients before other types can establish themselves, in our tanks; the same may not be true in other tanks, as different algae respond differently to differing chemical and material conditions. Freshly harvested fronds are a lovely bright green color with the appearance of a very soft feathery tree. When it's first establishing itself it forms a carpet of bright emerald green over a surface. In the stiller water of the tank it grows out coarser and a darker green than in the faster-moving creek, and it takes on a slimy feel and a purplish-green color when it grows on plants. This form is easily removed by simply wiping it off, and while the goldfish prefer beard algae in it's green forms they won't turn this type down. If the algae needs the surfaces on which it grows 'blown off' it begins to darken toward nearly black.
I use a turkey baster to give my tank a blow, drawing up just a little water and gently, with short, quick squeezes, disturbing the layer of mulm that settles on rocks and sticks and other surfaces. What doesn't then get captured by the filters will be 'eaten' by various floating plants or resettle on surfaces to fuel new algae and moss growth, but when the mulm gets too thick and muddy in the upper parts of a tank environment (within the top inch of a deep sand bed substrate or anywhere in the water column or filtration) the whole works gets clogged up. Beard algae will grow on quite thick layers of mud, on rocks in the creek where water flow is constant and new nutrients are always being deposited, but in the tank that same mud just serves to rot the algae's anchor points. (That said, I sometimes add mud from the creek to the aquariums with the purpose of supplementing nutrients.)
I let algae grow on the glass in the 20G-L until it makes the view a little blurry, then scrape it off with a wooden Popsicle stick and let the bamboo shrimp, fry, and beard algae clean it up out of the water. What gets captured in the algae feeds everything from the algae itself to the Red Cherry shrimp and pond and Malaysian trumpet snails, to the fish, eventually trickling down to the worms or getting trapped in the filters where it encourages the growth of yummy stuff to be given as food after filter changes. The 55G-L was only established last August and is just now beginning to support algae (and therefore plant and small organism) growth well. The goldfish and plec keep what does grow in there shorn very short, thus the need to grow enough in the tropical tank to keep them all fed (it's a fairly major part of the goldfishes' and plec's diets) through the winter months when the creek is generally much more difficult, if not impossible, to access.
There's always a thin coat of biofilm growing on the glass (and on everything in any healthy, established tank) long before algae shows at all, and the smaller of the Malaysian trumpet snails will climb the walls night and day harvesting it in a meandering but generally vertical manner. Toward the end of winter when their population is at it's height, I'll run a net up the sides every now and then and capture fifty or so to dump in the 55G-L where the goldfish hoover 'em up unless the snails are fortunate and wily enough to survive, in which case they'll eventually get too big to be eaten and will enjoy a life of mating (or, more usually, reproducing through parthenogenesis) and chowin' down for the next couple years. MTS live about a year in the tropical tank, about two in the cool-water tank, in which they also get considerably bigger.
Sometimes an RCS will also be cleaning the sides and will be swept up in the net for deposition in the goldfish tank. These lucky little gals and fellas - listen, that place is huge compared to the 20, with lots of yummy food in places too small for the goldfish to clean - have the same opportunity as the MTS for survival. It's more rare for a shrimp to last in the 55 than for a snail or caddisfly larvae, and those that do are generally nearly to entirely transparent, only come out at night, and adopt a slow and nonchalant pattern of movement through the water. Unlike the MTS, RCS and Physa pond snails never get big enough that they can't be eaten by the goldfish (and when the goldfish are full-grown they'll suck down the bigger MTS while they may well find the shrimp and Physas too small to bother with). The goldfish will, however, allow smaller denizens to which they've grown accustomed to live side-by-side with them without molestation... unless they're actually hungry in which case anything that fits in their mouths that they're able to crush is fair game if they can catch it.
It should be noted that the feeding patterns of MTS are completely different than a panic stampede brought on by deteriorating conditions in the tank. For instance, when the power goes out, I monitor the MTS to know when a one-gallon water change or a shot of power from the UPS is called for. On the occasion a fish dies in my tanks, the first sign that decay has progressed to where the body is pouring off more ammonia than my system should be asked to handle is that the RCS stop consuming it. Before I had RCS the first sign would be when the MTS of all sizes started climbing the walls in a uniform line, all the way around the tank. Day or night, this behavior is a sign of trouble brewing in the water and indicates that the issue must be dealt with straightaway.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The shrimps and snails and puppy-dogs' tails are far more complex organisms than those I'm really looking at in this part of the cycle. High nitrogen levels and imbalances of nutrients such as phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and iron encourage the growth of simple, single-celled bacteria and algae the sole purpose of which is tocorrect those imbalances consume those nutrients. Their simplicity allows them to go through their life cycles very quickly, and if the nutrient sources are limited the algae will bloom and die with no ill effect to the fish or other wildlife. As the nutrients are used up fewer and fewer algal cells will be brought into being, those that are will consume the remains of their ancestors, and eventually all that will be left will be a few spores remaining at the ready to spawn another round the next time nutrients become plentiful.
If nutrient sources remain at high levels without being depleted, however, the algae will continue to reproduce in large numbers and very quickly, and won't be able to keep up with consumption of those nutrients as well as of the waste products from the ever-growing number of dead algae cells. When the oxygen in the water is being consumed faster than it's being replaced, the aerobic organisms begin to die en masse, further contributing to the nutrient load, and the sulfur-based microbes and organisms take over. This is fine in small pockets - a lake here, a drainage pond there, a hog lagoon on the other side, although the neighbors are likely to complain - but is a sign of impending doom when it begins to happen often on a large scale, as most life on Earth can't survive in a hydrogen sulfide atmosphere.
There is life that can, and the likelihood is good that the Earth would eventually return to something akin to its current state, probably before its internal processes have died down enough that our atmosphere, like the one Mars once had, is blown off by solar winds faster than it can be replaced. There's even a reasonably good chance that complex, intelligent, civilized, and/or technologically-advanced life may have time to develop again by the time our surface becomes uninhabitable for anything like us - who knows how many times that's happened before - but if the oceans keep going the way they are lately we're probably already in some trouble this time around.
In any case, while an entirely anaerobic system is lethal to oxygen-based life, in an enclosed aquatic system, small anaerobic zones in the substrate can fill the same purpose those zones fill in the mud at the bottom of a lake, that of decaying what gets caught out of the reach of oxygen and returning those elements to the system. Even if these pockets are disturbed the risk to healthy aquarium life is minimal, as the hydrogen sulfide released doesn't spend enough time in the water for much to be absorbed in the process of bubbling to the surface. Most spontaneous bubbles one sees from a healthy deep sand bed substrate are composed of harmless gas by-products from the conversion of the toxic gases produced in anaerobic zones by the bacteria in the intermediate (semi-aerobic) zone and are not problematic.
Here, the 55G-L rarely develops anaerobic zones less than three inches below the surface thanks to the constant pecking and turning of the substrate by the goldfish, where the 20G-L has them at depths as shallow as an inch where there are objects sitting on the substrate. The 20G-L houses three cory cats and a plethora of MTS that keep the top half-inch of river sand turned all the time. In the 55G-L with three six-inch and three somewhat smaller goldfish picking at the bottom along with a few large MTS, about the top three-quarters to an inch of sand is constantly turned and oxygenated. I rarely see tubifex worms in either of these environments, but the cories' hunting behavior tells me they're there in the 20G-L. A distinct line demarcates the portion of substrate that's turned from that which isn't. Below the line, detritus builds up to feed plants, as well as the tiny worms, fungi, algae, and bacteria.
These simplest of microbes and tiniest of organisms, the first to develop in any environment and the last to die off, are the only forms of life capable of surviving under some conditions, and they help both begin and complete the cycle of all life and death. I find it endlessly fascinating how complete and comprehensive the cycles of nature really are. No matter what it is, even the smallest bit of waste from the smallest microbe or organism, there is a use for everything regardless of how it comes about. Evolution occurs sometimes by design, often by accident; a genetic mutation is introduced or occurs randomly and if it works and is reproducible, it may get passed along. Nature doesn't look for a necessary trait and create it, but merely provides the building blocks that come together to (sometimes) create or perpetuate life. Even when a configuration doesn't work the blocks it was made of will just be thrown back in the mix and used somewhere else by nature's design. There's no waste. I respect that.
Human nature, unnatural as it seems, falls within the boundaries of and is also subject to natural law. We're designed to question and deconstruct, mimic, reconstruct, explore and experiment more than any other specie of which we're aware, and we do things that appear to be unnatural. While nature won't judge these things and doesn't punish us for our choices, every choice we make carries natural consequences and rewards, some of which could result in a near-utopian society for humanity, and some of which will result in a complete or near-complete decimation of anything like us at some point (probably, 'again'). It's common (or 'the sixth') sense to think that our most productive course of action is probably to take our cues from and work in concert with nature wherever possible, if for no other reason than it gives us a model for potential outcomes before we start moving too fast in any given direction. (We're on the verge of human immortality, for instance. Immortal cells in the body are called 'cancer'. Tawk amongst y'selves.)
Every particle has it's place in the multiverse, if only for a moment (and what is a moment in the whole of infinity?) Hope the cycles of your house are all running smoothly, and that 2015 continues to bring the best of everything your way.
Love ya,
Peace!
* Shearer CA and Raja HA (2010). Freshwater Ascomycetes Database: http://fungi.life.illinois.edu/ (Accessed on 01/08/2015).
If you followed my columns at the Owl Creek Gazette you know that I'm semi-obsessed with my fish tanks. I maintain them in as close to natural conditions as is possible, which is on the one hand somewhat challenging considering the difference in volume and water changeover between a fast-flowing or even slow-moving creek and any enclosed amount of water, and on the other easier than it seems it would be. It helps having a (very) local source of water I know to be clean, and friendly to aquatic life more complex than snails.
Life arises spontaneously everywhere that conditions are conducive to any form of it (that is to say, 'everywhere'), sometimes cycling quickly and sometimes barely inching along from one form to another, but the essence of it is always there, waiting to act upon and react to the world around it. The interactions of energy and matter take every possible form at some place and time in the multiverse, and according to current local conditions what works will survive and perhaps thrive, and what doesn't will dissolve back into essence and energy to be polarized differently and used in trying something new. On Earth this process takes place in a physical sense most quickly and readily underwater. In general and up to a point, the warmer the water the more quickly life forms will proliferate. Aquariums allow us to observe this process taking place, both in warm and cool water environments, and paludariums give us a perspective on what takes place at the water's edge.
Dude, Sr. enjoys watching the more complex organisms, the frogs and fish and shrimp and snails, for their cool, relaxing factor from time to time, while Dude, Jr. has specific names for the ones he enjoys, which run the gamut but mostly trend toward those who are in some way remarkable to him and which he finds most beautiful, not to be confused with those that are objectively remarkable or beautiful. I find myself also fascinated with the tiny worms, fungi, algae, and other organisms that inhabit the sand substrate and the water column alongside the fish and shrimp. Blackworms, for instance, are the smaller aquatic relatives of terrestrial earthworms - little tasty treats for fishes - and tubifex worms are the ones whose bottoms you see sticking up through the sand sometimes to collect oxygen from the water, waving like little flags, sayin', "Here I am! Eat me, fishies!" The fish willingly attempt to oblige, but the worms are quick and often retract to safety with more or less success, laughing as they go I'm sure if indeed they are equipped with a faculty for doing so. What the worms feed on there in the substrate is an ooze called 'mulm' made up mostly of decaying critter and plant parts and solid waste products, as well as the bacteria that are also consuming the DOM (decaying organic matter).
Other inhabitants of the anaerobic and semi-anaerobic areas from which the tubifex worms feed include certain fungi and algae. Fun-g[uy] is a good name for those little DOM-eaters. A quote from Freshwater Ascomycetes and Their Anamorphs:
The mitosporic fungi undergo mitotic division to produce microscopic asexual structures called conidia, which are of various colors, sizes, shapes, and septations.*'Conidia'. I like that. :) I've seen black, brown, purple, green, and red in our various aquatic and semi-aquatic environments, and where they develop, they maintain their presence within the small zones in which conditions favor them. They're much more prevalent in the smaller tropical (read: warmer) tank than in the larger cool-water tank, in part because of the temperature, in part because the 20G-L is my 'farm' tank, so to speak, the one in which beard algae, shrimp, snails, and when there are an abundance, small fish, are bred to feed the larger fish in the 55G-L, and in part because the goldfish and plec spend quite a lot of time sifting the sand for treats. To that end and for the well-being of the bamboo shrimp who need at least some particles to be free-floating in the water most of the time, I overfeed the 20 a bit and encourage the growth of beard algae on any surface on which it's inclined to grow.
The beard algae takes up algae-encouraging nutrients before other types can establish themselves, in our tanks; the same may not be true in other tanks, as different algae respond differently to differing chemical and material conditions. Freshly harvested fronds are a lovely bright green color with the appearance of a very soft feathery tree. When it's first establishing itself it forms a carpet of bright emerald green over a surface. In the stiller water of the tank it grows out coarser and a darker green than in the faster-moving creek, and it takes on a slimy feel and a purplish-green color when it grows on plants. This form is easily removed by simply wiping it off, and while the goldfish prefer beard algae in it's green forms they won't turn this type down. If the algae needs the surfaces on which it grows 'blown off' it begins to darken toward nearly black.
I use a turkey baster to give my tank a blow, drawing up just a little water and gently, with short, quick squeezes, disturbing the layer of mulm that settles on rocks and sticks and other surfaces. What doesn't then get captured by the filters will be 'eaten' by various floating plants or resettle on surfaces to fuel new algae and moss growth, but when the mulm gets too thick and muddy in the upper parts of a tank environment (within the top inch of a deep sand bed substrate or anywhere in the water column or filtration) the whole works gets clogged up. Beard algae will grow on quite thick layers of mud, on rocks in the creek where water flow is constant and new nutrients are always being deposited, but in the tank that same mud just serves to rot the algae's anchor points. (That said, I sometimes add mud from the creek to the aquariums with the purpose of supplementing nutrients.)
I let algae grow on the glass in the 20G-L until it makes the view a little blurry, then scrape it off with a wooden Popsicle stick and let the bamboo shrimp, fry, and beard algae clean it up out of the water. What gets captured in the algae feeds everything from the algae itself to the Red Cherry shrimp and pond and Malaysian trumpet snails, to the fish, eventually trickling down to the worms or getting trapped in the filters where it encourages the growth of yummy stuff to be given as food after filter changes. The 55G-L was only established last August and is just now beginning to support algae (and therefore plant and small organism) growth well. The goldfish and plec keep what does grow in there shorn very short, thus the need to grow enough in the tropical tank to keep them all fed (it's a fairly major part of the goldfishes' and plec's diets) through the winter months when the creek is generally much more difficult, if not impossible, to access.
There's always a thin coat of biofilm growing on the glass (and on everything in any healthy, established tank) long before algae shows at all, and the smaller of the Malaysian trumpet snails will climb the walls night and day harvesting it in a meandering but generally vertical manner. Toward the end of winter when their population is at it's height, I'll run a net up the sides every now and then and capture fifty or so to dump in the 55G-L where the goldfish hoover 'em up unless the snails are fortunate and wily enough to survive, in which case they'll eventually get too big to be eaten and will enjoy a life of mating (or, more usually, reproducing through parthenogenesis) and chowin' down for the next couple years. MTS live about a year in the tropical tank, about two in the cool-water tank, in which they also get considerably bigger.
Sometimes an RCS will also be cleaning the sides and will be swept up in the net for deposition in the goldfish tank. These lucky little gals and fellas - listen, that place is huge compared to the 20, with lots of yummy food in places too small for the goldfish to clean - have the same opportunity as the MTS for survival. It's more rare for a shrimp to last in the 55 than for a snail or caddisfly larvae, and those that do are generally nearly to entirely transparent, only come out at night, and adopt a slow and nonchalant pattern of movement through the water. Unlike the MTS, RCS and Physa pond snails never get big enough that they can't be eaten by the goldfish (and when the goldfish are full-grown they'll suck down the bigger MTS while they may well find the shrimp and Physas too small to bother with). The goldfish will, however, allow smaller denizens to which they've grown accustomed to live side-by-side with them without molestation... unless they're actually hungry in which case anything that fits in their mouths that they're able to crush is fair game if they can catch it.
It should be noted that the feeding patterns of MTS are completely different than a panic stampede brought on by deteriorating conditions in the tank. For instance, when the power goes out, I monitor the MTS to know when a one-gallon water change or a shot of power from the UPS is called for. On the occasion a fish dies in my tanks, the first sign that decay has progressed to where the body is pouring off more ammonia than my system should be asked to handle is that the RCS stop consuming it. Before I had RCS the first sign would be when the MTS of all sizes started climbing the walls in a uniform line, all the way around the tank. Day or night, this behavior is a sign of trouble brewing in the water and indicates that the issue must be dealt with straightaway.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The shrimps and snails and puppy-dogs' tails are far more complex organisms than those I'm really looking at in this part of the cycle. High nitrogen levels and imbalances of nutrients such as phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, and iron encourage the growth of simple, single-celled bacteria and algae the sole purpose of which is to
If nutrient sources remain at high levels without being depleted, however, the algae will continue to reproduce in large numbers and very quickly, and won't be able to keep up with consumption of those nutrients as well as of the waste products from the ever-growing number of dead algae cells. When the oxygen in the water is being consumed faster than it's being replaced, the aerobic organisms begin to die en masse, further contributing to the nutrient load, and the sulfur-based microbes and organisms take over. This is fine in small pockets - a lake here, a drainage pond there, a hog lagoon on the other side, although the neighbors are likely to complain - but is a sign of impending doom when it begins to happen often on a large scale, as most life on Earth can't survive in a hydrogen sulfide atmosphere.
There is life that can, and the likelihood is good that the Earth would eventually return to something akin to its current state, probably before its internal processes have died down enough that our atmosphere, like the one Mars once had, is blown off by solar winds faster than it can be replaced. There's even a reasonably good chance that complex, intelligent, civilized, and/or technologically-advanced life may have time to develop again by the time our surface becomes uninhabitable for anything like us - who knows how many times that's happened before - but if the oceans keep going the way they are lately we're probably already in some trouble this time around.
In any case, while an entirely anaerobic system is lethal to oxygen-based life, in an enclosed aquatic system, small anaerobic zones in the substrate can fill the same purpose those zones fill in the mud at the bottom of a lake, that of decaying what gets caught out of the reach of oxygen and returning those elements to the system. Even if these pockets are disturbed the risk to healthy aquarium life is minimal, as the hydrogen sulfide released doesn't spend enough time in the water for much to be absorbed in the process of bubbling to the surface. Most spontaneous bubbles one sees from a healthy deep sand bed substrate are composed of harmless gas by-products from the conversion of the toxic gases produced in anaerobic zones by the bacteria in the intermediate (semi-aerobic) zone and are not problematic.
Here, the 55G-L rarely develops anaerobic zones less than three inches below the surface thanks to the constant pecking and turning of the substrate by the goldfish, where the 20G-L has them at depths as shallow as an inch where there are objects sitting on the substrate. The 20G-L houses three cory cats and a plethora of MTS that keep the top half-inch of river sand turned all the time. In the 55G-L with three six-inch and three somewhat smaller goldfish picking at the bottom along with a few large MTS, about the top three-quarters to an inch of sand is constantly turned and oxygenated. I rarely see tubifex worms in either of these environments, but the cories' hunting behavior tells me they're there in the 20G-L. A distinct line demarcates the portion of substrate that's turned from that which isn't. Below the line, detritus builds up to feed plants, as well as the tiny worms, fungi, algae, and bacteria.
These simplest of microbes and tiniest of organisms, the first to develop in any environment and the last to die off, are the only forms of life capable of surviving under some conditions, and they help both begin and complete the cycle of all life and death. I find it endlessly fascinating how complete and comprehensive the cycles of nature really are. No matter what it is, even the smallest bit of waste from the smallest microbe or organism, there is a use for everything regardless of how it comes about. Evolution occurs sometimes by design, often by accident; a genetic mutation is introduced or occurs randomly and if it works and is reproducible, it may get passed along. Nature doesn't look for a necessary trait and create it, but merely provides the building blocks that come together to (sometimes) create or perpetuate life. Even when a configuration doesn't work the blocks it was made of will just be thrown back in the mix and used somewhere else by nature's design. There's no waste. I respect that.
Human nature, unnatural as it seems, falls within the boundaries of and is also subject to natural law. We're designed to question and deconstruct, mimic, reconstruct, explore and experiment more than any other specie of which we're aware, and we do things that appear to be unnatural. While nature won't judge these things and doesn't punish us for our choices, every choice we make carries natural consequences and rewards, some of which could result in a near-utopian society for humanity, and some of which will result in a complete or near-complete decimation of anything like us at some point (probably, 'again'). It's common (or 'the sixth') sense to think that our most productive course of action is probably to take our cues from and work in concert with nature wherever possible, if for no other reason than it gives us a model for potential outcomes before we start moving too fast in any given direction. (We're on the verge of human immortality, for instance. Immortal cells in the body are called 'cancer'. Tawk amongst y'selves.)
Every particle has it's place in the multiverse, if only for a moment (and what is a moment in the whole of infinity?) Hope the cycles of your house are all running smoothly, and that 2015 continues to bring the best of everything your way.
Love ya,
Peace!
* Shearer CA and Raja HA (2010). Freshwater Ascomycetes Database: http://fungi.life.illinois.edu/ (Accessed on 01/08/2015).
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