Echoes - Stromatolite Reef - Hypersaline

[rhizotron]

I've made a new wall sconce style setup for decorative phytoplankton and a few other options. It usually takes more troubleshooting, but the parts for this design all came together pretty easy. Here it is with a Dunaliella salina culture in hypersaline brine medium.

And here it is with the natural amber glow of an Oak leaf tea.

However I currently have it holding a new Winogradsky column, shown here at day 15.

I collected the material for this Winogradsky while Grouse hunting up north on county land. The hunting wasn't especially great, but I saw such amazing things there in the glacial moraine landscape including this hidden glacial kettle beaver pond.

The small stream draining the pond was filled with bright orange ochre, a sign of the iron-oxidizing Bacteria living there in the upper reaches.

With a source of iron inside, these same Bacteria can create vibrant ochre inside of the Winogradsky column as well. Time will tell if I get to observe any here.

Just a short distance away from the Beaver pond I found another small kettle with another sign of the iron reduction-oxidation process, with a stunning swamp rainbow iridescence covering its still water.

I've seen swamp rainbow before, but never as colorful as this.

What an amazing world we live in!

 

[rhizotron]

This thing's coming along pretty nice. The organic material sank a couple more inches with continued decomposition, so I refreshed with some Corn husks and more Oak leaves. I also added a layer of tree roots, and charcoal pieces to the underground area.

I've observed good reproduction Porcellionides pruinosus isopods with numerous new juveniles walking around. There are additionally hundreds of Collembola sp. Springtails, but when the lights are on they mostly hide.


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Coulee Region, 1983

Day 65

Edaphotron: watertight enclosure, electronic gas sensor, microcontroller, bonsai gravel, plant parts, soil invertebrates and soil microflora.

 

[rhizotron]

I haven't updated this in forever but here are a few new pics for the stromatolites tank. It went through a long period where there was a lot of the Cyanobacterium dark green EPS all over the tops of the features. It seems as though this organism actually hinders calcium carbonate precipitation when it's on very thick. I was able to reduce its coverage with water changes and I've also been dosing SpongExcel, which encourages the brown Diatom that seems to cement the sand grains together more coherently.

I got the Brine Shrimp colony into improved accommodations with a 12" glass bowl from the craft store and improved lighting.

That Oase CrystalSkim is another new addition and I really like it.

Water is cloudy. I have tried clearing this up with Purigen, but now I think it's probably the green phytoplankton (most likely Nannochloropsis or Chlorella), so I'm next going to try a UV sterilizer and I'm just waiting on delivery for that.

 

[rhizotron]

Bookmarking this interesting thing...

The Mechanism of Microbial-Ferromanganese Nodule Interaction and the Contribution of Biomineralization to the Formation of Oceanic Ferromanganese Nodules

Relevance to a possible freshwater microbialite reef aquarium...

Freshwater Ferromanganese Stromatolites from Lake Vermilion, Minnesota: Microbial Culturing and Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy Investigations

 

[rhizotron]

Really interesting thing I'm reading with my coffee...

(Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29018418/ )

 

[rhizotron]

Here's a photo update for this thing. I got a UV sterilizer hooked up again, which cleared the water real nice. Microbes look happy. They are easy to please.

I need to ask Randy Holmes Farley if he might have ideas for calcium and alkalinity. I can see some CaCO3 accretion, but even after all this time it is a very thin and soft layer on top of the faux stromatolites. I've dumped a lot of 2-part in here and I just don't know where it's gone. Maybe the sand bed? My cheap titrant tests seem to be incoherent for this very salty water. So I don't have a good measure.

 

[rhizotron]

I formatted a new poster for the Mars terrarium project mainly with pics I had handy already and got it mounted too.

I'm expanding the astrobiology with a new idea, kites, among a few other additional concepts. I'll explain more later when I have more components built, but here is the first kite, a 34" X 45" Rokakku. This traditional Japanese kite design is easy to build and one of the best for lifting payloads.

I also got my Urban Ninja out. This thing is tons of fun and I could fly it for hours.

 

[rhizotron]

Quick cell phone pics update for the Edaphotron...

I didn't see them much through the winter, but now that the room is warmer the soil fauna is quite active again. The organic matter is refreshed with some new things. I thought they would go for the Turkey feathers first, but the Roaches, Isopods and Collembola all went for the Maple keys instead.

The room is apparently a bit cooler than the exterior wall where this is hung, so there is foggy condensation on the the front polycarb panel.

 

[rhizotron]

A couple more updates...

I've built another rokkaku for one of the astrobiology projects. I made this one with a couple of fabric half-yard scraps and it's only 50" tall, so it's probably not big enough to lift the payload I have in mind with the sensors + data logger (second pic below), but I'll build another one with the same theme and more like 60".

Weather looks good for kite-flying this week and I'm eager to get this one up in the air.

I also rounded up aquascaping rocks for another astrobiology aquarium setup. This approximate layout will go into a 18" X 6.7" UNS tank. More on this later...

 

[rhizotron]

I got out with the new Rokkaku yesterday. We had our usual light & variable breeze and it was a good deal of work to keep kites in the air, but the new one flew well.

 

[rhizotron]

Not aquarium/terrarium-related really at all, but I got another kite built and up in the air. This one is based on Japanese multi-line bridle Edo kite design, but with compromises including a pretty small (22" X 38") sail, round vents and simplified bridle configuration.

It flew really well!