# Bryozoan colony



## juanger (Sep 27, 2005)

Hi,

I'm from Mexico and this is my first post. Some weeks ago I found this beautiful colony in my freshwater aquarium and I want to share some pics with you:


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

!Bienvenidos!

That is really cool. We have some bryozoans that are pretty common in the lakes around here, but they grow as low, encrusting colonies. I have never seen a freshwater bryozoan shaped like that. How big do you think they were?


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## juanger (Sep 27, 2005)

hydrophyte said:


> I have never seen a freshwater bryozoan shaped like that. How big do you think they were?


Gracias!

This seems to be a Plumatella repens (but I'm not sure) and each zooid is just 1-2mm long. There is also a little Hydra in the center of the third photo if it helps to get the size.

I hope I can get a macro lens to take a better photo of a single zooid.


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## hydrophyte (Mar 1, 2009)

You must have gotten those shots with pretty good magnification.

Where in Mexico are you?


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## juanger (Sep 27, 2005)

hydrophyte said:


> You must have gotten those shots with pretty good magnification.
> 
> Where in Mexico are you?


The photo was taken with a 15 MP camera but I cropped it to get a closer look of them .

I live in Texcoco, which is pretty close to Mexico City but I don't know where those little animals came from. I bought some wood, plants and black soil in Xochimilco, so maybe there were some statoblasts in any of those and they grew in my aquarium.


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## lauraleellbp (Feb 3, 2008)

What cool photos!

And welcome to TPT!


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## anastasisariel (Oct 4, 2009)

*Nice*

Man, I'm jealous. My goal has always been to get as much biodiversity as I possibly can in one tank. Those looks awesome! I bet this is a well established tank. Do they feed on plankton?


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## juanger (Sep 27, 2005)

lauraleellbp said:


> What cool photos!
> 
> And welcome to TPT!


Thanks Laura



anastasisariel said:


> Man, I'm jealous. My goal has always been to get as much biodiversity as I possibly can in one tank. Those looks awesome! I bet this is a well established tank


I think I am very lucky to have them. Some time ago I read about them an I always thought that it would be awesome to have them in my own aquarium. Now that I can see them moving and growing I can say that it is a marvellous experience.

My tank is only 4 months old but I worked very hard to get it in balance since it is an "El natural" style paludarium with emerged and submerged plants, no bulbs (yes, I only use sunlight) and a lot of algae eaters :icon_bigg. I hope to take some photos of it to show you what I'm talking about.



anastasisariel said:


> Do they feed on plankton?


They feed on everything small enough for them: green algae, bacteria and unicellular animals. I think that because of sunlight they have enough food.

I took more photos and I've noticed that they grow very fast, compare the next photo with the second one in my first post:


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## Cmeister (Jul 5, 2009)

Very neat, keep us posted!


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