microscopic

I tried to take a sample off Oliver's skin and view it under the microscope. To see if he really has flukes. They should be visible with a regular handheld magnifying glass, so I figured viewing at 400x under the microscope, a fluke would look big in the viewing field. My husband has an attachment for his manual camera to go on the microscope, and showed me how to take a few photos. But all I found was little bits of stringy things, looked like fragments of plant fibers (hornwort maybe)

that little thing on the left looks like a tiny hydra

this one also looks like a hydra to me

and lots of irregular blobs.

But nothing definite with mouthparts or hooks to grab a fish. Does this mean he doesn't have flukes? The white thing is still on his skin. Or could it be that if that thing is a fluke, it hasn't multiplied itself yet. I'm feeling more and more like I just want to pull it off him. It obviously distressed him to be held in the net for a skin swab though, using tweezers would be a bit trickier...

He is doing fine in the QT so far. Not stressed, eating fine, colors looks great. Not jerking around looking irritated anymore. He likes to hang near the surface resting in bits of watersprite. I don't know if just because it's an easy place to rest, or because he feels a need for more oxygen...?

(I have used the microscope a few times before to look at things out of the fish tank- once to see strands of algae and another time to look at the margins of plant leaves- vallisneria has little teeth, a serrated edge and sagittaria does not, so I was able to confirm that the plant someone sent me was a val, not a sagittaria.)