Maturation of a Mudpuddle

[Don Schaeffer]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCAHHIkZVTg
I set up my new smaller mudpuddle maybe six weeks ago by adding grass and leaves to tap water. After a couple of weeks or so the water was filled with bacteria from rotting vegetation and ciliates called colpoda that tend to dominate plant stems and leaves. Now the bacteria are forming, out of their own bodies, a mass structure called biofilm which protects them and tends to envelop everything else.