Lens Fungus

[fparnold]

Basic question: is lens fungus any one particular species, such as has been observed for contact lenses, or is it a variety of opportunistic fungi? I'm curious as to whether etching the glass is a byproduct, or whether it's actually solubilizing the silica for its own purposes.

 

[BradS]

Hmmmm....Excellent question.

 

[John Koehrer]

Fparnold,
I'm not entirely sure the fungus actually etches the glass or the coatings of cement used to assemble the groups. Over the years I've cleaned quite a bit of fungus from lenses & have not seen etched glass. I have had to recement a couple of pieces & it's kind of a pita. I have also removed internal coatings to get rid of the stuff with no complaints.

 

[Ole]

Having seen lichen growing on quartz crystals, nothing really surprises me where fungi are involved. If a lichen (which is a sumbiosis between a fungus and an alga) can etch quartz...