Strands have grown from the disk of culture like tentacles, after 12 hours. I think the culture is still living - not that it's falling apart. Going to keep an eye on it for anything untoward, like vinegar eels. I have been putting off researching what those really are. I should do that.
@stillinhere sounds terrifying!
Is this the Kombucha? Are eels floating at the bottom of a kombucha bottle? 
@generica @Zoonie I just learned about them as a possible problem. Since I'm buying the SCOBY from a place that I don't know, even though it has tons of good reviews and the only reviews are people whose scoby died before they got a good culture, it is something I'll check. The articles I've read say it happens in raw vinegars. They float to the top where there's more oxygen.
@generica @Zoonie It's very rare, but some people will use vinegar to get the ph of their first ferment to a certain level, and some people who are into the raw stuff use that. As long as the scoby is free of raw vinegar and I don't let the kombucha turn to raw vinegar, it will be fine. They're not parasitic anyway.