Week Five Observations 11-9-10

Before putting the aquarium under the microscope, I observed several things.  The water this week has a cloudy appearance with a clear green tint slim.  There are also large air bubbles on plant B. I can also still see the seed shrimp swimming around like crazy in the bottom of the aquarium. There are now two seed shrimp.

This is a picture looking down on the Seed Shrimp.


There appears to be more life in the aquarium, but there is also sightly more death than I saw last week.  I saw a Paramecium Bursania and the really cool thing about this was it was in the middle of dividing.  It was really interesting to get to see that.



This is what a Paramecium Bursania looks like while going through the stages of division.


Bacteria was spotted like above, all over the aquarium.  Dr. McFarland was unsure of what type of bacteria this was and wanted to keep a picture for himself to take and show the bacteria specialist on campus, and thought maybe even she wouldn't for sure know what type it was.


The picture above shows two Paramesia.  These can be seen all over the aquarium.  They move around and are identified by their spiral movement.

Week Four Observations

The aquarium is becoming more and more populated with Paramesia, Nematods, Rotafers, Cilins, and other forms of life.  There are also some that have lost life. 
Some life in the aquarium had caught my eye before the aquarium was even put under the microscope.  These were identified by Dr. McFarland as seed shrimp. They sure do have a lot of energy, because it was hard to keep them in view for more than a few seconds to get a good look at them
An observation that was noticed this week was the life has seemed to have spread out more and is not only on plant B, but also between the plants.  
Alga were spotted, but they were unhealthy and didn't appear to have much life left. These looked like a chain made up of small cylinders. 
Small clusters of bacteria have become more frequent all over the aquarium.

Week Three Observations 10-26-10

On Friday October 22, Dr. McFarland placed one Beta Food Pellet into the aquarium.
"Atison's Betta Food" made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104. Ingredients: Fish meal, wheat flower, soy meal, krill meal, minerals, vitamins and preservatives. Analysis: Crude Protein 36%; Crude fat 4.5%; Crude Fiber 3.5%; Moisture 8% and Ash 15%.


Today a round worm was discovered in the aquarium. It was identified by Dr. McFarland as a nematode.  A new life form was also discovered today that looked like a small green sponge. This was identified as a paramesia because of its spiral movement. The flat worm was identified as a ballaria. 


The rotafers that have been seen in the weeks before are appearing larger, and there are more and more of them every week. This week it was noticed that some of the rotafers had lost all life and were just floating in the water. I have also noticed that most of the life in the aquarium is also on plant B. Plant A's life is very quiet.

Week Two Observations 10-19-10

The Rotafers that were observed during the first week have now been identified as Nematods. Flagella were also spotted in the aquarium. These have two flagella, one mobile and one stationary. There were also several Cilin spotted. They were Tachysoma, which look very hairy and have a jet pack which makes them pulsate.

Lab Blog One 10/10-10/16

Setting up the MicroAquarium:
First I select a glass tank, a stand holder, and a lid with putty on the edges. Then with the proper colored stickers, the tank is labeled with the lab section, the table, and the seat number at the table. Using the pipet, I extracted water from the bottom of bowl number two, with water from the French Broad River, Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, Kelly Lane , Knox Co. Tennessee. Partial shade exposure French Broad River Water Shed N35 56.742 W83 41.628 841 ft 10/10/2010, to fill the aquarium 1/3 of the way. The next 1/3 came from water in the middle of bowl number two and the last 1/3 came from the surface of the bowl. With the aquarium in the stand, it gets decorated with some plant parts or mosses provided.

In my observations, I saw some really cool things in the aquarium. The first thing that grabbed my attention was a small transparent rotafer that looked like a tiny sting ray on plant b. It looked like it was eating the plant and i could see the plant moving around inside the creature. As i was looking at the aquarium through the microscope, there were all kinds of bugs zooming in and out of my sight.

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