Week 5

This week about 1,000 new rotifers had appeared. They were swimming haphazardly in every direction. A noticed a new variety of flatworm. This one was a more brown color than clear, and its body was segmented. I saw dead bodies of two copepods. They were sitting on the algae lifelessly. I found an organism that had a bright red center in it. The dirt from the bottom of the aquarium has been scattered all around. The most interesting thing this week was a large mass of colpts that seemed to be absorbing nutrients from a dead flatworm. There were hundreds of them swimming in a clump around the body, moving it back and forth. The algae had formed circular heads.

Week 4 Observations

This week,life was a little more interesting in my aquarium. My friend the cyclops had returned (it was still a smaller one than before) and I was able to identify some more specimens. First off, I recognized the Charophycea Spirogyra since we had discussed it in class. It took up quite a bit of my aquarium with its filaments. The small, ciliated protozoa were swimming around. Also, my flatworms were so big I could see them without the microscope. This was incredibly disgusting yet enlightening, as i realized these have become my favorite organism to watch. Their heads are triangle shaped at the very top and they seem to have many flagella propelling them through the water. Upon further study I learned flatworms are derived from the phyla Platyhelminthes, and more specifically, the ones in my aquarium are the planarian, class tubellaria (http://staff.tuhsd.k12.az.us/gfoster/standard/zophyla1.htm#flat). Another algae I noted was chlamydomonas. It is circular and apparently very common (http://www.chlamy.org/info.html).

Week 3 Observations

This week there seemed to be less life in my Microaquarium than last weeks which is odd because I expected life to prosper, not decline. I could not find the previously mentioned Cyclops, which made me sad because I spent many an hour trying to follow its erratic path. The most interesting thing I saw today was located in the thin layer of dirt at the bottom of the aquarium. It was a type of flatworm I identified in Pennak’s Freshwater Invertebrate of the U.S., but of course I cannot find where I wrote it down. I will add it later. Anyway, these worms were so long I could see their bodies through nearly every inch (or centimeter) of dirt. They were everywhere; I began to think that it was just one long one until I came across the heads of a couple. They had tiny cilia around the top of their heads. There were still a number of paramecium grazing on my algae field. Also, a long strand of algae had grown across the top of the aquarium. It seemed to be made out of x shapes put together. Another interesting thing I noted was the water line of the aquarium. At the very top there were hundreds of extremely tiny organisms floating around. I took some pictures of the aquarium also.

Week 2

The first thing I noticed this week was that the aquarium seemed to have a lot more dirt in it. Upon further inspection, I realized that it was not new dirt, but old dirt that had been scattered around by the creatures. The next thing I noticed was the abundance of small circular paramecium. I also identified an unknown turbellaria. There were new algae that grew throughout the aquarium. My favorite specimens were the flatworms. They were long, clear and swimming in a swirly motion. While I was intently looking at these smaller organisms, all of the sudden a huge monster swam into view for about half a second and then darted away before I could recover before shock. I quickly searched for the organism and I found it darting around the corners of the aquarium. I hurriedly drew a sketch of the creature before it disappeared again. I identified it as a copepoda, or a Cyclops (p.490 of Pennak’s freshwater Invertebrate of the United States). I was able to see the Cyclops with my naked eye, this made it a lot easier to find because it swam so fast. I also found a much smaller Cyclops that was identical to the larger one. It moved a lot slower and I was able to get a better look at it. Much of the organisms had changed since my last view, and I was shocked at the differences.

Week 1

Today we set up our MicroAquariums™ in Botany lab. I used water from source 1 which came from Tommy Schumpert Pond in Knoxville. It was in partial shade. Next, I put in some Amblystegium varium (moss) and some Utricularia vulgaris (flowering plant) and some general muck from the bottom of the water source.. Who knew such a wide assortment of life could be found in such a small amount of water? Upon putting the aquarium under the microscope for the first time I observed several tiny creatures immediately. I saw cilia spinning in circles and tiny protozoa with their many legs (or flagella), but what stood out most of all were the paramecium. At first glance they swam along at a slow pace, clear with a yellowish tinge, but as time passed I looked again and noticed they had green particles inside them. They were eating the algea! They must have been pretty hungry because by the end of the lab, every paramecium I saw had a thread of green algae inside its stomach. I also saw several nematodes, they were long and skinny and glided around, unlike other things I saw which darted so fast it was hard to get a good look at them.