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).