MicroA

The microaquarium project was a good opportunity to be able to find and identify different types of organisms, bacteria, and forms of algae. Even though there was not a lot of extensive work put into the project other than the lab work and what was done at home still was helpful to getting aquatinted, on a hand-on basis, with resources and information deemed valuable in the Botany field. Hopefully the information learn and observed will be useful after this project is completed.

Last Week of MicroAq

This week there was a significant water loss from the previous weeks, this was actually the first week that there was any change in water level. As far as the activity, there was also much less activity by the organisms this week than any other week, as if the organisms that were still alive were fighting for the food that was left.

Saw more activity by the Lacrymaria that were found last week were still alive and it seems as though they had grown, at-least the necks had. The length of the necks on all the Lacrymaria I looked at had much longer necks this week. Also from last week the seed shrimp that seems so plentiful were now mostly dead, I could not really find any that were still living.

Some new discoveries were two flat worms that I was not able to identify, some cyannobacteria, also some colonial and filamentous green algae. I also w

as able to see a lonesome desmid of the pleurotaenium ehrenbergii genus. (Handbook of algae, Herman Silva Forest, University of Tennessee Press Knoxville 1954, p. 248)

MicroA

This week, while observing the microaquarium, I still saw particles of the "Atison's Betta Food", made by Ocean Nutrition in Salt Lake City, Utah still in the water. The ingredients of the betta food are as follows: fish meal, wheat flower, soy meal, krill meal, minerals, vitamins and preservatives that make up for 36% Crude protein, 4.5% of Crude fat, 3.5% Crude fiber, 8% moisture and 15% Ash.

Also, I was able to identify a number of organisms throughout the microaquarium. One organism that I saw plenty of were the Seed Shrimp, which were moving very rapidly and feeding just as fast. I captured a picture of two Seed Shrimp, one which is dead and has a Difflugia attached to it.

The one on the left is the one that's dead and the black spot behind it is the Difflugia.

Although the picture does not show a clear image of the Difflugia, I captured a video of one moving around.

In the video you can see how slow these Seed Shrimp actually move across the surface of the micro-aquarium. Difflugia are heterotrophs that use pseudopods to move as they engulf their food. Within the pseudopods I also saw cytoplasmic streaming that may not show up on the video.

MicroA

Set up micro-aquarium on Wednesday with a sample from a pond at Sterchi Hills Greenway. Added to the water was two plants: Amblystegium varium, which is Lindb. Moss, collected from a natural spring with exposure to partial shade in Carter's Mill Park; Utricularia gibba L., a carnivorous plant. Also in class looked I was able to observe it under a microscope for the first time. While under the microscope I could see tiny green particles moving inside the bladder of one of the plants that was added to the micro-aquarium as well. Even without the microscope I was able to see tiny particles moving and saw something that resembled a small worm. Hopefully next week there will be some change throughout the aquarium.