Week 4

The Microaquarium has grown significantly within the past few weeks. Some considerable changes have occured even within the past week. With the addition to the organisms that have already been discovered I have recently just spotted a few nematodes. Nematodes, also called roundworms, thrive in a wide variety of different habitats. They are found in marine settings and feed on dead material in their habitat (Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States). With the addition to the new nematodes the algae that I noticed actually turned out to be cynobacteria. Cynobacteria is extremley important because it is a huge producer of oxygen in an ecosystem. The bacteria is photosynthetic and blue green in color. It is rod shaped and motile. There is a very large colony in the bottom right hand corner of the tank and other smaller colonies are popping up throughout the microaquarium. With the emergence of the cynobacteria I have found thousands of diatoms in them. I believe the diatoms are Stauroneis diatoms judging by the shape.

Week 3

Not much has changed in the past week. The bladders of the utricularia vulgaris have continued to grow and develop. The number of them has also increased, there are now nodes on all present utricularia plants. In addition I have also noticed that the numbers of rotifers has decreased significatlly and the Ostrocads are still visible in the bottom of the tank. New organisms have also been spotted. A small blue-green algae is starting to grow but is not yet large enough to determine what it is.

Week 2

The water for the Microaquarium came from Pond at Sterchi Hills Greenway Trail. The plants added to the habitat was a collection of moss and a Utricularia vulgaris, a carnivorous flowering plant. Over the past week I have observed many changes in the Microaquarium. The carnivorous buds of the Utricularia vulgaris have grown larger, which therefore traps more organisms for food for the plant, as can be seen in the picture. Many Rotifers have grown in numbers throughout the habitat. The most numerous organism are the shelled rotifers which can usually be found feeding on both plant species. New species of organisms have been discovered such as the Seed Shrimp. Ostracods, also known as Seed Shrimp, are similar to mulloscs. They have two shells with valves joined by a hinge and microfilter water to trap assorted protists, mold, and other microbials (Guide to Microlife, 209). The Microaquarium continues to grow inside and should keep changing over the next few weeks.

Thursday 10/23

To the naked eye, I was able to notice that much of the dirt and also the water level had decreased over the past week. When looking through the microscope much more came to my attention. It was learned that Plant B is actually Utricularia vulgaris, which is a carnivorous plant. The plant had little green bubbles in which small organisms were trapped inside. The plant uses these organisms for food and energy. The most numerous microorganism was the Cyclops. The cyclops are emergent around vegetation and sands with quiet open waters (Guide to Microlife 95). Other microorganims found were the Daphnia and Rotifers. Rotifers feed on bacteria, protists, suspended organic matter, and other rotifers (188). I observed that they mostly congragated around plant B in which most vegetation is available. The Daphnia are larger than the other microorganisms and feed off other organisms such as the rotifer and others.

Tuesday 10/14/08

The aquarium was put together. I used the water source from tank #9 with both plants A and B present in the microaquarium. When I was observing through the microscpe I saw all of the plants I had added but i did not see any other forms of life.