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.