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.