Sunday, November 1, 2009

October 26, 2009-week 3
Today is 1 week after the edition of the food pellet into my micro aquarium. Unfortunately in my last post I failed to mention the names of the 2 plant that were added into the aquarium, the moss (plant A) is Amblystegium varium and the insect eating plant (plant B) is a carnivorous plant obtained from the Hesler greenhouse on UTK's campus (http://www.botany1112009.blogspot.com/). Nothing much seems to have occurred with these two plants, but what is interesting are the microorganisms. Their numbers seemed to have increases ten fold, most of them are seen around the food pellet which can be observed in my video. Most seem to be Amoeba, bacteria of various sorts, and Halteria; which seem to feed on the bacteria. One of the organisms (lacymaria) which have been newly sighted apparently can stretch its' neck to seven times its' body length (_Free Living Fresh Water Protozoa: A Colour Guide_ by D.J. Patterson). Their are large colonies of bacteria in and around the food pellet that may be feeding on it. There are mysterious tentacle like objects moving on one side of the food pellet (top side) that may be Cyanobacteria, but lack the coloration of them and the shape. A large insect larvae, possibly a mosquito larvae, has been spotted but I could not find again to put on video, i was large enough to see unaided. A large copepod was also in the aquarium that was large enough to be seen unaided. At least a third of the sediment in the aquarium has vanished.

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