October 18 2009

Today I started some more observations on my aquarium, I also worked on identifying some of the microorganisms in my aquarium using Free Living Freshwater Protozoa: a Colour Guide by D.J. Patterson and Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States by Douglas Grant Smith. I made this video with the help of Dr. Kenneth McFarland that features some of the organisms in my aquarium, I request that it be watched before you proceed so you will have an idea what I am talking about. First thing that really caught my eye was a midge emerged from my aquarium (picture shown top right courtesy of maineflyfish.com/ hatches/midges/001.htm) and the midge larvae taken by me on my phone right below it. This was probably the one I observed last week and the smaller one is now moving around as a larger larvae shown in the video. There were also several rotifers (shown top left courtesy of water.me.vccs.edu/ courses/ENV108/lesson7b.htm) several are shown in the video. They are usually free floating in the water or eating scum off of plants. They typically have one-two tails. I have a few sketches in my notes, please refer to those to see a couple of other types. Another organism is shown in the video before the amoeba, it is unknown at this moment as to what it is, it appears similar to a colpidium, but has a large vacuole and a beak like "face." There are very small organisms that can be seen through the 10 objective and larger magnifications only called Halteria (shown bottom left courtesy of www.pirx.com/droplet/ list_img.html). These guys were small and made quick jerking movements, they fed on mostly dead matter, such as an insect carcass that I saw. There was also a copepod (aka cyclops) which was a small squid-like microorganism that is rather tricky to find (picture shown 3rd down on right courtesy of www.hudsonregional.org/ mosquito/program.htm). I have also seen what may possibly be water bears last week, but I have not seen them since. They were tricky to find the first time, they practically blend in with the water and move INCREDIBLY fast to catch in a microscope. There were several algae types Spirogirum (shown left courtesy of biology.unm.edu/.../ Non-floweringPlants.htm) and a another cigar shaped algae (diatom) shown bottom right (courtesy of steel.ced.berkeley.edu/.../ ?page_id=78). I also added a food pellet at the end of the lab session, I will let you know what happens with that next week. My notes are posted as well.

There is a typo at the end of the video, I accidently called Dr. McFarland Dr. Gellert, sorry.

We started today by creating our micro aquariums by using small glass containers a couple centimeters thick and filled them with a water type, each person chose the type they wished to use. My water was number 5--which came from a pond near Meads Quarry in Knox county, TN (picture far left). Then we put in two different plants: plant A- an algae (darker green plant closer to the left in the aquarium) and plant B-an insect eating aquatic plant (stringy mass of light green closer to the right). After putting the plants in the aquarium and filling it up with the water used previously, we took a look at the aquarium using our microscopes. We got a close up look of what was in the aquariums, including what was in the sediment from the water we used that settled at the bottom. Here are my observations.

There appear to be a large amount of microorganisms in the sediment of the water. One type was a small, brown, translucent, ovular shaped organism that moved rapidly in the sediment. Another was a larger ovular shaped organism with one-two tails that swam more in the open water but close to the sediment. A third is shown in the top right of my notes, there were many of them, they were transparent and quick moving, they also liked to hide from the light in the sediment, so finding them is difficult. An orange, transparent worm-like organism sifted through the sediment, apparently eating eat. Finally, a much larger organism that is similar to the previous, but MUCH larger, on the 10 objective it took up approximately half the view.