Week 3 Observations

This week my aquarium really came to life. While I was away someone slipped a food pellet into the aquarium. There were many organisms swimming around the highest concentration near the food. The plants seem to still be alive and are providing a very suitable home for these creatures. There were three protists which I saw in greatest abundance and plenty of green algae mainly clinging to the sides of the aquarium. One of these organism was a paramecium they were large, round, and green. What makes them green is a symbiotic relationship with chorella floating around inside them. The other two were both types of flagellates but looked very different. One was very thin and long with two flagella. The other was larger and more rounded and I could easily observe their eating. These larger ones used a needle like mouth to take in small bits of what appeared to be soil or plant bits. Also in my aquarium were long clear fibers I am curious to find out what these and the rest of the living things in my aquarium are.

Week 1 Observations

This week we set up our term project a microaquarium. I used water from the plastic bird bath in Fountain City. I added water from the top, middle, and bottom layer to ensure a good sample. We started with a very small glass aquarium and added the water source and two plant species for food. The two plants were Fontinalis sp. Moss and Utricularia gibba L these plants will feed the protists we are studying in this project. After the setup we put the aquarium under a light microscope and observed the microenviroment. I could see nodules on the plants and small organisms swimming in the water. One of these orgamisms had a large circular head and moved very quickly. We will revisit our aquariums each week and record any observations. I expect that more protists will be visable next week.