Fourth Week's Observation - Nov. 13

My aquarium has continued to grow greener. This week, there was much more blue-green algae and the filament clusters were much bigger than last week. The plants have also grown significantly since I created my aquarium. Now, instead of occupying only a portion of the space in my aquarium, they have grown to fill almost the entire area. Just like last week, the amount of organisms has increased to an all time high. There are many more small, multicellular and unicellular organisms that inhabit my aquarium. They are the most densely populated near the plants, and since the plants have spread to every centimeter of my aquarium, These tiny critters can be seen everywhere. There are still more dead organisms, mostly small swimming cells, but with the increase of plant and algae life, these are harder to see making it look less like a tiny microscopic graveyard.

 Organisms

- I saw more limnias this week after most of them seemed to have died last week. They were still mostly connected to the dirt and plants near the bottom of the aquarium.

- There were several annelids digging in the dirt at the bottom of my aquarium. There two really big ones that I suspect are the ones I have been seeing getting bigger since the inception of my aquarium.

- I saw a new organism called a chaetonotus (Figure E). It can't be seen at this magnification, but it has cilia on its front to help it move around. It was relatively slow moving and didn't make sharp movements.

Figure E p. 171 (James H. Tharp 2010)

- I also saw a nematode. It was similar to annelids in shape and movement with a few differences. It was much skinnier than an annelid and its head and anus were indistinguishable.

- Something interesting I saw this week was a free swimming stentor. It had detached itself from whatever it was growing on and was swimming around freely. I hadn't seen this in any of my other observations. I only ever saw them attached to plants and the dirt.

- There were also a couple clusters of green algae. The clusters consisted of about ten circular algae cells that had distinct green centers. There was a barely visible film around the algae cells and none of the cells breached each other.

Third Week's Observation - Nov. 4

There was quite a drastic change to my micro aquarium this week. Like last week, there were noticeably more living organisms in my aquarium, but unlike last week, there were a bunch of dead ones too. Before, I would occasionally see a couple dead critters floating around, but this week, my aquarium was a tiny graveyard. Most of the dead organisms were rohefurs and other unicellular organisms. I also noticed that many of the limnias were dead or gone. The week of Oct. 28, I saw an abundance of limias around my aquarium, but there were only I few left this week. Even though many of the organisms died, there still seemed to be an increase in population in my aquarium, mostly small swimming cells. These tend to hangout around the plants, I assume for food. Also, my aquarium had lost almost half of its water! I believe it was from evaporation. 

Organisms

- There were a couple annelids digging around the plants and dirt near the bottom. Both of them were very large, much larger than the one I observed the previous week. They were both very active.

- I saw a couple vorticella (Figure 233). Like the stentors I covered last week, they were tethered to plants and would react to movement from the environment (it would retract towards the plant).

Figure 233 p. 113 (D.J. Patterson 2003)

- I found several stentors. The seemed to have avoided the mass death because I did not find many that were dead.

- Blue-green algae was everywhere. Before this week, there wasn't any in my aquarium, by now it seems to have taken over. Even without the microscope, I could see the algae populating my aquarium. I'm not sure if this had anything to do with all the dead organisms. 

Second Week's Observation - Oct. 28

This week, there was definitely a change in my micro aquarium. This change was probably heavily influenced by the food pellet that Dr. McFarland put into the aquarium. The food was placed in my aquarium on Oct. 24, 2014. The data for the food pellet can be found at the end of this post. The amount of organisms in the aquarium was significantly greater than it was just one week ago. Before, I would have to searched for bit to find anything, but this week, everywhere I looked, there were critters swimming around. The most numerous of the organisms that I saw were unicellular swimming cells. Anywhere I looked in my aquarium, there were always several in my view. Also I noticed that the traps on the plants seemed to have much more dead organisms in side of them and I don't know if this was caused by natural progression of time or by the increased amount of organism within the aquarium. Either way, the plants are definitely getting their fill.

Organisms

- Just like last week, I saw a single annelid. I'm not sure if it was the same annelid from last week, but if it was, then it had grown almost twice it's size! This growth was probably influenced by the food pellet that was placed in the aquarium. An interesting note about this annelid is that it was not within a tube, which is uncommon. Most annelids reside within a tube, but I guess this one decided it was too good for that.

- I saw several Raphidiophrys (Figure 405). There were about ten in near proximity to each other near the bottom of the aquarium. These were circular with long, slightly rigid spindles sticking out, very much like a sea urchin. They have a vacuole to regulate water inside of them and you can actually see it release water every so often. The one in figure 405 can actually be seen splitting.

Figure 405 p.173 (D.J. Patterson 2003)

- I observed that there were many more limnias populating my aquarium from last week.

-  I also observed a Stentor (Figure 213). It was colorless and was attached to a plant. It had beating membranelles on the end that moved in a wave like motion. It would also retract  into itself when disturbed, either by other organisms or me tapping on the glass, much like the limnias

Figure 213 p.106 (D.J. Patterson 2003)

- I also noticed there were many more rohefurs swimming around.

Food Pellet (McFarland, 2014) -  "Atison's Betta Food" made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104. Ingredients: Fish meal, wheat flower, soy meal, krill meal, minerals, vitamins and preservatives. Analysis: Crude Protein 36%; Crude fat 4.5%; Crude Fiber 3.5%; Moisture 8% and Ash 15%.

First Week's Observation - Oct. 23

At first glance this week, there did not seem to be much change to my micro aquarium. The number of unicellular organisms seems to have increased since I set up the aquarium, but other than that, nothing substantial. This week, with the help of Dr. McFarland and the book Fresh Water Invertebrates of the United States by Robert W. Pennak, I was able to identify most of critters I could find.

-This first organism I found was an annelid. It was relatively large, worm shaped critter. It's movements were inconsistent and sporadic. Sometimes, it would sit relatively still for a while and at other times it would thrash around (I'm assuming that's how it eats). It stayed at the bottom of the tank near the dirt and plants.

-I also found several Limnais (Figure J). These organisms were the most interesting in my opinion. They attach a tube to various surfaces (This one attached itself to one of the plants) and hang out the end of it. As you can see in Figure J, they have these tendrils that move in a chainsaw looking motion. If they feel a disturbance, like me tapping on the glass, they withdraw into their tubes. These organisms were found at the bottom of the aquarium, either on the plants or the dirt.

Figure J p.218 (Robert W. Pennak 1989)

-There was also a small oval shaped organism with a tail called a uclaneus rohefur. There were several of these around the micro aquarium and they didn't seem to be located in any specific location. Their movement was relatively slow, but constant.

-The most numerous of the critters in the aquarium were small single-celled organisms, or "swimming cells". These were too small to identify and were typically circular or oval shaped. These organisms were very energetic and were constantly moving in various patterns.

While these were the organisms that I saw, I'm certain there a ton more to be found and identified in my micro aquarium. Hopefully we'll see these in the coming weeks.

Day 1 of the MicroAquarium

We finally setup our micro aquariums this week. I've been curious about this project since it was first mentioned at the beginning of this semester. While observations and pictures will follow in the next couple of weeks, I just setup the aquarium and had a quick look at all the critters I could find this week.

The Setup

We first had to build the micro aquariums using a glass tank, and stand holder, and a lid. Each student had to label their aquarium with colored stickers and initials in order to distinguish it from the others. From there, each student had to choose between 12 different water sources from the Knoxville area. I chose source 3, Carter Mill Park at spring source (McFarland, 2014). This water was obtained by Dr. McFarland on October 12, 2014. The steps I took to set up my aquarium are as follows:

1. I extracted a small layer of dirt from the bottom of source sample 3 so that it barely covered the bottom of my aquarium.
2. I them took some water from the middle of the sample as well as the surface so that I could get a variety of organisms in my aquarium.
3. I then put pieces of two different plants that were provided so that they could oxygenate the water (McFarland, 2014). The two plants I used are:

• Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg. Moss.
  Collection from: Natural spring. at Carters Mill Park, Carter Mill Road, Knox Co. TN. Partial shade exposure. N36 01.168 W83 42.832. 10/12/2014
• Utricularia gibba L. Flowering plant. A
  carnivorous plant. Original material from south shore of Spain Lake (N 35o55 12.35" W088o20' 47.00), Camp Bella Air Rd. East of Sparta Tn. in White Co. and grown in water tanks outside of greenhouse at Hesler
  Biology Building. The University of Tennessee. Knox Co. Knoxville TN.
  10/12/2014

Observations

Once I had my micro aquarium setup and ready to go, I took a look at it through a microscope to see what I had captured. I didn't see that much at first, but when I looked at my aquarium through 100x magnification, I saw a lot of tiny organisms squirming about. Dr. McFarland confirmed my suspicions that that was there way of eating (which is really all they do). I also saw a fairly large worm like organism that spent all its time thrashing about sporadically, also eating. I suspect I will be seeing many different organisms in the weeks to come as they continue grow.

Bibliography

D.J. Patterson. 2003. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa. 1st ed. London. Manson Publishing Ltd.

James H. Tharp. 2010. Ecology and Classification of Northern American Freshwater Invertebrates. 3rd ed. Canada. Elsevier Inc.

McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2014. [Oct. 19, 2014]. Available from http://botany1112014.blogspot.com/

Robert W. Pennak. 1989. Fresh-Water Invertebrates of the United States. 3rd ed. Canada. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.