And my blogging career has come to the end...

I observed the Micro Aquarium November 14 from 11:30-12:30 EST and my goodness. Where has everyone gone?!? My first point of prominence is the food pellet, I love all the activity around this area. This time I was disappointed as the activity had severally decrease. Just the week before it was absolutely crazy with activity and now it was very slow as the life began to dissipate. The other thing I really noticed was the increased size of the annelids.  As Dr. McFarland explained it to me this is due to them using the other organisms to survive. Another item I was looking forward was possibly seeing skeletons for some of the deceased, but after some searching none were to be found. It is amazing to me the level of activity as the weeks transpired and now to see fewer living organisms. It really shows hoe a mini ecosystem can boom with the introducing of food and bust will no food source. Honestly I was not looking forward to this little experiment but after seeing it I was truly blown away!

Life continues!

 

 

This week I viewed my Micro Aquarium on Wednesday November 7, 2012 from 12:00 until 1:31 EST. During this time I saw many microorganisms, many of which I had viewed before. My favorite place to observe was around the food pellet, which was significantly smaller than last week. The activity around the pellet reminds me a busy street in New York City! What I mean by this is that organisms around the pellet are coming in and going at such a crazy pace it is great to view. One of the neatest organisms that I viewed was a Lepidodermella! I was very proud that this is the first organism that I saw and identify by myself. (Later verified by Dr. McFarland) I used page 179 of the book titled A Guide to Micro life to identify the organism. I have included an image of this below as Figure 1. After identifying this I proceeded to the middle portion of the aquarium and witnessed some of the same creatures as before. I was quite disappointed to not see the Cyclops again as it was my personal favorite from week 1. The next image I noted was called a Coleps. This was a very neat creature as it appeared to have several “fingers” surrounding it. You can view some of these below in Figure 2. I identified this microorganism on figure 375 on page 162 of the book titled Free-living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide. This coleps was moving very slowly and appeared to be glowing due to the fingers around it continually moving. I concluded my ninety minutes of investigation by searching the bottom of the aquarium near the soil area. This portion was not nearly as active as the middle portion. (that is where both images were found, most likely due to the placement of the pellet) When leaving the room I added more water to the aquarium to top it off. Overall this experience, in general, has been eye opening! I would lie if every time I get in the shower I now wonder what may be crawling on me. Even beyond that everything that I drink, and consume, I began to think this sane thing! Look forward to going back and viewing more items next week.

 

 

Figure 1

 

 

Figure 2

 

 

 

Patterson, David J. Free-living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide. London: Mason Publishing Ltd., 1992. 162. Print

           

Rainis, Kenneth G., and Bruce J. Russell. A Guide to Microlife. New York: Franklin Watts, 1996. 179. Print

            

Second Week, Food = New Life!!

I observed my Micro Aquarium this past week on Wednesday, October 31, 2012. This week I saw an enormous amount of activity as compared to the first week! This had to be directly related to ONE Beta Food Pellet being added to the aquarium on October 26, 2012. This information was provided by http://botany1112012.blogspot.com/, it mentions that this pellet is an Atison’s Betta Food which is made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104. The ingredients include the following; Fish meal, wheat flower, soy milk, krill meal, minerals, vitamins and preservatives. Analysis: Crude Protein 36%; Ash 15%; Moisture 8%; Crude fiber 3.5% and Crude fat 1.5%. This week I observed many organisms that were actively “eating” from the pellet. The most unusual creature I saw was a Microchlamys which I have added a photo below.  I identify this was the help of Figure 10 on page 191 of a book that was located in the classroom titled An Illustrated Guide to Protozoa Society of Protozoologists (Levine, Lee 1985). As I was explained to me by Ken McFarland which the image of, we are looking at the top image of the organism. In addition to this I saw many annelids, but was surprised to not be able to locate the Cyclops. (This was my personal favorite from the first observation) The next week I look forward to seeing all of the new creatures increase in size and see how many new organisms I can locate!

 

Figure 1

 

An Illustrated Guide to the Protozoa. Society of Protozoologists, Lawrence, Kansas. Levine, N. D. 1985. Phylum II. Apicomplexa. In: Lee, J.J