Mike the Microaquarium

Semaine Quartre

2007-11-19T15:37:00.000-08:00

I went in for week four this week, i noticed the water was low again, so i figure that this must be because of evaporation instead of someone actually bumping into it. The tank had also grown a lot of algae on this sides of it, which the rhodefords seemed to really enjoy because all of them were seen in this area where it was starting to grow. At first i thought this algae was eggs of some sort but it turned out to be Diatomic algae. it covered the glass of approximately a third on the tank but was not a problem since you could still see through it. There was also some green algae near the bottom that looked filamentous in strand of hairlike interlaces called eladorpha. The Dust Mite was still there and out in the open so i got a couple good pictures of it. I also saw that the nematodes and cyclops (adult) were still in the microaquarium. I also found one of the seed shrimps up higher to the surface than i had ever seen one before. I was actually clanged to the top on the moss. Other than that i also found a interesting new microorganism that was cleaned to the moss by a string. This microorganism was called a vorticella. I could not get any good pictures of it because it was so small and moving extremely fast. So i put up a drawn picture of what it looks like complements of USF. I have had a fun experience with the microaquarium, so much fun i took it home with me from the lab! Since Dr. McFarland was just going to through them out i went and got mine and it is now on my kitchen counter. I might check it again in a little while. Thanks, have a great day!

Semaine Trois

2007-11-13T00:11:00.000-08:00

The first thing i noticed when i walked into the room to check my microaquarium was that there was significantly less water in the tank. I don't know if this was because of evaporation or because it may have gotten knocked over. Some of the other classmates had the same problem. I added some more distilled tap water. The tank still had seed shrimps, cyclops, rhodefords, and the long worm looking things. I saw a worm thing which i later identified as a nematode swimming around the same as it did before and then started to follow a passing seed shrimp. I also found some Annelids and a dust mite of which i included two pictures. It was crawling slowly on the moss at the top of the tank. I had to admit i was really sad to have discovered when i looked at the tank under the microscope that with the water gone there was significantly less of every organism in the tank, especially the juvenile cyclops. They were about everywhere in the tank before the water was gone now i could only find one of them. Hopefully this next week will bring back some more organisms out of hiding with the new water i added to the tank.

Semaine Deux

2007-11-05T19:49:00.000-08:00

We are now in the second week of observation of the microaquarium. When i first walked in and sat down today i first found a new organism that looked like a octopus with only 3 tentacles. The "tentacles" continuously receded and elongated into the body of the microorganism, seeming as if it may be crawling on them. It did not move very fast at all. I had found a better example out in the open but when i took it to the other microscope to take a picture, it had moved. I did however find another one, but this one was on the side of the microaquarium and didn't pose for a very good picture. The picture of the unknown organism is at the bottom of the page and i will try to do some more research on it next week. Another organism i found for a second, but moved extremely fast and i lost it was a wormed shaped very small organism that wriggled and spasmed around very fast, it looked almost exactly like a stringy earthworm under the telescope. Both the "tenticled" organism and the earthworm shaped organism were viewed under high (400x) power and are extremely hard to find when just looking for them so i don't know if i can ever get a picture of them. Other than these two unidentified organisms i found out that the spider looking organism that was jumping around in the microaquarium was actually just a juvenile cyclops of which the adult version is pictured on the top. I also found out that all of the plastic bag looking things on the bottom of the microaquarium that floated above the debris in the very bottom were actually a whole bunch of seed shrimp carcases that the seed shrimp apparently sheds during the course of its life. This also means, because there were so many that the microquarium contains a large population of seed shrimp. One of the many seed shrimp in the microquarium is pictured in the upper middle on the right of the page. Hopefully i can get a better picture of one of these soon. They are kinda hard to get a picture of out of the debris at the bottom. The organism in pictured in the lower middle of the page that i have seen a couple of times in the microaquarium and believed i have described it as a jellyfish looking thing was actually identified as a Rhodeford but Dr. McFarland. My microaquarium is full of these little critters. Well that is it for this week, see you again next week!

Semaine Une

2007-10-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

During the first week of the observation i found a couple of new microrganisms in my Mike the Microaquarium. One of the larger of the new found organisms was a cyclops, it looks like a plated jellyfish with four antennae and two tails. When i first found it it was attacking a much smaller microrganism, and eventually ended up consuming it. Another organism that has still not been identified is a smaller spider looking thing with four hairy legs. It seemed as if it was crawling around on the side of the microquarium. Another new one i found, that also has not been identified was a oval shaped organism with lots of small fins/legs surrounding its entire body and what looked to be one eye at the top of its head. This organism was seen juming around extreamly fast throughout the microaquarium. And a final very small organsim, maybe 2 cells wide, was very simple. It contained only a body and a tail with no other distinct figures on it. Lots of single celled organisms could still be seen swiming around in the aquarium, including a colony of rod shaped single celled organisms near the moss at the top of the microaquarium. The organisms that i had found earlier were still present. The shimp thing was also identified as a Seed Shrimp. The globule organisms were still present as well, and existed in a larger number with both large and small ones. Other than that everything still remained the same. One thing i did notice, however, was that there was a lot of small plastic bag, clear things piled on top of the debris at the bottom, i couldn't quite make out what they were, but they were deffinatly not alive. I may have been decomposing corpses of some dead microorganisms. I will find out next week what they might be. See you next week!

Setting up the Microaquarium

2007-10-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

Code = Light Blue, Yellow, Dark Blue. W.S.M.
Contents = Water 4, Moss B, Pinguicula

We first obtained a microaquarium from Dr. McFarland which was to be used to place a few drops of pond water from one of the sixteen different choices of water available. I chose to get water four which contained water from a water pool below a spring in Fountain City Park west of Broadway at Hotel Ave in Knox Co, Knoxville TN, taken on 10/14/2007. I took a even spread of water from the bottom, middle, and top, of the sample, making sure to get some of the debris from the bottom. The class was then instructed to take one of the three samples of moss to add to the microaquarium. I took moss b which was Rhynchostegium serrulatum from the biology annex on white ave. at the University of Tennessee. After the moss was added we were given a sort of microorganism eating plant, called Utricularia vulgaris L. or Pinguicula which i added to the microaquarium. After the microaquarium was finished and assembled i placed it under the microscope to make my initial observations. I could see a couple of different microorganisms, my favorite being a small shrimp looking thing which seemed to be eating the debris in the bottom and digesting it extremely quickly. This microorganism could possibly be a Seed Shrimp although i have not confirmed yet whether this is true or not. Other microorganisms included a glob looking thing that dug into the debris as soon as i started looking at it, i actually observed a few of these in the microaquarium. Other than that the microaquarium seemed to contain a variety of different single celled organisms swimming throughout.