Week Four

For my last observation I noticed that the plants were still in the same state: a few green branches and some visible molds and I needed to add a little water. Under the microscope there I could see the continued increase in diatoms and cyanobacteria and a larger number of epilaxis and euchlanis. I was unable to find any vorticella which had been prevalent last week. I saw a few amoebas, including one that had engulfed a diatom but could not find the protazoa I had seen last week (and photographed but didn't manage to photoshop to include here). I saw two other kinds of horned rotifers but was unable to identify them. I saw and identified a cyclidium (Patterson) and an anisonema (Patterson, Fig 78)*.

I did not have time to identify with a book the above amoeba but chose to include the picture anyway. This was one of several I found in my aquarium last Thursday.




Here we have a cylcidium surrounded by diatoms. Under the microscope I could observe the large central vacuole expand and contract.

In general I observed that the larger organisms I observed at the beginning disappeared and the smaller organisms, particularly the diatoms and cyanobacteria increased. The protozoa did not increase at a great rate but did increase over the weeks I observed.






*Patterson, D. J. Free Living Fresh Water Protozoa. Washington, DC: Manson, 2009.

week three with photos

This week I added a bit of water to my aquarium and noted that there are still some green branches on my dying plants, perhaps indicating that some are getting enough light and nutrients to survive. Under the microscope I noticed a dramatic increase in the number of diatoms (mostly pennularia as identified last week) and an increase in the number of rotifera. For the first time I saw an amoeba and several paramecia (photographed and to be added next week). What appear to be the hyphae of water molds are the webbing I noted last week. I was also able to identify an epilaxis* but it was moving too fast to photograph.














The images above are vorticella sp.* in its free swimming form and attached to part of the plant.













The figure above is the rotifer euchlanis***. There are a lot of these in my micro-aquarium.


* Patterson, DJ. Free Living Freshwater Protozoa. Washinton, DC: Manson, 2009. 141.
** ibid. 113.
***Smith, Douglas Grant. Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States. New York: Wiley and Sons, 2001. 143.

If anyone knows how to undo the underline on blogger, please let me know!

week two

This week a food pellet* was added to the micro-aquarium on Friday October 21. When I observed the aquarium on Oct 25 I noticed at high magnification that there were large numbers of bacilli surrounding the pellet as well as long transparent filaments that looked like webbing all around the pellet and the plants. At lower magnification I noticed an increased number of organisms in the aquarium and could see without any magnification that the plants were turning brown and dying.

On Friday Oct 28th I was able to spend more time in the lab and noticed that the bladders on one of the plants were larger and opaque, even though the plant had browned. The sediment was too deep to measure in some spots.

Using Guide to Microlife by Rainis and Russell (Danbury, CT: Franklin Watts, 1996) I was able to identify a diatom in the sediment of the genus navicula. I was also able to identify some filamentous algae, tribomena, using the book Freshwater Algae by Canter-Lund and Lund (Bristol: Biopress LTD, 1995). I was able to photograph several microorganisms but did not have time to identify them.






* "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%.