WEEK ENDING 11/13/09

This is the last observation for the MicroAquarium. The most obvious observation is the fact that the water level is only about a third of the original amount. This made it very easy to find the organisms that were still alive in the MicroAquarium. While I was expecting to find some like, I was surprised to find two organisms swimming about with the naked eye. Under magnification, these large organisms were ones that I had not seen before. Looking them up on the posters in lab, they look as if they are in fact copepod crustaceans. They are multicellular, and have multiple flagella at the end of their “tails”. While still looking under magnification, it is easy to see that the algae population had also exploded. There were much more Filamentous and colonial algae. There has also seemed to be an explosion in the Rotifers. While it could be that it only seems this way due to the fact that they are now in a smaller environment, the Rotifers I was seeing were much smaller than any originally noticed. Finally, I noticed Nematods, a small worm that was trapped in the bladders of the utricularia. The Nematods is multicellular organism that seems to move by wiggling there body.
There does seem to be casualties to one group of organism, as there was only one Annelid found. The one found was extremely large, yet seemed to be dying. The movement of the circulatory system was very slow if not all but unnoticeable.

Week Ending 10/30/09

When looking at the MicroAquarium, the first thing that was notices was the explosion of life near the “Atison’s Betta Food” pellet. While the majority of the organisms where the same as first seen, there was a large increase in the numbers and how frequent they came into view.
What was interesting was the large increase of green algae that had sprung up near the pellet, the most noticeable being the filamentous algae. These long stands, which before had not been noticed, now seem to be the most dominate organism around the pellet. The length of the algae dwarfed any of the organisms that had been there before.
It is also important to mention that this is the first time that dead organisms have been noticed near the sediment at the bottom of the MicroAquarium. This area will be looked at carefully to see if any additional organisms end up there to feed of the remains.