Week 5

Not much seems to have changed since last week. So this week, I spent most of my time identifying more organisms. I was able to identify many of the life forms I had already seen, as well as take some more photographs.

This is an image that I posted last week. I returned to this alga to find out more about it. I read through some books and identified it as a Coelastrum microsporum (Bold & Wynne). It is a multicellular, green algae in the Chlorophyta division.

This is the Phacus sp. I photographed and video recorded in the past couple of weeks. I included these photos because they show different angles of its body.
The organism below is a Euglena sp. part of the phylum Euglenophyta (Forest). It has a red "eye spot" that is sensitive to light. It is located near the base of its flagella, seen in the photo towards the left end of the organism.
This is another example of a flagellate organism. I identified it as an Entosiphon. It is also in the phylum Euglenophyta (Patterson). It has two flagella, one on either end. Only one is visible in the photo to the right, as the second is very small.

The photo to the left shows two cyanobacteria (Forest). The large bulb-like end on each is a heterocyst. Heterocysts are thick-walled parts of cyanobacteria that have the ability to fix nitrogen.


The following video and photos show examples of larger organisms in my MicroAquarium. The video below shows a Philodina sp. It is a kind of Rotifer (Pennak).


To the right is an example of an Ostracoda. This organism has a more common name of Seed Shrimp (Smith). This is the largest organism I have found in my aquarium thus far.


This is an excellent photo I was able to capture of a premature Cyclops. These organisms move very quickly and are difficult to photograph.








The organism below is of the genus Halteria (Pennak). It also move very quickly, and is hard to photograph. They are certainly smaller than the Cyclops and the Seed Shrimp. They are closer in size to a shelled rotifer.
I ended my blog last week by discussing a newly observed organism. This week I saw several more examples of this organism. Many of them were near the base, and in the sediment. However, I still observed some swimming through the open water of my aquarium this week. The organism to the right is called a Gastrotrich (Patterson).

Bold H.C. & Wynne M.J. Introduction to the Algae, Structure and Reproduction. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs (NJ): Prentice-Hall, Inc. p. 148.

Forest H.S. 1954. Handbook of Alga. Knoxville (TN): University of Tennessee Press. p. 274-427.

Patterson D.J. 1996. Free Living Freswater Protozoa, A Coulour Guide. Lonon (UK): Manson Publishing Ltd. p. 28-53.

Pennak R.W. 1989. Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States 3rd ed. New York (NY): John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 81-172.

Prescott G.W. 1964. How to Know the Freshwater Algae. Dubuque (IA): WMC Brown Company Publishers. p. 105.

Smith D.G. 2001. Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States 4th ed. Porifera to Crustacea. New York (NY): John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 521.

Week 4

Since last week's observations, activity seems to have died a little in my MicroAquarium. I recall that a week after adding a food pellet to my aquarium, there were countless organisms crowding the area where the food pellet was. This week, the food pellet seems to have been completely consumed. There were not as many shelled rotifers.

This week I focused on documenting more organisms. I spent more time looking at the algae in my aquarium, as this fell in place with the content we have been covering in Lab and class.

I was most excited to spot the, once-mysterious, Phacus alga again. I was able to record a video of this organism. It was quite hard to follow and keep in focus with the microscope and camera.


Although they may not move as quickly as some of the larger organisms in the aquarium, the algae are very interesting. Their structures are intricate, and much easier to photograph than some of the other organisms. The photo to the right shows a multicellular alga I observed.




The organism to the left was another slower moving organism I observed this week. It is an amoeba, that has consumed other organisms, nutrients, etc. Its movement was most interesting. It morphed shape, slowly moving through my aquarium. I would like to find another example to record a video.

This video below shows an example of a Difflugia sp. It is a kind of small amoeba with a shell exterior. This was much easier to film than the Phacus, seen above.


I continued to look for different kinds of algae in the lab this week. Like I said before, the discussion of algae was still fresh on my mind, and I was interested in seeing different examples as they were in an environment. To the right is an algae I am still identifying. It has a great structure and color, and made for an interesting photo.

Finally, I was able to observe another new organism this week. It had a clear body, and moved like a snake through the aquarium. I was surprised to see this for the first time this week, as I have been watching the aquarium for 4 weeks now, and this organism was larger. It was sized similar to shelled rotifers, as I recall. It is pictured below:

Week 3

Last week I ended my observation by adding a food pellet to my MicroAquarium. Upon viewing the area surrounding the food pellet this week I found that there were countless organisms moving around. Most of these organisms were the shelled Rotifers I had observed before, seen in the photo to the right. Another highly populated organism I saw was more linear in shape, and brown-yellow in color.

Beyond the food pellet, my aquarium as a whole was much more busy with life this week. I saw many types of algae unnoticed before. There was a very high population of these small algae near the base of my aquarium. Shapes included were star like, flower like, rod shaped, and rectangular.

I was able to identify several organisms as Rotifera Philodina, using the Guide to Microlife by Kenneth G. Rainis and Bruce J. Russell. I had seen a few of these in the past weeks, but like many of the other organisms, populations had increased since I added a food pellet. The photo to the left is of one of these Rotifers.




Last week I observed a type of alga that spiraled through my aquarium. I have not seen this mystery organism again since, but I was able to identify its genus as "Phacus."
Prescott GW. 1951. Algae of the Western Great Lakes Area. Bulletin no. 31. Bloomfield Hills (MI): Cranbrook Institute of Science.
Below is a photo of this Phacus:


One organism I was expecting to see more of was the Cyclops. This is the largest organism I have found in my aquarium to date. This week I only spotted the Cyclops a couple of times. It did not seem to grow in population from last week. I was able to capture one photo, seen below:
With this much progress seen in only one week after adding a food pellet to my aquarium, I am excited to see how things change next week.

Week 2

Another week has passed since I created my MicroAquarium. I saw some of the same types of organisms I observed in week 1, as well as some new discoveries. I noticed some changes to this little environment as a whole. Finally I added a food pellet before ending my observations.

I observed more of the small, dark, and round organisms I wrote about last week, as well as the tear-shaped organism.

Overall, there seemed to be less activity in the open water area. Many of the organisms seen moving around this open space in week 1, seem to have moved to the base of my aquarium. The "linear shaped creature, green in color" I observed in week 1, had moved below the sediment of my aquarium, and lined the bottom. I have done some research on this organism, and it turns out to be a type of algae. Therefore the green pigment I saw is evidence of chloroplasts, and photosynthetic behavior. I believe this particular type of organism is a "Desmid."

Soon after I found these Desmids, a much larger, faster organism passed under the microscope lens. It seemed to be a multi-cellular organism. I followed it around and watched it dive into the sediment of my aquarium. This was the largest organism observed thus far. Dr. McFarland helped me to identify this creature and said that it is called a "Cyclops."

Attached to Plant B were some pods or sacks with beautiful cell structures. Some appeared light green in color, and others appeared deep violet in color. Inside of them were very small, moving organisms. I learned that these were parts of this carnivorous plant, and that they actually trapped the organisms I observed, in order to take their nitrogen and provide it for the plant.

I observed couple clear organisms varying a little bit in shape. The first was lemon-shaped and had a tail-like physical trait. This may be a flagella. The second example was more free-formed in shape. It was longer than it was wide, and appeared to suck things up and spit them back out.

Finally, I caught a moving, green organism. It was moving fairly quickly and gracefully through my aquarium, in a spiraling motion. I have not been able to identify this organism yet, so for now it will remain my mystery organism.

Week 1

In Lab on Tuesday October 13, 2009, I set up my MicroAquarium. I used water from location 1. Tommy Schumpert Pond, Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, Kelly Lane , Knox Co. Tennessee. Partial shade exposure Sheet runoff around sink hole. N35 57.256 W83 41.503 947 ft 10/11/2009

Next, I placed plants labeled A and B into the MicroAquarium, one on the left and one to the right. Plant A is Amblystegium varium (Hedw.) Lindb. Moss. Collection from: Natural spring. at Carters Mill Park, Carter Mill Road, Knox Co. TN. Partial shade exposure. N36 01.168 W83 42.832. 10/11/2009Plant B. Utricularia vulgaris L. Flowering

Plant B is a carnivous 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.

After the water and plants were inside my MicroAquarium, I was able to make a few observations with the microscope. The first thing I saw was a small, dark, and round organism moving through my MicroAquarium. At a magnification of 10x, I saw this organism spiraling in a S-shaped path. After this I continued to see many of these organisms throughout.

Next I saw a tear-shaped organism moving about the aquarium, until it came to a couple of unknown clusters. The clusters were dark and green. The tear shaped organism did not move from this spot, but every once in a while it would "jump" or "twitch." I only saw one other example of this organism. This second organism disappeared into the sediment at the base of the aquarium.

The third organism I observed was a linear shaped creature, green in color. I hypothesize that this organism contained chloroplast because of its color. It moved very slowly. Near the bottom of the aquarium there were many more of these organisms. Some were sticking in the sediment at the bottom of the aquarium, near plant A.