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.