Monday, November 9, 2009

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:

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