Well here we are onto week two.
Last week I mentioned that I thought I had euglanoids but as I was talking to Dr. McFarland and realized that the little creatures that would crawl along on the plant were actually rotifers. More commonly known as Philodina. They also seem to have increased in size and numbers, they are all over my tank.
This week, the food source was added to our tank according to our class blog it consists of : On Thursday October 4, 2008 one pellet of "Atison's Betta Food" was added to each Micro Aquaria. It is 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%.
I was really surprised by the difference! All of the microorganism seemed to swarm around this and little pieces that had been broken off. In particular there were these globs of tiny little guys, definitely juveniles of some kind. They had very jerk motions and were just swarming around the food. We will have to wait and see what they turn into. Our guess is that they might be Juvenile cillates or cladophora.
I also noticed something new...Cilliates. They were everywhere, I had seen them before but wasn't sure what they were till I was told. They are definitely increasing in number sort of like the ones that might be swarming around the food.
I also saw plant bladders that had broken off from the plant turned brown and died.
For the first time I got to use the microscope camera which was super cool! I am not sure when I will get my pictures that I took but I will added them as soon as I do. I discovered while using it these tiny little black and white worms. I will have to wait and see what they are when they get bigger, but some stayed in place and spun their tales around really fast and other moved in this S shaped pattern. I think they could be mosquito larva but we shall see. There seem like 50 or more of these little guys!
Next week I will be looking through trying to discover what all of these creatures are and then hopefully posting pictures to go along.
Another one was a round organisms that had little shoots coming out all over. It would suck them in and then spit them back out to move. We think it is an actinpshaerium of some kind. Though Dr. McFarland hadn't seen them move before but this guy definitely did.
Next there were Nematodes all over the place. Just swimming as fast as they could. They are very much like worms.
Finally, I noticed that my bright green plant, the carnivorous one seems to have spread out as if it is trying to catch more of the organisms. You can distinctly still see the bladders all through the plant.
Well, that is all for now, i am sure there will be more to come next week!
Friday, October 31, 2008
Friday, October 24, 2008
Blog 1-Week 1
Well here we go...
I used water source number 4 and then used both Plant A and Plant B to set up my aquarium being careful to get enough dirt but not too much. The water had these little green specs floating in it, I am not sure what they are yet, but they are kinda odd.
To the naked eye I couldn't see much of anything moving in the water, there was something very small and clear jumping around very quickly.
I was absolutely amazed when we started to look at the aquariums under the microscopes the first day. (Oct. 15th) I got to see a few almost heart shaped organisms with flagella swimming around probably about 4 or so. I now think they are a type of Euglanoid which is a type of freshwater Algae that flips around and actually will crawl along the plants.
I then went on Wednesday October the 22th.
I also got to see the plant bladders on Plant B, that apparently will swallow the microorganisms and eat them, kinda sad but really cool to think about. You can also see the curled ends of the plants which are called fiddle heads.
I also got to see a couple cyclops that had these two tiny bright red eyes and the tendrils sticking out the front of it, one of them were not moving and just passively floating, but another one was darting all over the place.
Then I got to see these long thin green strips of Green Alga that had all of these tiny sections could have been something like green Filamentas Alga.
There were several yellow circular organisms. One was definitely cellular and moved ever so slowly every now and then almost twitched about, but we are not sure what it was, it could be something like a tachysoma. Then there were other yellow disks that had these 4 little dark spots in it, maybe a pollen grain because it wasn't moving?
I also saw this spinning thing that Dr. MacFarland identified as a rotifer carcass attached to a small dark circular organism that we didn't know what it was that was cause the carcass to spin like that.
There was also this worm looking creature that did not move in an S shaped motion but instead seemed to curl up or perhaps inch along. Still unsure as to what it was.
There are several very small round creatures that are too small to identify, but will hopefully grow more so we can get a better idea of what they are.
It looks like there could be some cillates such as paramecium. But we will keep an eye out for those as they get more visible
So that pretty much sums up my first week.
I used water source number 4 and then used both Plant A and Plant B to set up my aquarium being careful to get enough dirt but not too much. The water had these little green specs floating in it, I am not sure what they are yet, but they are kinda odd.
To the naked eye I couldn't see much of anything moving in the water, there was something very small and clear jumping around very quickly.
I was absolutely amazed when we started to look at the aquariums under the microscopes the first day. (Oct. 15th) I got to see a few almost heart shaped organisms with flagella swimming around probably about 4 or so. I now think they are a type of Euglanoid which is a type of freshwater Algae that flips around and actually will crawl along the plants.
I then went on Wednesday October the 22th.
I also got to see the plant bladders on Plant B, that apparently will swallow the microorganisms and eat them, kinda sad but really cool to think about. You can also see the curled ends of the plants which are called fiddle heads.
I also got to see a couple cyclops that had these two tiny bright red eyes and the tendrils sticking out the front of it, one of them were not moving and just passively floating, but another one was darting all over the place.
Then I got to see these long thin green strips of Green Alga that had all of these tiny sections could have been something like green Filamentas Alga.
There were several yellow circular organisms. One was definitely cellular and moved ever so slowly every now and then almost twitched about, but we are not sure what it was, it could be something like a tachysoma. Then there were other yellow disks that had these 4 little dark spots in it, maybe a pollen grain because it wasn't moving?
I also saw this spinning thing that Dr. MacFarland identified as a rotifer carcass attached to a small dark circular organism that we didn't know what it was that was cause the carcass to spin like that.
There was also this worm looking creature that did not move in an S shaped motion but instead seemed to curl up or perhaps inch along. Still unsure as to what it was.
There are several very small round creatures that are too small to identify, but will hopefully grow more so we can get a better idea of what they are.
It looks like there could be some cillates such as paramecium. But we will keep an eye out for those as they get more visible
So that pretty much sums up my first week.
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