Week 5: Final Observation

The final week has come in the observation of the organisms in my MicroAquarium. There is now significantly less activity in the microaquarium this week. Many of the organisms I have identified over the past month are now either in significantly less numbers or missing entirely from my observations. I would assume this is due to the organisms exhausting their food sources within the small environment created for them. The organisms I was able to see this week were mainly rotifers, amoebas, and paramecium. Dr. McFarland did assist me in the identification of one new organism this week, a difflugia.I did not notice any movement out of the organism during my observation so at this time I am unsure as to what it feeds on. I only noticed the difflugia in one section of my microaquarium and it was surrounded by 7 others of the same species. The difflugia can be seen in the photo below. Also to note the diffugia is surrounded by diatoms, it could be possible that they are a food sources for the difflugia as there are many directly around the organism.

Also this week I found what Dr. Mcfarland told me to be the body skeleton of a Cyclops. I identified a juvenile cyclops  in my observations last week and this week I discovered the discarded exo-skeleton of a mature cyclops which can also be seen in the photos below.

Week 4: Cyclops

It seems like the life in my MicroAquarium is beginning to slow down as we enter the fourth week of the term project. There isn't nearly the same amount of activity as I saw several weeks ago. The water level in my microaquarium has dropped over the weeks as well, I'm assuming that this is in part due to evaporation. Dr. McFarland helped me to identify my first new organism of the week as a juvenile cyclops. A picture I took of the organism can be seen below. I couldn't determine much about the cyclops' feeding habits as it didn't really do much but move around a little bit during the time I was viewing it. I also saw one other organism that I believe to be a Vorticella. I couldn't get a picture as the organism moved around much to quickly to be photographed. It seemed to be attached, feeding, on a bit of the soil at the bottom of the microaquarium. It had a long tail that was constantly moving around and the top of the organism was obscured by the debris it seemed to be attached to.

Week 3: Annelid & Tacysoma

With the insertion of the food pellet from last week I found my microaquairum to be decidedly more active this week, with even more organisms moving around. Two of the organisms I identified this week are the Annelid and the Tacysoma. Annelids very much resemble earthworms as they come from the same phylum. When watching the annelid in my microaquarium is appears to feed off of loose debris and possibly the plant material as well. There doesn't seem to be very many annalids in my microaquarium. I only counted 3 that I could find.

Dr. McFarland assisted me identifying the second organism as a Tachysoma. The organism is very abundant in my microaquarium. The tachysoma moves constantly and I wasn't able to see it under high enough magnification to determine how the organism moves or what it may feed on.

Below are photos I took of both organisms through one of the microscopes in the lab.