Week Four Sightings

The above photo is a seed shrimp that is known as an Ostracod according to Dr. McFarland. I saw five of these this week scattered throughout my aquarium. It took several photos before I found one that was semi-desent looking. They are extremely quick and agile when moving around in the water, and they always appear to be feeding.






The photo above is an amoeba that appeared to have constantly moving cilia around the entire edge of it. It also moved as a whole very slowly and had what appeared to be visible internal organelles.

The above photo is a vorticella similar in appearance to the many I have seen in previous weeks. This one had two rotating parts unlike some I have seen which only have one. These are the most interesting organisms I have seen.

The next three photos below are of the largest organism in my aquarium. It is a snail which is a type of gastropod. I was able to clearly see it with my naked eye and the entire organism did not even fit into the entire field of view on the four times magnification. The first phot shows most of the shell of the snell and what Dr. McFarland believes to be feces coming out of the hind quarters. The second photo shows quite a bit of the actual body while it appeared to be burrowing into the muck in the bottom of the aquarium. The third photo shows about half of the body and part of the shell, and I believe part of the head can be seen as well. This snail must have hatched from an egg sometime in the last week because I have not seen it or any evidence of it (Feces, etc) until this week.

The two photos below are of different portions of the largest anelid I have seen to date. I had to try to photo it in sequence on the ten times magnification because its internal parts were not visible on a lower magnification. It was slow moving and appeared to be trying to hide from the light. It also appeared to have no true front or back end since neither end looked any different. I found it near the top of plant A.

The video below is of a much smaller anelid that appears to be trapped in whatever type of algae like organism it is that appears to be surrounding it. The worm struggles fairly violently for most of the video but Dr. McFarland said that it is characteristic behavior of most small anelids.

Additional Sightings:

I began viewing my microaquariumin in the bottom left-hand corner and scrolled across and moved up a slight bit after I had reached the other side. I saw several sea urchin look-alike amoebas within the plants. Near the bottom right corner I saw an inch worm type organism that was transparent and appeared to be able to contract its body. Just above the muck in the center of the aquarium I observed a creature I have not seen up until now that Dr. McFarland identified as a Euplote. They have a moving cilia-like organ on their anterior end that looks a lot like the ones on Vorticella. They also have many visible colors within their main body and appear to have two antenna on their posterior side. I took pictures but was not able to upload them on the website. I next saw another organism new to my aquarium that Dr. McFarland identified as a Cyclops. They are extremely quick, segmented organisms that look similar to a crawdad. They have tiny hairs covering most of their body and two large antennas on one end. I took a photo of this organism but was unable to upload it on the website. After I was done observing I added more water to the aquarium.

Week Three Observations

The picture above is a rotifer that I was able to zoom in very clearly on with the ten times magnification. The wagging tail-like appendage on the rear of the organism was very interesting to watch. It used the appendage to propel itself through the water.

The above picture is a Gastrotricha this organism was hard to get a picture of because it was crawling around on the piece of debris in the picture very quickly. It appears to have spikes on its back. The source I got the name of this organism from was:

Pennak, Robert W. Fresh-Water Invertebrates of the United States: Protozoa to

Mollusca . Figure 7. New York. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. 1989.

The above picture is also an organism known as a Gastrotricha. This one also moved extremely quickly and was hard to photograph. The one in this photo is a different species from the previous picture. Dr. McFarland helped me identify this Gastrotricha.

The above photo is an cyanobacteria known as Calothrix parietina. This cyanobacteria was difficult to recognize because there are many similar looking species in the Calothrix genus. It is interesting to me that it appears to be many organisms, but it actually is several individual cyanobacteria clumped together. The source for this was:

Forest, Herman Silva. Handbook of Algae. Figure 680. Knoxville. University of Tennessee Press. 1954.

The picture above is a type of algae different looking than any other I had ever seen. With the help of Dr. McFarland, I identified it as Coleochaete irregularis. It had cyanobacteria floating inside of it as well. The source for the genus and species name came from:

Forest, Herman Silva. Handbook of Algae. Figure 86. Knoxville. The University of Tennessee Press. 1954.

The above picture is a closeup shot on forty-times zoom of one of the many lacrimaria I viewed in all areas I checked in my aquarium. I must have seen at least twenty-five of these organisms. I knew the name of this organism from past experience.

The picture above is a slight shot of an anelid. The majority of this organism was hiding out in the plants. It is the second largest motile organism I have seen in my aquarium behind a huge midge that was almost visible with the naked eye. I identified the genus name of this organism as a Aeolosoma with the help of the book:

Pennak, Robert W. Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States. New York. Ronald Press Company. 1953.

The video above is two amoebas with many different multicolored organisms floating within them. The amoeba was inside an air bubble. The video was shot at forty-times magnification. This was located at almost dead center within my aquarium. Dr. McFarland helped me identify them as amoebas.

The above video is another amoeba that can be seen in the video moving slowly like a gelatinous blob. The vacuoles and some other faint cellular organs can be seen within it. It appears to engulf anything smaller than it as it slowly moves over it. This video was shot on a high magnification as well at forty-times. Dr. McFarland identified the organism as an amoeba.

Additional Sightings:

I started viewing my aquarium on ten-times zoom in the lower left-hand corner. As I scanned across I continually saw lacrimaria with their long, extendable, suction cup like body parts. I continually saw rotifera and many swarms of small black dots in clear areas of water. Even on a high zoom I could not really tell what these organisms were. The next interesting organism i saw that I did not take a picture or video of was the insect larva known as a midge. The size of this translucent, worm-like insect larva was tremendous. I could even see what appeared to be a gigestive system within it on the ten times zoom. The last interesting thing I saw was more of the star-shaped amoebas I saw last week that look like sea urchins. After viewing my aquarium I added more distilled water to it, but I did not add any food.

week two observations

The video above is of a midge larva. This is a type of insect larva and is the largest organism I have seen in my aquarium. Even on just four times magnification this organism looked large in the microscope. I was able to see through its transparent body and saw what appeared to be other organisms it had swallowed swimming around. This may be evident in the video. This organism was identified with the help of Dr. McFarland.

The video above is of a nematode trying to free itself from a piece of debris without much luck. I watched this for several minutes and I think the nematode either gave up or died trying to escape. This was identified with the help of Dr. McFarland.

The video above may be the most unusual organism I have seen yet. The organism is known as a Lacrymoia and has a long sweeping tentacle with a sucking end that it uses to feed. This stretching tentacle-like part of its body can stretch many times its body length to capture food. I watched this for several minutes and noticed how agile and quick the tentacle was. The main part of the organism never fully showed itself and remained hidden behind the plant stalk for the most part. The source for this was:

Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide. Washington D.C. ASM Press. 2003. Figures 300 and 301.

Additional Sightings:

Overall, this week it seemed as though the number of moving life forms increased in my aquarium from week one to two. I predict this may be because a food pellet and more distilled water were added at the end of my observations in week one. This same procedure was done again after my week two observations.

I put the microscope on 100 times magnification and saw thousands of tiny beetle like organisms that looked like a black swarm in one section of clear water. I moved the microscope view of the aquarium to the area right above the muck and observed almost every creature I described here. I next saw several Rotifera with their spinning cilia pulling water into themselves. They are very entertaining to watch in my opinion. I also viewed a Licane rotifer which is oval shaped and has a long tail-like appendage. I saw several desmid algae floating around. I observed many sea urchin-looking stationary organisms that are commonly called star-shaped amoeba. Zooming in on them with the microscope revealed a brilliant color pattern inside their main body. Inside the plants, I observed several sea shrimp darting around and feeding on the plants. The last thing I saw of interest were hundreds of tiny green(even on 40 times magnification) paramecium trapped inside of a Eutricularia. These paramecium were slowly dieing and being digested. All of my information in this paragraph was relayed to me by Dr. McFarland. I viewed almost all of these organisms on 40 times magnification.

Week One Finds

The picture above is the most interesting organism I saw for this viewing session. They had moving cilia that appeared to be rotating around their central body. They never stopped moving during the five minutes I watched them. The movement of their cilia created a propeler like effect and any objects that came near them were propelled through the water at a fast rate away from the two organisms if they got close enough. I identified them as vorticella with the help of Dr. McFarland. There is a video of them posted below.



The organism above and below in the photos was not positively identified. It appeared to contract and expand its body to propel itself through the water. It also appeared to be able to latch onto pieces of muck and water plant with one side of its body.



The organism below is a diatom known as a Lihonotas that I looked up in the following book:
Rainis, Kenneth G., Bruce J. Russell, and Franklin Watts. Guide to Microlife. Figure 285. Danbury, CT. Grolier. 1996. The organism's most interesting feature was the way it moved it appeared to use its two clear ends to propel itself in a jerking fashion through the water.






The organism below is known as a Desmid. I saw several of them located near the bottom of my aquarium. According to Dr. McFarland the area inbetween the two dark green portions of the algae is where the nucleus is located. the source I identified this algae in was:
Forest, Herman Silva. Handbook of Algae. Knoxville, TN. University of Tennessee Press. 1954.







The video video below demonstrates the interesting movement of the two vorticella.

The video below is of an organism known as a ostracod that appears to be feeding on the plantit is attached to. There are many moving parts in this organism that are visible.

Additional Sightings:

Throughout my entire aquarium I observed many transparent beetle like organisms that could move very quickly. I saw them in a variety of places as well. I saw them on the plants, in open water, and in the muck on the bottom. The next organism I saw was a transparent beetle that appeared to have a bubble around it. There were a few of these swimming around in the open water. The next organism looked almost exactly like a lady bug Dr. McFarland identified it as a Rotifer. I then saw a Lecane and a Halteria that were in the bottom of the aquarium. I also saw many ciliates as identified by Dr. Mcfarland and a lot of blue-green algae. Probably the second most interesting creature I saw was a large anelid in the muck that was fairly hard to see. The parts of it I did see looked like a transparent snake. I did not take a picture of it because I did not see all of it at once. That is all of the fascinating organisms I saw in week one.
Additional Source:

Patterson, D.J. Free Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Color Guide. Figure 305. Washington. ASM Press. 2003.

Post 1

Materials and Methods



A microaquarium was obtained with a stand and lid. It was coded with lab period information, table information, and seat position information using three color coded stickers and by wrinting individual initials on each sticker. A pipet was used to extract a small amount of muck from test container nine (individual's choice) and carefully squirted straight down into the microaquarium. Mostly water was then extracted from the same test container using a pipet and filling the microaquarium to about halfway. A square inch of two water plant species was then obtained and placed in opposite sides of the microaquarium. More water from the sample container was then retrieved and placed in the microaquarium up to about two millimeters from the top. A microscope was then used on ten times magnification to observe the contents of the microaquarium. This will be repeated once a week for five weeks. The microaquarium was then lided and put into storage.

Citation

Cook, Rebecca and Kenneth McFarland. General Botany 111 Laboratory Manual. 11th Edition. 1995.

Observations Week One

I first saw a tiny transparent. segmented worm that did not appear to move very much on a part of plant A. After scrolling across the microaquarium I came across a dark hairy oval within plant B, after looking a while in plant B I found many more of these objects. In the muck, Plant A, and plant B I found seven unicellular dark green algae organisms that appeared to move. The most fascinating find on the initial day was a extremely large, transparent yellow tinted worm that was very quick moving and agile. It appeared to be agitated by the light of the microscope and it also seemed extremely hungry, taking several bites of the muck within in a second for at least two minutes. After this amazing find I struggled to find anyting else other than a tail of a transperant blue tinted organism sticking out of the muck. This was all I saw of interest. Good Day.