Week 5

The following observation of the microaquarium was made on 11/14/13.

Once again the microaquarium appears to be full of life.

The diatoms are still high in numbers. The Tachysomas seem to have reduced in number.

The organism in the above picture is a cyanobacteria identified as Oscillatoria sp.(Prescott 1964) If you look closely you can see the individual cells. The cyanobacteria move as a unit and very slowly. I asked Dr. McFarland how they actually moved and he seemed unsure.

The organism pictured above was identified as Anacystis cyanea (Forest 1954) This organism was of particular interest and I had a good time trying to identify it with some assistance from Dr. McFarland. It has a blue-green color and a rounded cluster. It remained stationary.

Another organism was identified as Centropyxis sp. (Patterson 2003) It was an amoeba with a shell that it made around itself. the shell had an opening and you could see the amoeba moving around inside. There were multiples of this organism located around the microaquarium. They are stationary.

This was the last observation for the microaquarium lab.

Bibliography

 Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide. Washington, D.C. Mason Publishing. 2003. Pg 95

Forest, H.S. Handbook of Algae. The University of Tennessee Press. 1954. Pg 366.

Prescott, G.W. How to Know The Fresh-Water Algae. WM. C. Brown Company Publishers. 1964. Pg 187.

Week 4

This observation was made on November 7th, 2013.

The microaquarium is still full of live. Diatoms have began to become one of the dominant organisms.

The organism in the picture above was identified as Pinnularia sp.(Patrick and Reimer 1966) It is a diatom. There were many others like this all around the micro aquarium. The diatoms can have a very beautiful appearance. They don't move quickly at all.

The organism above was identified as Tachysoma sp. (Patterson 2003) There were many other Tachysomas traveling around. They don't move very fast and kind of jerk around looking for food to suck up.

The microaquariums is populated by organisms too small to identify as well. More identifications and observations are to come.

Bibliograpy

Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide. Washington, D.C. Mason Publishing. 2003. Pg 125

 Patrick, R. and Reimer, C.W. Diatoms of the United States. The academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, PA. Pg 650.

Week 3

This blog post is delayed for a couple of reasons. The observations made here were made on Thursday October 31, 2013. My lab notebook was left in the lab and I would not have been able to make proper citations for my identifications without it. Also, when going to work on this blog, my laptop charger exploded in my face so I have had to find an alternative computer to post from.

On Friday October 25, 2013, Dr. McFarland added a Beta Food Pellet. This is the information provided by his blog about the food pellet. ""Atison's Betta Food" 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%." (McFarland, 2013)

For this observation it was the first time I got pictures from the microscope of the life inside my aquarium.




This image above is of a rotifer, Euclanis sp.(Thorp and Covich 2009) This little invertebrate floated around looking for food, stopping to suck it up as it found it. I noticed a few other organisms that looked similar to this swimming around.




The image above is of Paruroleptus sp. (Patterson, 2003) This organism appeared asymmetrical and had cilia that looked like they were spinning as it moved around. It didn't move very quickly. Dr. McFarland seemed interested that this was a new organism, I suppose others haven't found one of these which makes it especially interesting. It was the only of its kind that I saw.

Bibliograpy


McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [cited 11/6/13]. Available from http://botany1112013.blogspot.com/



Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide. Washington, D.C. Mason Publishing. 2003.


Thorp, James and Covich, Alan. Ecology and Classification of North American Freshwater Invertebrates. 3rd ed. London, UK. Elsevier. 2009.