Week One: Microaquarium Setup

My Botany 111 class for Fall of 2013 will be making and observing microaquariums for five weeks. My microaquarium was made on October 15, 2013 and will be observed four times after its creation.

To start the set up for the microaquarium it was first necessary to "label" our own so that we would be able to tell them apart from the many other students in our class. We added three colored dots representing our lab section, table number, and seat number, respectively. I also wrote my initials on the three dots incase by some chance another student had the same color combination on their microaquarium.

The microaquarium itself is made of a thin plastic material, is held up by a detachable base, and is closed with a detachable lid.

After the labeling we were to fill our microaquarium with water from a source around Knoxville. My water source was semi-randomly chosen in that it just happened to be the water source on the table where I was sitting, but also I decided to stick with it because I have personally been to this location which makes this whole process just a bit more interesting. The source, as given by Dr. McFarland on the main class blog at http://www.botany1112013.blogspot.com/ , is "10. Water pool below spring. Lynnhurst Cemetery off of Adair Drive. Knox Co. Knoxville TN. Partial shade exposure Spring Feed Pond N36 01.357 W83 55.731 958 ft 10/9/2011" (McFarland, 2013)

 
Image of the water source. (McFarland, 2013) 

A layer of sediment from the source was added to the aquarium before the water was actually added.

The image above is what the aquarium looked like after the water was added.

We then added two photosyntetic organisms to add oxygen to the system.

The first added was Fontinalis sp. which is a moss. The image below contains the information we were given about this organism.

The other one I added was Utricularia gibba which is a flowering plant. The image below contains the information we were given about this organism.

After the addition of these two organisms we were given our first opportunity to look at our microaquarium under a light microscope. In my microaquarium I was able to find a few organisms moving around and presumably adjusting to their new environment. We were told it was not necessary to identify these organisms at this time. Some that I noted were nematode-like, including one that after finding in the microscope I realized I could see with my naked eye. Another interesting organism I saw looked something like a cone and had what looked to me like teeth that were spinning around rapidly. It will be interesting to watch this system become more diverse and also to identify what these things are.

I, unfortunately, did not capture an image of the microaquarium after the addition of the two photosynthetic organisms.



I'd like to close this first blog post with a tangential observation. While we were observing our microaquariums under the microscopes for the first time it was beautiful to observe the reactions myself and my classmates were having. Every now and then there would be an exclamation of "Wow!" or "Look at this!" Seeing this excitement coming from simple observation of life really made me happy. It seems like a child-like amazement with the natural world is still to be found in myself and my peers and that really makes me smile.