Sources

1)Lee J. John. Illustrated Guide to the Protozoa. Lawrence, KS: Allen Press Inc., 1985. pg 203

2) Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Color Guide. New York, NY: Wolfe Publishing, 1992. pgs 125, 133, 91, 98, 158.


3) Russel J. Bruce, Rainis G. Kenneth. Guide to Microlife. Scholastic Library Publishing, 1996. pgs 92, 124.

Last Week

On November 12 I observed:

Lots of arcella - I'm not sure why but I saw more of these than anything else. Attached to some of these were diatoms taking a free ride.

Centropyxis - I saw a few of these, they look very similar to the arcella but instead of being perfectly round they had distinct spines. Below is a picture


Peranema - these have a cylindrical boy that tapers in front and truncates at the rear and has a single, long, unusually thick flagella that rotates at its tip.

Rotifers - very few compared to past observations

Litonotus- I saw a few of these, they are flask shaped, And I was able to capture its vacuole opening and closing. It is sort of hard to see with this small a video, but if you look at the back of the litonotus you can see a small hole that will open then close.


Although I did not mention this earlier but everything I identified during this experiment appeared to be mobile.

This being the last week of observations I can clearly see that this last weeks amount of organisms is very similar to the amount of organisms of the first weeks observations. The few weeks in between there was a huge spike in the amount of organisms because of the food pellet that was added. More food means the more life the aquarium could maintain but once the food supply diminished so did the organisms.

Week 4

On November 5 I observed:

I was able to identify lots of new stuff.

• Tachysoma, which have cirri to help them move and have a spastic jerky motion.
• A shelled rotifer hanging out next to the dirt.
• about 5 Amoebas. These look like slime moving around
• some Arcellas, Mayorellas, oscillatoria and protcoccus

It appears that I am seeing a wider variety of organisms but it is possible that they were there all along I just missed them. While I am seeing more kinds of organisms the population of the organisms no longer seems like it is increasing like last week. There are less rotifers than last week possibly because the food supply is being exhausted and can no longer support their large numbers

Week 3

On October 28 a few days after a food pellet was added to my microaquarium, I observed:

Annelids: I still see the same amount of annelids but it looks like their size has doubled.

2 Tachysoms: green in color so photosynthetic

about 10 Metopus sigmoides: they liked hanging around the new food supply that was introduced into the aquarium. They have an oblong cell body and their anterior is twisted to the left.

many Rotifers: there is by far more rotifers than any other organism in my microaquarium

Halteria: these are high in number getting closer to the amount of rotifers. They have a spherical
body and long stiff cilia present equatorially. I even saw some of these dividing.

Week 2

On October 22, I observed:

• About 6 Annelids which are very large in comparison to any other organisms found in my microaquarium. They have a bunch of setae which help the move around.

• About 5 Nematodes. These creatures are transparent with serpentine bodies and have a whiplike wriggly movement.

• lots of Rotifers. I would say overall I have seen more rotifers than anything else. They have a layer of chitin which can collapse giving them an inchworm appearance.

• 2 Cyclops. This organsim has a red eye on the top of its head. It also has a really fast movement almost like a flea.

• 1 Difflugia. It was perfectly round with slimy legs reaching in and out of its body. It moved hardly at all.

None of these organisms seem to be favoring a particular area. They are just hanging out wherever they can get food I suppose.

I was able to identify all these organisms using the book Guide to Microlife.

First Week Observations

On October 14 I added water from source 1 and put plants A and B into my microaquarium.

I saw:

a couple of rotifers
some thin long worms that were constantly wiggling
oval looking worms that were constantly spinning
oval looking worms with lots of things in its body(maybe food)

Overall not too much going on at this point. I probably saw a total of 10 to 15 organisms moving around