Observation 2: 10/27/11

On Friday October 21, 2011 each MicroAquarium received "ONE" Beta 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%.

Observation 2
As  was the case last week, there was a bit of water loss, which was replaced after observation. The addition of the food pellet impacted the life in my MicroAquarium tremendously. There was quite a bit more life than the previous week. I photographed some of the most commonly occurring organisms this week.

One such organism was Aeolosoma sp. I saw one organism last week, but there were more than I could count this week. This community definitely saw a boom in population this week. Some of these organisms were hidden in the dirt at the bottom of the aquarium as the first one was, appearing now and then to gather food. However, most of them were swimming freely, scattered throughout the bottom and middle layers of the aquarium. However, they did keep in the near vicinity of both plants. They moved at a moderate speed in fairly linear or slightly curved paths.

Another prevalent organism captured on camera this week was Vorticella sp. These small, mostly stationary creatures inhabited all layers of the aquarium. They were not attached to plants, and did not seem to exhibit a preference to be near the plants as the Aeolosoma did.

This week I was able to capture an image of a cyclops, of the order Copepoda. I saw only three this week, and am unsure as to whether the cyclops nymph observed last week survived and was simply hiding. As previously stated, these organisms swim freely in all areas of the aquarium and their frantic movement can be seen with the naked eye.

 The last identifiable organism I captured an image of was a seed shrimp, as seen to the left and below. I saw around five of them, scattered throughout all layers, but remaining close to the plants as the Aeolosoma did. Their movement was very quick and very chaotic, making these pictures difficult to take. The seed shrimp belongs to the order Ostracoda.

Due to the thickness of the aquariums, the 40x lens objective could not be used. Therefore, not all organisms in my aquarium were readily identifiable with the magnification used. Scattered throughout the water were many single-celled organisms of different shapes, sizes, colors, and movement. Even though I could not identify the organisms in the image to the left, I thought it pertinent to have an image of them, as they are so frequent in my aquarium. These organisms were mostly stationary, and inhabited all areas. I viewed many that were much more active, some that were longer and thinner, and even some whose green color suggested that they were photosynthetic.

All organisms pictured here were identified with the following source:
Pennak, R. Fresh-water Invertebrates of the United States. New York: The Ronald Press Company; 1953.

As a last observation, I did notice some dead organisms at the bottom of the MicroAquarium. they were all long, green, and slender, resembling very closely the images of desmids on a poster in the lab. I observed no other dead organisms.