Observation 2
As with last week, there was substantial water loss, with half the MicroAquarium dry.
I saw a new organism this week, which I was unable to identify with any of the charts in the lab. Dr McFarland was unavailable for assistance at the time, and the organism crawled away into the dirt. It was around the size of a cyclops, circular, and had three legs per side. On its head it had two small "feelers" or "antennae." It could not swim freely, and relied solely on one of the plants to crawl around. It's movement was slow, but almost spider-like. I hope to be able to identify it next week.
Also of interest, I seem to have a fungus growing on one of my plants. I believe it to be a member of phylum Zygomycota, as I could see a few zygosporangium. I first noticed it during observation 2, but was only able to identify it as a fungus this week, after it had grown and begun spreading down the plant. The organisms do not seem to be feeding on the fungus the way they feed on the two plants.
Overall, there was a significant increase in the single-celled populations. On the 10x objective lens, I could see single-celled organisms in every layer, at every depth, near and far from the plants. None seemed very active.
Many of the larger organism populations remained unchanged. I still saw three cyclops, a cyclops nymph, and the same number of Aeolosoma. The one exception was the seed shrimp, whose numbers grew to reach 30 in the bottom layer alone. All the seed shrimp I observed were very actively feeding on the plant life.
Near the bottom of the aquarium were some dead organisms, the same organisms I saw at the previous observation. All were diatoms.
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