This week wasn't much different than the last week but I noticed that some of my organisms had died. I couldn't find nearly aything near the bottom but the open water was completely full of small organisms. They were a lot more dense than last week. Another interesting thing that I found was that there was different planes of organisms when I looked at it in the microscope. I assume that is because som organisms clung to one side of the glass while the others clung to the other glass. I also found a lot of colonial diatoms that were not present last week. A lot more protists were present also.
I think that the reason that the organisms were more prevalent near the middle is because there is a lot of cyanobactria which produce food for the other heterotrophic organisms. Other than that though no changes have occured and it seems that my aquarium has reached a stagnent stage.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
11/4 Third Week
So I didn't get pictures this week because they got lost on the camera somehow so the ones I put up are from online of what I think i saw. When I first got my aquarium, a signigicant amount of water was gone. Also, in the middle I noticed there to be a lot more gonyostomums. These are multicellular and they eren't moving. I saw other organisms inside of them so I assumed that they were heterotrophs. I also saw a lot more smaller organism than last time. They were so small though that even under the highest power you couldn't tell them apart. Also, a lot more filaments were present near the middle. I noticed a lot of colonies of things which I will identify.
The first pictury is somewhat of the colonies that I have seen. This was a anacystis that I found on the website
http://www.biologie.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/library/webb/BOT311/Cyanobacteria/Anacystir.jpg and it looked quite similar to what I was observing. There were a lot of these and they were found in the middle and did not appear to be green.
The second picture was something called a gloeocapsa. I found this picture on the website http://home.manhattan.edu/~frances.cardillo/plants/monera/gleocap.html. We thought it was a gloeocapsa because of the way that each cell was inhibited by a different "sheath". Some of them had two nucelui in one though and that's because they were still in the process of dividing. I saw a ton of these that were in the middle and had never been present earlier. They are part of the cyanobacteria family. The gloeocapsa is a free moving organism that moves in whatever it's membrane goes. It's contstantly changing shapes. It had engulfed a lot of organsims so it was a heterotroph.
I also saw a gonium. According to the books in the lab its a colony of circular or subquadrangala plates. It lives in shalls waters of ponds as swamps which is probably why I observed it.
Everything else that I saw was the same as before just in larger quanities. The biggest thing that I'm noticing though is that most of the new organism and even the old ones seem to be growing the best in the middle where there is free water and a few plants to feed off of. Not much has been going on at the bottom, it's all mostly towards the top.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
2nd Week Viewing 10/28
From just looking at the aquarium with the naked eye you can tell that the water isn't as clear and there are hair-like things seen in it. But when looking at it under the microscope, a lot more organisms can be found in the middle than before. Most of them are very small. I also found more small organisms near the bottom most of them being the H looking diatoms I mentioned before. The H diatoms seem to be growing more rapidly towards the bottom because I found a little more near the top but not nearly as much as in the bottom. There was a lot more variety in this viewing. The small organisms that I found to be more abundant were just in the pond water and weren't really near the plants. I did find more larger organisms to be near the plants though, compared to last week. I took a few pictures and they'll help me decribe to you what I saw.
The first picture
That last picture was an example of all the new organisms that were present that weren't really there last week. These were found in the middle. You can see that there's a few diatoms. The bigger organism seems to be a flatworm. It's multicellular and it was clear so no cholorplasts or photosynthesis seemed to be going on. The flatworm was moving in a slow, sliding motion but it always came back to the plant. The diatoms stayed in place and are unicellular. Some were green and some were brown.
That last picture was an example of all the new organisms that were present that weren't really there last week. These were found in the middle. You can see that there's a few diatoms. The bigger organism seems to be a flatworm. It's multicellular and it was clear so no cholorplasts or photosynthesis seemed to be going on. The flatworm was moving in a slow, sliding motion but it always came back to the plant. The diatoms stayed in place and are unicellular. Some were green and some were brown.
The second to last picture, the one on the far right,that I have was one that I found to be most interesting. It is an amoeba laucteus or and amoeba proteus. On the inside of this amoeba were many organisms. The amoeba had engulfed them into it's membrane. Once they went in, they could not get out. The amoeba was clear, leading me to believe that it had only a membrane and had no cell structure. It moved freely and was constantly changing form. No photosynthesis was occuring unless it was being done by the organisms that the amoeba had consumed.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Week One
In the first week of observing my microaquarium I saw more organisms than I thought I would. I have pond 6 and inside of it I added Plant A and Plant B along with a red leaf that was sitting in the pond water. I noticed that a lot of the moving organisms seemed to be feeding off the stationary plants. There was also a wide variety in size, color, and speed in the organisms that I observed. Thes were some that I found:
The Springtail; I found the springtail near the middle and it was jumping around. It wasn't green so it had to have fed off Plant A or B in order to survive. I only spotted one, but since it was moving so fast, I don't really have a way of knowing how many there was.
Coleps; I found the coleps near the bottom and it moved in circles relative to it's place. It didn't go far at all. It is a multicellular organism and it had no chloropyll. I spotted a few of these among the sediment of the bottom of the microaquarium. The coleps was gray and was to described to me as looking like a pinecone. It was round with two small tenticles coming out of it's head.
Desmids; I saw the H looking desmid is a high abundance. It seemed to be multicellular because although these organisms seemed to transparent, 3 green dots where always seen across the middle of them. This led me to believe that they were not only multicellular, but also had chloropyhll in them allowing them to go through photosynthesis. They mostly were stationary but I found the majority of them near the bottom, but they were also found in the middle and at the top.
WaterFleas; I saw one waterflea and it was attached to the one of the plants in the microaquarium. It's legs were moving fast yet it's body as a whole never moved. It didn't appear to be green (containing chloropyhll) but I only caught a glimpse of it's underside. I found this in the middle of the aquarium and was probably the coolest organism I have observed yet.
Difflugia Protists; I found these near the top and some dispersed throughout the middle. They were multicellular yet they did not move. They also weren't green which means they probably contained no chlorophyll.
Filaments; The filaments that I found were either, just that, filaments, or they were rod shaped desmids. Not being very familiar with these organisms made it hard to distinguish which one it was. They were green and multicelluar. I saw a lot of them and they were mostly near the bottom.
Some other things I observed but I am unsure if I identified them correctly were:
A diatom; this was a skinny half moon shaped organism with two dots in the middle. They were not green and they were stationary. Compared to the other organisms which I had seen, they were very small. I found them lurking around the bottom.
Moldspores or Volvox; I saw 3 rather large green organisms or cells ( not sure if it was a group or not) with 2 identical cells under them. It looked like a bowling pin shape but with only 6 green cells/organisms. They were fond not moving near the bottom.
Blesphrasima Cillia; These were rod shaped (bacilla) and brown. They were near the red leaf that I put into my aquarium. I see saw 3 of them. Since they were brown I doubt they had chloropyhll in them.
These were the things that I saw in the first week. I expect that next week I will see more organisms and that they will have travelled maybe out of their section. I also expect some of the organisms to be larger than what I originally saw.
The Springtail; I found the springtail near the middle and it was jumping around. It wasn't green so it had to have fed off Plant A or B in order to survive. I only spotted one, but since it was moving so fast, I don't really have a way of knowing how many there was.
Coleps; I found the coleps near the bottom and it moved in circles relative to it's place. It didn't go far at all. It is a multicellular organism and it had no chloropyll. I spotted a few of these among the sediment of the bottom of the microaquarium. The coleps was gray and was to described to me as looking like a pinecone. It was round with two small tenticles coming out of it's head.
Desmids; I saw the H looking desmid is a high abundance. It seemed to be multicellular because although these organisms seemed to transparent, 3 green dots where always seen across the middle of them. This led me to believe that they were not only multicellular, but also had chloropyhll in them allowing them to go through photosynthesis. They mostly were stationary but I found the majority of them near the bottom, but they were also found in the middle and at the top.
WaterFleas; I saw one waterflea and it was attached to the one of the plants in the microaquarium. It's legs were moving fast yet it's body as a whole never moved. It didn't appear to be green (containing chloropyhll) but I only caught a glimpse of it's underside. I found this in the middle of the aquarium and was probably the coolest organism I have observed yet.
Difflugia Protists; I found these near the top and some dispersed throughout the middle. They were multicellular yet they did not move. They also weren't green which means they probably contained no chlorophyll.
Filaments; The filaments that I found were either, just that, filaments, or they were rod shaped desmids. Not being very familiar with these organisms made it hard to distinguish which one it was. They were green and multicelluar. I saw a lot of them and they were mostly near the bottom.
Some other things I observed but I am unsure if I identified them correctly were:
A diatom; this was a skinny half moon shaped organism with two dots in the middle. They were not green and they were stationary. Compared to the other organisms which I had seen, they were very small. I found them lurking around the bottom.
Moldspores or Volvox; I saw 3 rather large green organisms or cells ( not sure if it was a group or not) with 2 identical cells under them. It looked like a bowling pin shape but with only 6 green cells/organisms. They were fond not moving near the bottom.
Blesphrasima Cillia; These were rod shaped (bacilla) and brown. They were near the red leaf that I put into my aquarium. I see saw 3 of them. Since they were brown I doubt they had chloropyhll in them.
These were the things that I saw in the first week. I expect that next week I will see more organisms and that they will have travelled maybe out of their section. I also expect some of the organisms to be larger than what I originally saw.
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