Week 1: My Little Chattanooga

Last Wednesday was the first day of the MicroAquarium project for my Botany 111 class. As many of you may be asking "What is a MicroAquarium?", it's essentially a small aquarium but set up through a very small glass tank that is rested upon a stand holder [see below].

Maybe the picture does justice? Maybe not, either way we set that up. Inside of that glass tank contains dirt and water found in a local creek. Dean's Woods - SpringCreek to be exact. It is off Woodson Dr running through Dean's Woods Road frontage in Knox Co. Tennessee.

I took a sample from that water source, out of twelve to choose from, and the dirt came with. I used two different plant sources though, Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg. It is a Moss found from a natural spring at Carters Mill Park off of Carter Mill road in Knox County, Tennessee. There was partial shade exposure when collected. Another was Utricularia Gibbi, and that is a flowering plant, carnivous, originally found off from the south shore of Spain Lake, Camp Bella Air Rd which is just east of Sparta, Tennessee. It's also grown in water tanks outside of the Hesler Biology Building, in a greenhouse at the University of Tennessee.

 As detailed as that was, that doesn't compare to what I observed under the microscope once we set the whole thing up. I noticed that there were moving objects inside the plant; they were green colored, but there were also non-green organisms moving around as well. What I was able to identify were Rotifers hovering and hugging onto the plain. They are worm like organisms that open up at the bottom end and spin up to collect other organisms floating around and spitting some back out. There was also bacteria moving very rapidly throughout the water, and I also saw these organisms [I could not quite figure out what they were] and they were inside the plant, moving in and around on its insides. I want to say it was a water bear, but I cannot say for sure.

 Week one was very interesting. I didn't gather the most of information since 90% of the time was setting it up. I was able to, however, observe and record the start up and beginnings to my MicroAquarium - My Little Chattanooga.

 Works Cited McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [cited 2013 October 22]. Available from http://botany1112013.blogspot.com