Bibliography Post

Here are a list of sources I used for this micro aquarium blog:

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

2) Patterson, D.J. "Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide". 2003. Washington D.C. Library of Congress. Pg 163.

3) Olsen, Lars-Henrik. "Small Freshwater Creatures". 2001. New York. Oxford University Press. Page 178.

4) Patterson, D.J. "Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide". 2003. Washington D.C. Library of Congress. Pg 77.

Wanted Dead or Alive

November 14th, was a quiet week with the Micro Aquarium. Nothing much has changed since last week. It was yet another quick visit just to check on the basic state of things. It was the last observation, the last real visit, but I was still something to reminisce on. Remembering back on when I first started it to now, there have been many many changes.

Yesterday though, it was fairly quiet in the aquarium. Things were moving about as they should, but there were also things that weren't moving that should've. Again, I don't have the best eyes, but I couldn't tell what was dead and what wasn't. I did see flagellum moving about the aquarium.

This genus is called a Flagellum because there are two, unequal in length flagellum that are on this organism. There is no ingestion apparatus visible in the flagellum (Patterson).

Besides that, the aquarium was fairly, fairly quiet. The aquarium lightened up since last time, there wasn't as much pond scum as there was. The organisms I saw were not as green, although there were some rotifers swimming about the aquarium. The plant itself was still living, and oh there was nasty brown substances forming on the bottom corners of the aquarium.

Other than that basic stuff, the aquarium project was a fun one. It was cool seeing the transition of live organisms to dead, and seeing the aquarium itself really grow into a pond overtime. I will probably have another blog entry before this closes. Tune in for the next one to get the final summary!

Works Cited

Patterson, D.J. "Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide". 2003. Washington D.C. Library of Congress. Pg 77.

Another Day, Another Dead

This week the microaquarium visit was very, very brief. This past week has been so hectic, I have barely had time to do much of anything. I went early this afternoon, around the time it opened up, and I got to look up close at a few things.

Let me just go ahead and say, many organisms have died over the past week. Algae and pond scum has now formed and built up along the outside of the aquarium. The plant is looking very sad and there are NO MORE COLEPS. I didn't see one this afternoon. Granted, they could've been not active at that time, but there were not any when I was looking earlier.

The picture above is pond scum/algae that has formed near the top of the aquarium (near the water edge). I also saw a rotifer!

The picture above is a rotaria rotifer - they are common among plants in ponds and lakes. The wheel's (as you can see are two of them that spin very rapidly) propel them forward in the water and procures food, primarily unicellular plants and animals. Some are transparent, some aren't, this one was transparent (Olsen). I haven't seen too many of these lately. I figured I would take a picture of one while I still could before this one died and show everyone. 

Back to The Basics: There are a lot of dead organisms/missing ones, or dead ones that are not present anymore. The Coleps have all disappeared and I have not been able to find them. Most of the organisms I saw were located in the top of the aquarium, more than likely hiding from the the dark, treacherousness at the bottom of it (haha just kidding), but the aquarium is looking less and less clear by the week. The chlorophyll, green color of the tank is gone. The plant is getting gross and it's not as what it seems to be anymore. 

Other than that, that is all I have for this weeks post of Little Chattanooga. Hopefully there will be more exciting news next week about organisms and if there is anything still alive or not. Stay tuned in for next weeks post (second to last one!).

Works Cited

Olsen, Lars-Henrik. "Small Freshwater Creatures". 2001. New York. Oxford University Press. Page 178

Releasing the Coleps

Halloween was well spent. I used some afternoon time that day to go take a look at the micro aquarium I have been observing for the past couple of weeks. I must say, things have definitely changed since we first built them.

First, on October 25th, one beta food pellet was added to everyone's micro aquarium. It came from: "Atison's Betta Food" made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104. The ingredients of this beta food include: Fish meal, wheat flower, soy meal, krill meal, minerals, vitamins and preservatives. The nutrients inside included: Crude Protein 36%; Crude fat 4.5%; Crude Fiber 3.5%; Moisture 8% and Ash 15%.

That played a significant role in how the micro aquarium functioned. As usual, there many moving organisms moving around the plant and they all ranged from single celled, multi celled, chlorophyll and non-green organisms. I was able to identify the organism I have been wanting to identify for the past three weeks though. Coleps: “about  a dozen cells are to be seen clustering around the cast exoskeleton of an arthropod. The cells are feeding on the remnants of tissue. Calcareous plates are laid down in the cortex, giving the cells their scaly appearance.” They were feeding at the food pellet; that's where they clustered and gathered, most of the time. Before it was put in I would see them just moving around looking for food, but now that there is a food source, I was able to see the vast amount of them that are in the micro aquarium. 

As seen, here are a few Coleps going at some food located in the micro aquarium. They are beautifully colored, multi cellular organisms that move about their merry way in an oval shaped form. 

On another note, there are not that many rotifers anymore. I couldn't identify as many as I did last week, but maybe that was me mostly focusing on the beta food and Coleps. There were also no identifiable dead organisms at the bottom of the aquarium. Typical. They are probably down there, but almost too microscopic to tell or I just have the worst eyesight and cannot even see it myself. 

Other than the exciting Colep news, nothing else has changed. The aquarium is getting darker. When I say that I mean it doesn't look as fresh as it did way back in the beginning. That's expected though. I'm using pond water and the organisms are not helping at all. 

I haven't posted many pictures of the aquarium, but next week I will hopefully have more exciting news and stories to share to you. Until next time, have a good week!



Works Cited

Patterson, D.J. "Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide". 2003. Washington D.C. Library of Congress. Pg 163.

McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [cited 1 Nov 2013]. Available from http://botany1112013.blogspot.com/

Growing

As week two came quickly around, I managed to make another quick visit to the Little Chatt I have going on. (For those that are confused, the Tennessee State Aquarium (most well known in the state) is in Chattanooga. Therefore I call my aquarium a miniature version of that). Let me tell you, things have changed since last week. The overall look of the aquarium is even a little different. To me, it seems, the plant has grown and the water level has risen just a teeny bit.

There were moving organisms floating around in the water. They were moving in a very slow manner, almost trying to peck at things as they go about their merry way. Some were just hanging out by the plant stem, and some others were moving around on an actual stem and inside the stem.

I did see, though, many multicellular organisms. They were mostly swimming around casually. I didn't see too many single celled. There were many midges and rotifers around the plant. TONS of protozoa lingered around, along with bacteria, but there was plenty of them at the bottom of the aquarium near the dirt. There weren't many chlorophyll colored organisms. The midges and rotifers were green, but the Eupolotes I saw and euglenas I saw floating around were clear, and you could see straight through the.

These organisms had various habitats. Some liked to hover around the plants edge, some buried themselves insdie the stem and some moved in, around and out the plant to get to stuff. It just depended on the organism and what they were doing. There were some organisms that hardly moved at all; they were merely just "chillin".

Overall, I was able to identify five organisms. I questioned a lot of them, but I'm sure i will be able to identify them here within the next few weeks. The plant grew in size, as I said before. There are more organisms. The number of rotifers increased and there are a few more midges than there was last week. Fortunately, I could not spot dead organisms at the bottom of the tank. I'm sure they were down there, but I could not see where they were hiding.

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