Week 4

This week when I observed my micro aquarium the first thing I noticed was how much plant life had grown since my visit the previous week. There has been an explosion of algal growth leading to a much denser vegetative population in the middle of the water column . In terms of aquatic life, the growth trend continues to lean towards larger organisms as there are now an abundance of cyclops and larger seed shrimp but fewer rotifera. Evidence of predation is all over the bottom muck layer as it is littered with corpses of smaller seed shrimp. The spilled water from the previous week as condensed the water column as expected forcing the smaller organisms into contact with the larger predators , which I believe is a direct cause for the drastic population decrease of the smaller organisms.

Week 3

There has quite literately been a population explosion in the micro aquarium, this past week. Evidence of growth and death is everywhere, in the form of shells and corpses which litter the bottom layer in abundance. There has been some but not much plant growth. The growth trend seems to be in the form of organisms getting larger, and in so doing, praying on what few smaller organisms are left. I saw several copepods this week , compared to last where I only recalled seeing one. Ive now seen several annelids, which are long worm like creatures. I have no idea where they came from as I haven't seen them up to this point. I accidentally spilled some f the water out of the aquarium, while moving it form the microscope to it's upright position. I'm interested to see what, if any impact the spilled water has on the rest of the environment in the aquarium.

Week 2

The first thing I noticed when I viewed my aquarium this week was the amount of active life that had appeared out of nowhere. Every direction I looked in, had something for me to see. Rotifers where all over every layer in my aquarium, swimming in tight spirals. As before ostracoda where present around the bottom of the aquarium mostly in the muck layer. The daphnia I saw before where a bit larger now, more prevalent and more mobile as i saw several actively moving through the environment. This viewing also presented several new creatures I had not noticed before. The first new addition is a copepod or cyclops. The cyclops is much larger than any of the other creatures and has segmented body with two flagella protruding from its head. The copepod also seemed to be sensitive to either heat or light or both because he franticly tried to escape as soon as I was able to view him. This creature is large enough to see moving w/o the microscope so you could see it trying to find a darker or cooler area when I moved the slide around to attempt to view him. The second new creature I saw is a nematode or roundworm. This creature is by far the largest Ive seen in the aquarium thus far and can be seen moving w/o the microscope. These worms look like any other and move in a similar fashion. The one I saw seemed like it was under attack because it moved in a vary spastic fashion as if it where struggling to escape, but I found no visible attacker. The rest of the aquarium (plant life) seemed unchanged. I didn't notice an increase in allege or any plant matter at all.

Week 1

The first time I looked at the micro aquarium I wasn't sure what I was looking at, but here are my observations for that viewing anyway. The water clarity wasn't very good due to some turbidity being present post aquarium creation. I did see some microbial life, but not as much as I had thought I would see. Most of the active life was seen on or near the bottom muck layer. I was able to identify three organisms which also happened to be the most prevalent, rotifera, ostracoda, and daphnia. The rotifers are small brownish creatures that move in a fast spiral motion. The ostracoda or seed shrimp where large bean shaped creatures which short flagella moving around its body in a saw like motion. The one I saw seemed to be stuck and as such was motionless but was trying to escape. The daphnia or water flea was a large shrimp like creature that is mostly clear in color and had what appeared to be two appendages near its head. It was motionless for the duration of my viewing but im told it was most likely feeding by a method known as gradient feeding.

Aside from the active life in the aquarium i was able to see many long spiral algae which where mainly found in or around the bottom layer but where also seen in the middle layer as well.