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.