Day 2 [10/20/09]

Today I really focused on all the organisms that were dwelling in the sediment at the bottom of my MicroAquarium. I actually got to identify these creatures. I noticed 2 Daphnia. They are round and beetle like and continued to move rapidly throughout the dirt. I also noticed 2 Dugesia. They are worm-like and were very mobile. Both of these organisms are micro invertibrates. My favorite organism I encountered was a baby Cyclops on the leaves of Plant A. It looked like it had horns, but you could tell it was not fully developed. Last week I noticed a lot of things in the bladders of Plant B. After reviewing the posters in the lab area, I realized that in the previous week i had seen a volvox globator inside of one of the bladders. It looked like a very organized circle of dots. Also in these bladders, there were many paramecium and some Euglena gracilis. I still have yet to find anything noteworthy on Plant A.

Day 1 [10/15/09]

Today, I set up my MicroAquarium. It was different than I had expected. The MicroAquarium was simply a very thin and tiny square glass aquarium resting on a small stand. I filled it almost to the top with water and debris collected from the Fountain City Duck Pond (West of Broadway at Cedar Lane in Knoxville, TN). The thin layer of debris resting at the bottom of the MicroAquarium was similar to what you would see in a fish tank. I then put two separate plants into the aquarium: Plant A and Plant B. Plant A is a moss and Plant B is a carnivorous flowering plant. I then set the MicroAquarium under my microscope. I noticed a number of photosynthetic organisms swimming about inside of the small bladders of the moss. As i changed the focus, i noticed that there were tons of them! Dr. McFarland then told me that these organisms were feeding off of a deap shrimp-like organism inside of the bladder. I didn't see anything noticable about Plant A. I finally looked at the layer of debris at the bottom of the tank. Here, I found lots of different organisms that I was unsure about. One of these looked like a worm swimming throughout the dirt. It then poked another organism that looked similar to the dead shrimp-like organism I noted in Plant B. When this occured, the worm caused the other organism to jolt away. I also noted many other tiny organisms swimming throughout the aquarium. It seemed as though my MicroAquarium was already starting to become a lively community!