Week 2 (October 26th, 2014)

This week, I did not observe any new organisms in my aquarium. In fact, I did not see any living organisms in my aquarium. I did, however, see several dead nematodes, or at least I assumed they were dead. I saw about 6 nematodes in my aquarium, and none of them were moving and they displayed no signs of life. I am not sure why this was, but I assume something in the water must have killed them. Hopefully I can figure out what happened next time I make observations.

Week One (October 14, 2014)

Setup and Water Source

This week I set up my MicroAquarium by first assembling the glass tank, stand, and lid. The next step was to add water. I chose to use water from the spring below the Lynnhurst Cemetery off of Adair drive (N36 01.357 W83 55.731 958) When adding the water, I used a pipet to extract some of the water from the bottom of the sample dish so I could deposit a layer of dirt at the bottom of my aquarium. After I had a thin layer of dirt at the bottom of my aquarium, I collected some of the water from the middle of the sample dish and then the top so I would have a better variety of organisms to observe. Once this was done, I collected some amblestegium varium (Hedwig) moss from another sample dish that came from a natural spring at Carters Mill Park. The last item I added to my aquarium was utricularia gibba, a flowering carnivorous plant that came from the south shore of Spain Lake in White County, TN.

Observation

After I assembled my aquarium, I used a microscope to make observations. 

The first organism I observed was black and had a circular shape. It seemed to float around in circles while I watched it. I think that it was eating/absorbing nutrients, but I'm not sure. I observed 3 or 4 of these organisms towards the middle and top of my aquarium. They all appeared to be moving in circles.

The second organism I observed, Dr. McFarland identified as a nematode. It was dark colored and string shaped and seemed to move around randomly and whip back and forth. Again, I believe this was its way of eating. I found many of these organisms towards the bottom and middle of the tank, and they varied in size. I did observe that these organisms seemed to prefer being near the moss.