Week Two

I visited my micrcosm on Wednesday. This week, to my surprise, the aquarium was overflowing with life. The life form I spent the most time observing, was a worm like creature. I spotted two of these swimming around in the aquarium and followed them both for quite some time. The organism was clear, long, and covered in cilia. I found these guys to love a diet of moss. While I was watching one of them, he consumed an amazing amount of moss for such a little guy. I was able to actually see the moss moving through his "digestive track." Unfortunately, I was only able to stay for an hour and a half, and did not have time to get any photos of these creatures. Hopefully next time I'll be able to share some images of them with you!

Initial Observations

The first time I checked the MicroAquarium for signs of life, there was scarce to see. There were three organisms that I did notice.
The first organism was stationary, and chlorophyll green. It was located near the bottom of the aquarium, just above some mud. Based upon these things, the organism was recognized as green algea. This was the only green algea I found.
The second organism that I saw was motile. It appeared to be rounded and its head was a seperate segment. It looked very similar to a very small ladybug that you could see through. It also appeared to have two very faint tails that forked out from its body. The organisms appeared to wiggle back and forth, using its two tails like a fin. This was the only one of its kind that I saw.
Finally, I noted a worm-like organism that also had a tail. This organism's tail was very short. The organism spent most of its time spinning in circles, and occasionally moving forward. This organism was rather hard to keep up with under the microscope, and was the only one of its kind that I was fortunate enough to see.
And so concludes the rather short list of living things I observed on the first day. Better luck next time, I hope.

The Beginning

The building of my microcosm began with a MicroAquarium kit. The kit includes a glass tank, a stand and a lid. From the water sample provided, I filled 1/3 of the MicroAquarium with water from the bottom of sample one. This water also had mud in it. I filled another 1/3 of the tank with water from the middle of sample one. Finally, I filled the remainder of the tank with water obtained by skimming the top of sample one. The water in sample one was originally obtained from a loow water pool in a side channel of the Pigeon River. This particular channel can be found near Harmon Road, which can be found off of the Harmon Dean Exit of I 40. This particular part of the interstate is located in Haywood County, North Carolina. The water in the part of the channel sampled is reported to recieve full sun exposure.
After filling the MicroAquarium with the water sample, I added about a one inch piece of moss. This particular moss is known as Rhynchostegium serrulatum, and was collected from the greenhouse in the White Ave Biology Annex, which is located at The University of Tennessee. This moss was grown in partial shade exposure.