Week 3

I returned to the lab today to check on my MicroAquarium.  Needless to say, the Beta Food Pellet that Dr. McFarland dropped in the water had the organisms excited and moving around this week.  I was able to stay a while today and observe much of the action taking place.

As I said before, Dr. McFarland inserted a Beta Food Pellet into the water on Friday October 25, 2013.  The pellet was called "Atison's Betta Food" made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104 (McFarland, 2013).  The ingredients were as follows: Fish meal, wheat flower, soy meal, krill meal, minerals, vitamins and preservatives (McFarland, 2013). The analysis of the beta food included: Crude Protein 36%; Crude fat 4.5%; Crude Fiber 3.5%; Moisture 8% and Ash 15% (McFarland, 2013).

Before I could even get started really good I spotted a Chaetogaster sp. worm (Figure 1).  It was a fairly large worm with a round tail end (Rainis & Russell, 1996).  I identified the Chaetogaster in the book entitled Guide to Microlife on pages 226 and 229 (Rainis & Russell, 1996).  I followed this worm around for about 45 minutes before moving on.  It was enjoying feeding on the plants I inserted the first day of lab in the middle of the tank.  I counted at least 5 or 6 of these Chaetogasters throughout the tank today which really surprised me because I could not find any last week.

The remainder of the lab today, I was observing another very intriguing worm, the Dero (Figures 2,3,&4).  This was by far the largest organism in the tank that I have seen yet.  It was large enough that I could sit and watch it do waving motions in the tank and see its movements from just the light shining on it under the microscope.  As seen in Fresh Water Invertebrates of the United States on page 291, Figure 185, I was able to identify the Dero by its large appendages on its tail (Pennak, 291).  The Dero looked to be feeding on some of the plants I placed in the water.  It also looked to be feeding on some of the smaller organisms in the tank (in the middle section of the plant).  It was kind of an intimidating worm to look at because it was very large for that small of a MicroAquarium.

There were other smaller organisms moving around everywhere today, but I did not have time to zoom in and identify what they were.  Even the top section of the tank had a lot more action than last week.  I am not sure if there was any location I passed in the tank today that I did not see at least one organism moving around.  Still, I did not see any dead organisms in the bottom of the tank, but I could have easily overlooked them since I was following these large worms around all day.

I look forward to coming back in next week and observing all of the action taking place.

Figure 1 shows a Chaetogaster sp. full body shot in the middle of the tank (Rainis & Russell, 1996).

Figure 2 shows the appendages on the tail end of a Dero sp. (Pennak, 1953).

Figure 3 shows the head and mouth parts of the Dero sp. (Pennak, 1953).

Figure 4 is hard to see but the far left of the image shows the wide appendages on this particular Dero sp. (Pennak, 1953).

Week 2

I got over to the lab today and was able to stay and observe my MicroAquarium for a couple of hours.  I was fortunate enough to come into the lab when it was not very crowded and was able to sit at one of the camera/video microscopes the entire time.  There was a lot more activity going on today compared to the first day.  Luckily, I did not see any dead organisms in the bottom of the tank today, so hopefully everything is still healthy.

As identified in Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa Figure 337 pg. 151, the first type of organism I saw (and there were many) were Colpidium sp (Patterson, 1992).  They tended to be spread out across the MicroAquarium and did not have a "specific" location they liked to stay in (Fig.1).  There did seem to be more located at the bottom of the tank and near the plants than at the top.

The next organism, Figure 70 pg. 51 of Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa, I followed around the tank was Peranema sp. (Patterson, 1992).  These were interesting organisms to follow around (Fig. 2).  I had to be pretty fast with the microscope to keep up at times.  Just like the Colpidium, there were many Peranema around the tank also.  These seemed to be located all around the tank also.  These organisms would make all kinds of motions.  At times they would be balled up in a tight circle, and before you could blink, would propel themselves forward and move on from that area pretty quickly.

The last organism I was able to capture and identify,Figure 194 pg. 98-99 of Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa, on camera today was Amoeba (Patterson, 1992).  I did not see a whole lot of Amoeba, but the ones that I did were neat (Fig. 3).  It appeared to have other smaller organisms stuck to the outside layer of its structure.  While watching it move along, it looked like a large bubble in front of it.  I saw the Amoeba about mid-way up the tank and followed it over to the right side of the tank before it started heading toward the top.

Since the first observation, there seems to be much more activity occurring in my MicroAquarium.  These were the only organisms I was able to capture on camera and identify this week, but I did see other organisms that I look forward to viewing next week.

Fig. 1 shows Colpidium sp. moving around throughout the tank (Patterson, 1992).

Fig. 2 shows the Peranema sp. in action as it propels itself across the tank pretty fast (Patterson, 1992).

Fig. 3 shows the Amoeba sp. (notice the "bubble" in front) as it was moving across the tank (Patterson, 1992).

Bibliography

McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [October 23, 2013]. Available from    http://botany1112013.blogspot.com/

Patterson, D.J. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa A Colour Guide. N.p.: Manson, 1992. Print.
Pennak, Robert W. Fresh Water Invertebrates of the United States. N.p.: Ronald, 1953. Print.

Rainis, Kenneth G., and Bruce J. Russell. Guide to Microlife. N.p.: Franklin Watts, 1996. Print.


 

Picture of MicroAquarium

First Day In The Lab

When setting up the MicroAquarium, I first placed 3 colored dot stickers in a vertical layout on the left side of my glass case (McFarland, 2013).  These 3 stickers identified (from top to bottom) my lab section, table in which I sat, and seat number at that table.  I then placed my initials on the 3 stickers so that my MicroAquarium could be identified.  The water source that I used was Dean's Woods-SpringCreek located off of Woodson Dr. in Knox County, TN.  I extracted water from the bottom of the bowl with a pipet filling the tank approximately 1/3 full.  I then extracted water about midway in the bowl and filled the tank another 1/3 full.  The remaining water was drawn from the top layer of the bowl and filled the rest of the tank.  After filling the tank, I placed three different plants/mosses in my MicroAquarium to provide oxygen to the tank.  The first item I added was Fontinalis sp. Moss. which was collected from the Holston River.  The next moss was Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg which was collected from Natural Spring at Carters Mill Park.  The final was a flowering plant known as Utricularia gibba L. which is grown in the water tanks outside of Hesler.  After all of these steps were completed, I was able to put my MicroAquarium under the microscope.  I saw quite a few things moving around (Some very small, and some large).  I did not identify any of the organisms the other day so I am unable to tell you what they were.  The large organism slithered around similar to a snake.  The small organisms looked to be some type of Nematodes.  There will be more detail after this week's observation.