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).