second viewing

On Friday, October 24th, I had the opportunity to examine my microaquarium for a second time. The aquarium was buzzing with activity this time around. Every micrometer of the aquarium held some sort of life.
I first went in search of the water flea that I discovered earlier. I was unable to locate it this time, but I did manage to find several organisms that matched the characteristics of the unidentified organism from the previous session. Most were in the bottom of the aquarium. They appeared to have their tails attached to bits of debris while they went back and forth nibbling on the debris. I did manage to capture a photo of one of these organisms. After checking the lab poster, I determined them to be a type of Rotifer.

Along with the increased number of rotifers, there was also an abundance of amoebas. These were easily identifiable because of their indefinite blob-like form. Their transparent bodies creeped slowly along. Their inner organs seemed to flow along with their outer movement.

I found another fascinating organism this time. Again, with the help of the lab poster, I identified as an epistylis. It had a transparent cup shaped body with a long cilia attaching it to a bit of plant material. The rim of the cup appeared to have small cilia that moved so rapidly that they created quite a current in the water. I watched as various bits of debris got caught in the current and were either sucked into the cup or bounced off. I also took a picture of it, but the cilia were moving to fast to be seen.

Also close by in the sediment, were some nemotodes and diatoms. The nemotodes were small worm-like creatures that occasionally popped their heads up out of the dirt and wiggled around. They moved much too fast for me to get a good picture. I did get a good picture of what I believe to be a diatom. I did not see many, but its geometric form seemed to make it stand out among the rest of the sediment.
Unfortunately that was all I had time for that day as the rest of the time was spent learning how to transfer pictures from the microscope to the computer. Before I left though, I found out that a food pellet had been added to the aquarium just that morning. It will be interesting to see how that affects the creatures this week. I plan to revisit the aquarium this Friday on the 31st.