Week 2 Observations!

This past week I went in once again to investigate my micro aquarium and there was a lot to see! On October 24, Dr. McFarland added a single pellet of  "Atison's Betta Food" made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104. Ingredients: Fish meal, wheat flower, soy meal, krill meal, minerals, vitamins and preservatives. Analysis: Crude Protein 36%; Crude fat 4.5%; Crude Fiber 3.5%; Moisture 8% and Ash 15% (McFarland 2014). As a result the number of microorganims appeared to skyrocket. The litionotus sp. that I posted about last week was seen (not the same exact organism of course) quite a bit during my observations. I came across four or five that were mature and displayed the long neck like appendage. Also while looking about, I saw a wealth of very small unicellular organisms wiggling about in the background of the largest magnification almost everywhere! Upon investigating the food pellet itself I saw a huge amount of life, many organisms that I have yet to identify, but will definitely get into next weeks blog. The pellet iself attracted a multitude of organisms including these three organisms:

 (Pennack 183)

 (Patterson 124)

 (Patterson 107)












Starting with the Echlanis Rotifer Sp. I have seen these critters in the previous observation and refered to them as reminding me of horseshoe crabs, of which they still do. Anyway, the sheer number of these little guys is astonishing and I would not be surprised if I have seen over 50 different individuals. They appear to stay close to vegetation and love to crawl all over it, joined by many of their fellow rotifers. Also they are quite quick, making it very difficult to capture a good picture of them free floating. They are most definitively the most prominent species I have seen in my microaquarium so far, other than the very small single cell organisms I mentioned earlier. Though it may not be noteworthy, they have also become my favorite critters in the micro aquarium too.
Next is the Eulotes sp. of which is one of the rarer micro organisms I have come across in my micro aquarium. I have come across only two thus far, one of which was found very close to vegetation and the one, that is in the picture above, that was free floating. This critter does not appear to be very fast and I was unable to capture one feeding on anything in particular.
The final picture is of a Stentor sp. I saw quite a few of these fascinating micro organisms in my microaquarium. I primarily saw them attached to vegetation and letting the upper portion of their body, as seen in the figure above, float with the flow of the water. I also found a single free floating Stentor which exhibited root like structures around the base that would be normally seen attached to some sort of vegetation. The blurred area around the 'head' so to speak are hundreds of moving flagella either sifting the water around it or keeping it in place. From the various individuals I saw, of which numbered over 10, they appear to be consuming smaller single celled organisms around them or floating particles of plant matter. Also it is note worthy to say that I saw an increase in the numbers of stentor around the food pellet, their numbers greatest in the higher micro organism traffic areas.

There were many other organisms that I captured on camera that I cannot wait to classify and share! Overall though, the total number of organisms increased two fold. I saw an abundance of activity almost everywhere, especially around the agitation and the food pellet. Its exciting to see my micro aquarium thriving and I cannot wait to see what I find next week!