Week 4 Observations!

This week happens to be the final week of observations on my microquarium project, and sadly it did not end with a bang. The activity in my microquarium was about the same as last week, though arguably I saw more organisms floating around. This week I observed only a select few of the organisms found in my previous observations, such as Rotifers, Eulopes and a critter I had yet to identify, the Coleps sp. This organism in paticular has flourished despite the lack of population density of other species. For example I saw a massive group of over 10 individuals swimming around in circles. They also appeared in many other areas of the aquarium. Durring this exploration for life in the microaquarium I also noticed a few rotifer eggs, one of which was beggining to hatch. Regretibly I was not able to get a photograph of it, but I saw a few of these hatchlings throughout the aquarium as if the population was attempting to bounce back from last weeks sudden decline. Along side these stragglers, I saw a huge population of diatoms, however they too were struggling and had already lost their coloration in the somewhat unfavoring environment. Other than the diatoms, I did not find any new species in my microaquarium this week.
Here are the last few organisms I had left to identify:

 The dominate species within the slowly decaying microaquarium. Go Little Coleps!


(Patterson 163)

 This unusual organism was observed in the week 2 observations. Sadly I only observed about 3 individuals that week and never saw them in further observations.

(Pennak 218)

This organism was observed in weeks 1 and 2, this photograph in particular from the week 1 observations. I witnessed quite a few individuals, numbering over 20, between weeks 1 and 2. There was a tremendous increase in the population in week 2 when the food pellet was added, however in week 3 all organims dissapeared and I have not seen them since.

(Patterson 119)










As a final note, this project was quite interesting in that I really enjoyed seeing all of these microscopic organism that I would have never imagined previously. I observed quite a few organims and to process of discovering and identifying them was quite rewarding. I'm actally kind of sad its over.