Blog Entry 2

Week 1

After allowing a week for the organisms to acclimate to their new surroundings in my microaquarium, I noticed many differences in the amount of organisms present and the behavior of the organisms. The first thing I noticed were the absence of the specs that I observed quickly darting back and forth around the plans. They may have been consumed by the larger organisms now present in the aquarium. I started searching for new organisms at the bottom of the aquarium in the dirt taken from the water source in my setup. The first thing I noticed in the dirt of the aquarium were what seemed to be the remains of dead organisms. After looking through the Guide to Microlife I recognized one of these organism as a stentor.(Rainis and Russel, 1996) After some more searching in the dirt I briefly seen a small worm that was wiggling furiously but before I could get a good look, it burrowed into the dirt. From the small glance I got of the organism, I believe that is was a nematode (Rainis and Russel, 1996). Next I decided to do some searching in the middle and tops of the aquarium. Most the organisms I found were on or near the plants. Some more stentors were found on the plants and were the first organism I was able to get a photo of (Figure 1). I also seen a large flat worm which I believed to be a flat worm (Rainis and Russel, 1996), but was not able to get a good photo of it. After doing some looking I found a dero annelid(Figure 2) (Rainis and Russel, 1996), which was my favorite organism of the ones I found that day. It was the largest organism by far and was seen munching on the plant matter. I could actually see the plant moving as the annelid pulled plant matter off of it to eat. I will let these organism sit for a week and observe them again. Next week a beta food pellet will be added to the aquarium. (McFarland, 2013)

Figure 1

Figure 2