Blog Entry 5

Week 4

Last week nothing had really changed since the week before, but this week is very different. The tank used to contain many organisms which were doing well, but this week it is a total ghost town except for a select few organisms and several carcasses. I believe that this is due to competition and lack of food (the pellet is completely gone now). The few organisms that are left are mostly the dero annelids, but there are noticeably less of them. The few that are left though are gigantic and are very visible without the use of a microscope. All the stentors that were flourishing last week are all gone as well. I did manage to discover new organisms in this ghost town of an aquarium though. The first one I caught a glimpse of was another nematode (Rainis and Russel, 1996).

Fig.4

Maybe he is the same one illusive guy from week 2. This time though, I was lucky enough to get a picture of it.(fig.4). The other organism I was able to snap a photo of was a green algea, Pleurotanium sp. (fig.5) (Forrest 1954). I believe that the algae was not affected by the limitation of food, since it is autotrophic. These 4 weeks of observing the microaquarium has been an educational experience, and  I have thoroughly enjoyed  observing the progression and decline of the organism in the aquarium.

Fig.5