Botany 111 Term Project Week 4

For the final week, I checked my MicroAquarium on Friday Nov. 13. Despite the water being reduced to half, the aquarium is just about the same as it was in week 3. All of the organisms observed last week were there this week. I tried looking for some sort of change, but found none at all.

Botany 111 Term Project Week 3

This third week (Nov.6), I observed the following changes to my MicroAquarium:

-I have learned from this week's observations that the vorticellia have nearly died out. Their remains surround the plants in the MicroAquarium along with very few live ones.

-The number of brachiopods had decreased greatly. They are still scattered throughout the aquarium, but an estimate of about 50 had been observed.

-There seems to be an addition of what I identified as nematodes. I observed one very large one in the brownish moss and one small one swimming about. I tried numerous times to catch them in a picture, but their movements caused too much blurring.

-There seems to be more non-moving debris in the aquarium.

-The unidentified fast moving insect is no longer seen swimming about.

The significant decrease of organisms is making my aquarium seem a bit less lively.

Botany 111 Term Project Week 2

This second week (Oct. 30), I observed the following changes to my MicroAquarium:

-The number of vorticellia observed had decreased. I had seen almost no vorticellia in the MicroAquarium. I had only encountered one while I was scanning throughout the whole aquarium.

-The number of brachiopods had increased greatly. I estimated that their size had doubled since last week. There seems to be at least 150 of them.

-The number of litonotus had also doubled from last week's number. I would estimate about 50 had been observed this week.

-There seems to be an addition of what I identified as paramecium. These were sparse and rare; I found them among the algae on the left side of the aquarium. As for numbers, I estimate 20.

-There seems to be more non-moving debris in the aquarium.

Things that stayed the same in the aquarium:

-The unidentified fast moving insect is still swimming about.

-The number of diatoms seems to be unchanged.

-The habitats of the organisms observed remains the same.

I was not able to take pictures of my observations at the time, since I had arrived while the lab was somewhat busy.

Botany 111 Term Project Week 1

The water for my MicroAquarium was taken from a small pond near my apartment complex. I added in some green algae and brownish moss into the aquarium.

This first week (Oct. 23), I found a good number of organisms swimming around.

I had estimated:

-at least 100 diatoms.

-about 50 vorticellia.

-about 20 litonotus.

-about 50 brachiopods.

-1 fast moving possible insect. I was not able to identify the organism. It was large enough to spot without the use of magnification equipment.

The diatoms were scattered all throughout the MicroAquarium, as were the litonotus. The vorticellia and brachiopods were mostly around the algae and moss in the aquarium. As for the unidentified insect, it was swimming everywhere in unpredictable patterns.