MicroAquarium Day 1: Set-up and Initial Observation

The first piece of my Micro Aquarium is the "tank," which is two small glass rectangles with a few mm of space between them. This space is sealed along the edges on three sides, with the fourth, open side being the top. I placed the tank in its glass base, open side up, and labeled my tank. Then, I got my sample of water (sample 1) which is from *Tommy Schumpert Pond in the Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, and put a few drops of dirt from that sample into my tank. I filled the rest of the tank with my sample water. Then I added pieces of two aquatic plants: moss (**plant A) and a carnivorous flowering plant (***plant B) into the tank, and observed my MicroAquarium through a microscope.

* Tommy Schumpert Pond, Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, Kelly Lane , Knox Co. Tennessee. Partial shade exposure Sheet runoff around sink hole. N35 57.256 W83 41.503 947 ft 10/10/2010





**(Plant A) Fontinalis sp. Moss. Collection from: Natural spring. at Carters Mill Park, Carter Mill Road, Knox Co. TN. Partial shade exposure. N36 01.168 W83 42.832. 10/10/2010

***(Plant B) Utricularia gibba L. Flowering plant. A carnivous plant. Original material from south shore of Spain Lake (N 35o55 12.35" W088o20' 47.00), Camp Bella Air Rd. East of Sparta Tn. in White Co. and grown in water tanks outside of greenhouse at Hesler Biology Building. The University of Tennessee. Knox Co. Knoxville TN. 

All the plant samples, water samples, and the information about them were provided by Dr. Kenneth McFarland in his blog at http://botany1112010.blogspot.com/



Now, onto my observations:

I saw many organisms, some stationary, some moving. There were several small jellyfish-looking organisms that looked like they were anchored in place, but their body would stretch around and snatch little particles out of the water surrounding, and they had small, quick-moving fibers around them that I think either helped them move or helped them sift the particles out of the water. Another type of organism was a small slow-moving protists that attached to the plants and seemed to be feeding on it. Its body was stretching and compressing like a water balloon and it would slowly work its way along the fibers of the plant. I also so large long-ish quick moving organisms that were so fast it was hard to keep up with them through my microscope lens. They darted in quick spurts like hopping grasshoppers. They seemed to thrust forward by a few long fibers on their sides (cilia?) that would push through the water like someone rowing a boat. The last type of organism I witnessed were small, round things with a flagellum that move at a medium pace (relative to the quick darting ones or the slow plant-attached ones.)
There seemed to be less of the anchored particle-sifting organisms than the rest. There were about equal numbers of the other types of organisms.