October 20

-During the second week of the project I further observed the growth and activity of the micro aquarium. I witness an increased amount of biological activity, observing several small organisms moving about among the water and plant life inside the aquarium. At the end of the observation period for this week, I added a small food pellet into the aquarium before putting it away.

A few of the things I observed this week were:

-I witnessed about 2 small, brown organisms crawling along plant fibers. Shaped similarly to a seed, I observed these organisms as being both large and small in size and brown or green in color. Dr. McFarland revealed to me that these are known as Seed Shrimp. A seed shrimp (also known as Ostracod) is an extremely small organism that can live in a variety of environments from ponds to the ocean. A bottom dwelling organism, seed shrimp have seven pairs of legs, using only two to move around while the others serve a variety of purposes from feeding to cleaning. Two antennae are found on the seed shrimp that stick out from the small chitin shell (Seed-Shrimp [updated 2003]). These are ancient organisms, going as far back as the Cambrian period over 500 million years ago (Cambrian [updated 2000]). Photo reference: Seed-Shrimp [updated 2003]

-I saw many more small, “fuzzy” organisms spread throughout the entire span of the aquarium. As I observed closer I noticed that these organisms are made up of many small circles or spheres located very close to one another.

-I continued to observe the trap leaves mentioned in the previous week’s blog post. Again these plants continued to house hundreds of small green organisms swimming about inside of the leaf.

-I observed small, elongated transparent-like organisms swimming about freely in the aquarium. After further observation and reference I identified these organisms as rotifers. Rotifers are tiny, transparent, fast moving organisms with a relatively small number of cells compared to larger organisms. Using a group of cilia, the rotifer is able to move quickly about its surroundings, also with the help of a sticky tail. The cilia also allow the rotifer to feed. Rotifers are found in virtually any aquatic setting and in many different shapes and sizes (Egmond Rotifers [updated 1998]). Their quick movements make them especially difficult to observe and photograph. Photo reference: Egmond Rotifers [updated 1998]

-Other organisms I identified but were unable to photograph were some green algae, small worm-like pink/transparent organisms swimming freely in the water, and very small transparent organisms moving along plant fibers and slowly swimming freely in the water.