November 3
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During the 4th week of observations I continued to notice more plant growth, still dark green among most of the plant fibers in the aquarium. The things I observed this week were:

-Strange, brown balls on two of the leaves with a small black portion on the underside.

-I continued to count an increasing number of seed shrimp, of which I counted eleven this week.

Photo reference: Seed-shrimp [updated 2003]

-Trap leaves are still present
-I noticed small orange fragments (maybe bacteria or debris) scattered about in the open along with a large amount of yellowish-green cellular organisms grouped together.


-Somehow I did not notice as many rotifers as I had in previous weeks, although I was not looking out for them in particular, I did count about 5.
-I did notice a larger amount of cyclops than I did last week. This week I counted six.

Photo reference: Morgan [updated 1996]

-I noticed a few worms of varyous sizes and styles of movement. I spotted a large worm in the debris at the bottom of the aquarium, as well as many, about six, small black worms with a very "high frequency" movement.
-As I said before, I did not count as many rotifers as I did in the previous week, but I also noticed several what I believe to be empty jelly tubes
-I did not spot any more spirogyra algae, but noticed some algae in the open water of the aquarium in a branched, sprawled out shape.



-The most interesting organism that I observed this week that I hadn't seen before in the aquarium was a large swimming creature that I soon identified as a Cladocera, or water flea (Ward and Whipple 1918). Cladocera are crustaceans that feed on phytoplankton. They use their large antennae to move around in the water. There are over 400 species of these organisms! (Cladocera [updated 2004]). Photo reference: Ward and Whipple 1918