Initial observation

This blog is for the Botany 111 course. We are observing a micro aquarium that we put together in lab; taking note of the micro-organisms in it; the changes that occour in the next few weeks in the animals, the water, and the moss that we included; and besides that I'll also be including some more detailed information about one of the organisms that I can find.

Let's Start with the initial assembly and observations on 10/16.

After receiving the micro-aquarium the bottom layer of water and sediment I took from container 5. The middle layer I took from container 6, and the last layer of water I took from the surface water of the plant "Bramiliad" in the greenhouse. Also, the moss that was chosen to go in the micro-aquarium was moss "c". After letting everything settle for a few minutes, I put the aquarium under the microscope to observe what was there. There were many many oblong paramecium, more than what I could count in an organized fashion, rapidly swimming everywhere in straight lines, spirals loops, etc. Next there was a ciliate, I'm not sure which specific one, that looked like a flat pancake with hairs/flagella radiating outward around the edge of it's body. Also, I observed four Rotifers, rotifer vulgaris, inching in and around especially close to the moss. The last thing I have to report is the algae and strings of cyanobacteria that appears in the aquarium. The algae appeared in small single cell units rectangular in look floating and moving around. These were all over the aquarium, as well as strings of what appeared to be some sort of cyanobacteria (photosynthetic bacteria).