November 20th Veiwing.

Photo 1: This organism was unidentifiable by myself and Dr. McFarland.
Photo 2: This is a rather large amoeba.
Photo 3: This photo shows an amoeba (top left), and a shelled rotifer (bottom right).
Photo 4: This photo shows an amoeba latched onto a strand of cyanobacteria.

November 19th veiwing

I observed several copepods today. There were several leeches, more than my last viewing. The nematode population in unbelievable! The nematodes have much more rapidly than I had imagined. I found a daphnia burying itself in the soil. There was a Litonotus, an Acanthocystis, and a Nostolenus. The most interesting things that I veiwed were two amoebas that had appeared to engulf small diatoms. There are going to be pictures in my next post.

Week 3 post

Under 40x magnification, I saw that the population of plasmodial amoebae (which I identified as Mayorella using "Free-living Freshwater Protozoa:A Color Guide" by Dj Patterson) greatly increased. I witnessed several swimming diatoms, and there was a bounty of nematodes near the soil. The population of rotifers is still growing, especially the amount of Rotaria (identified using the aforementioned book) in the leaves of the aquatic plants. The Copepods that I had seen have multiplied.

This is for last weeks viewing.

I forgot to mention in my first entry that I used the sample water labeled B, I'm not sure I remember where the sample came from. I'm pretty sure i used the plant labeled 4.
I noticed lots of filamentous green algae today. My population of rotifers grew immensely in the past week, and they have grown in size, too. I found 2 small leeches inching along the glass. There was a strange brown and white nematode near the bottom of the aquarium. I found a large copepod near the bottom, too. It was moving constantly. The Daphnia had grown a lot, and it was moving around in the open water. I found a strange looking diatom, with really long, thin arms, swimming next to some algae. I found a few Arcella. Last, but not least, I found several plasmodial amoebas.

Week 1

I spent a little over an hour looking at my little aquarium. There were several interesting organisms swimming around. I spotted a Daphnia once, but couldn't find it again. There were several different kinds of rotifers that were hiding in the aquatic plants. There was a tacysoma swimming in the open water, and so were several navicular diatoms. There was a plasmodial amoeba. I watched it for a very long time. I had never seen anything move so strangley before. It was rather small, from what Dr. McFarland said. Hopefully it will grow, and reproduce.