This week, I made my third observation on October
29,2013.On Friday October 25, 2013 Dr. MacFarland added one Beta food pellet to
our micro aquariums. The food pellet info is as follows: “Atison’s Betta Food
made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake
City, UT 84104. Ingredients: Fish meal, wheat flower, soy meal, krill meal,
minerals, vitamins and preservatives. Analysis: Crude Protein 36%; Crude fat
4.5%; Crude Fiber 3.5%; Moisture 8% and Ash 15%.”Since the addition of the food
pellet I have seen increased numbers of previously viewed organisms as well as
an increase in types of organisms.
This week I made new observations on the Cyclops species such as increased
numbers and different life stages. One of the first things I noticed when I
began viewing my aquarium was a dead Cyclops
on the tank bottom as well as a Cyclops
with egg sacs on its sides (Rainis and Russel 1996). I have found that the Cyclops is a copepod, or a
crustacean like organism often identified as a water flea. The Cyclops is of concern
because it can be an intermediate host to guiniea-worm.
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| Figure 2: Dero, bottom end Picture by: David Colvin |
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| Figure 1: Dead Cyclops Picture by: David Colvin |
A new observation that I made this week was a Dero, which is an annelid similar to the Chaetogaster I viewed the previous week. Its bottom end identifies the Dero, which encases itself in a sheath and moves around by extending its head out of the sheath and using hair like appendages to pull the sheath back up around itself.
This week I was able to observe and identify numerous Meridon circulare diatoms, which were
stationary and located along the leaves of the Utricularia gibba. These diatoms were
fan shaped, green, indicating presence of chlorophyll, and had visible septae (Prescott
G.W. 1964). I also saw some diatoms that were
very similar to the Meridon circulare
but were not complete fan shapes.
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Figure 3: Meridon circularePhoto by: David Colvin
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Another new observation I made this week was that of the Paramecium burasaria. This organism is
anywhere from 90-150um in length and has an oval shape with a slight indention
groove where the mouth can be seen, giving it a similar shape to a foot. The
organism is slowly moving around in the water; it seems as though it just
floats around in the water rather than moving itself much. The Paramecium bursaria has visible cilia,
is green with zoochlorellae, and contains numerous pink circles (Bick H 1972).
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| Figure 4: Meridon circulare Photo by: David Colvin |
Another organism species that I discovered in my aquarium
was the Bodo saltans species. This
organism is very small even on high-powered objectives. The Bodo is clear and has the appearance of
a bubble moving around in the tank. The observed the organisms in what seemed
to be small colonies found throughout the aquarium mostly around the food
pellet remains and the leaves of the plants (Patterson D.J. 1996)Bodo move around very quickly, but all stay in the same area. This
helped to identify because the Bodo saltans
are known to attach themselves to substrate with a long, recurrent flagellum,
and feed on suspended particles (Patterson D.J. 1996).
Bibliography
Rainis G. Kenneth; Russel J. Bruce. 1996. Guide to
Microlife. Danbury (CT): A Division of Grolier Publishing
Patterson D.J. 1996. Free-Living Freshwater Protozoa.
Barcelona, Spain: Wolfe Publishing Ltd
Bick H. 1972. Ciliated Protozoa. Switzerland: World Health
Organization
Prescott G.W. 1964. The Fresh-Water Algae. Dubuque, Iowa:
WM.C. Brown Company Publishers
great photos!
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