Week 2

I spent some time yesterday with my MicroAqarium, looking for any changes which have taken place sense last week. To the naked eye, I could only see that I had lost some water; whether through evaporation or processes in my aquarium I don't know. The following is an update on the microorganisms in my MicroAquarium.

OBSERVATIONS::

Seed Shrimp: The seed shrimp still had a defining presence in my aquarium. From what I could observe, their numbers stayed about the same. Most were congregated in the bottom of the aquarium; though, more were present on the moss sprigs this week. Also, some seed shrimp were swimming throughout the container instead of just remaining in the bottom. I did observe a few seed shrimp that seemed to be moving rather slowly. Maybe their numbers will start to dwindle in the upcoming weeks.

Rotifer: I was told last week that one of my organisms was a rotifer. Unfortunately, I could not find him yesterday.

Unknown 1: This organism, too, seemed to be either hiding himself or not be present. Although, I did observe that inside another one of my organisms there appeared to be a "moving thing" that looked very similar to this organism. But I do not know if this organism would still be intact and moving if he was eaten by someone else.

Unknown 2: No longer will this organism remain unnamed; it was identified yesterday as an annelida. This worm-like organism was present down in the bottom of my aquarium. Occasionally, one would take a jaunt through some middle waters, but it primarily stayed below. Most still had bright orange pigments. There appeared to be more of these organisms present than were present last week.

Unknown 3: This organism, too, has been identified as a paramecium. While I only saw one last week, I found many paramecium this week. They were present at the bottom of my aquarium. This parmecium seemed to have inside of them the "Unknown 1" organism: there were small, transparent organisms that moved quickly inside the paramecium. Out of all the paramecium I observed, not one of the moved.

Cyclops: Also, I discovered a new organism in my aquarium. It is tentatively identified as a cyclops. I only observed two of these organisms. They had a shrimp like body including the little feet underneath. Two antenna protruded from its head. The antenna were short and thick. It seemed to have two small tuffs for a tail. When it moved, it was propelled by the little feet, and sometimes it would fold over in half. It had very jerky, quick movement. He, too, seemed to remain only in the bottom of the container.


COMMENTS::

There seemed to be a general population increase since last weeks observations. But there are two factors which could cause this apparent (but possibly not true) increase. First, since last week was the first week, all the organisms might not have been moving about as they were this week. After a week to acclimate, I might have been able to observe more. Second, this is my first MicroAquarium project; therefore, I am unaccustomed to observing micro activity. Several organisms and processes could have easily gone unnoticed to me last week that I saw this week.
The upcoming weeks will better reveal whether the population of organisms have increased, decreased, or remained the same.