Week 3

My MicroAquarium's population seems to be changing. Unfortunately, this change relates to the diversity I once observed. I have two primary organisms now: the seed shrimp and the annelida. There is possibly one new organism or one I have not observed before yesterday. Also, my MicroAquarium was fed with one pellet from Beta fish food yesterday, October 30, 2007.

OBSERVATIONS::

Seed Shrimp: I have a growing population of seed shrimp. I observed some baby seed shrimp yesterday which were about a quarter of the size of the mature seed shrimp. Most of the mature seed shrimp stayed in the bottom of the aquarium in the algae while the younger seed shrimp migrated through the middle and top waters. Their movements remained medium to quick.

Rotifer: The two rotifers that I observed two weeks ago are still gone.

Unknown 1: I might have observed this organism again, but its movements differed from my initial observations. The physical appearance--tiny and clear--was identical; since it moves so differently, though, I will tentatively label it as a different organism (Unknown 4).

Annelida: Plenty of annelida populated the bottom of my MicroAquarium. They were all moving spryly. I believe I observed some baby annelida swimming in the middle to bottom waters. The older annelida contained more of the orange pigments; the young annelida did not have any pigments.

Paramecium: The paramecium that I saw was not to be found. And after learning more about its habits and physical characteristics, I am not entirely sure that I did observe a paramecium.

Cyclops: The cyclops that I discovered last week is gone.

Unknown 4: This organism, as I mentioned before, is clear and very small. I only started seeing them when I moved to my 10x lense. I believe these were the creatures that I thought were inside the paramecium. They are found mostly in the bottom of the aquarium, but I did see random ones throughout the waters.

Even though I might not have a paramecium, I am still intrigued by this organism. I have done some initial research and still plan on writing about the paramecium in my lab report.