Last time.

Not much changed from last Friday to this Tuesday. I had to refill the water again. My aquarium seemed to be about the same as the others that used the same water source as I did.

Week 4

Wow, talk about invertebrate take over. All the little "bugs" have been going crazy and reproducing seemingly exponentially. They also have been keeping the algae in check. At first the many different types of algae were able to reproduce much quicker than anything else and looked as if they were gonna take over. But they now seem to be a source of food for other organisms.

Third visit.

This week there was another Pellet added and there is a TON of food for all the different species living in the aquarium. The cone shaped algae is reproducing like crazy! It seems to be taking over the aquarium. I saw a nematode down in the dirt worming around in the dirt at the bottom, that was pretty cool.

Week 2

This week I was able to get on the camera microscope. It was really cool there were some crazy critters moving around in there!

This little mite was crawling along one of the plants eating its way around.




This young cyclops would skip around here and there eating a little everywhere it went.

There were many of these green algae they seem to reproduce very fast!

This type of Photosynthetic Algae did not reproduce as much as the one above.

This little Algae is growing on the different types of plant matter in the aquarium.

The food pellets are really moving things along in the aquarium. The presence of food has enabled organisms to eat and be healthy and reproduce. But once the food runs out... whats going to happen to all the life in there?

Step 1

I went into the lab today to take a look at my aquarium to find that a decent bit of water had evaporated. So the first thing I did is fill it up with fresh deionized water.

The water is taken from the Tommy Schumpert Pond, Seven Islands Wildlife Refuge, Kelly Lane , Knox Co. Tennessee. It has partial shade exposure Sheet runoff around sink hole. N35 57.256 W83 41.503 947.

Upon first visual observation of my aquarium with my naked eye I noticed that there was a brown substance that was beginning to grow on both plants and it had a thin layer on top of the "dirt" at the bottom. Once under the microscope they looked like little funnel shaped barnacles. They will soon be photographed and identified.....

There was also a few different types of photosynthetic algae in there. I saw some single cell organisms and some multicellular organism as well. Once I get hooked up the the camera-scope I'll be able to put up some photos with labels and other such coolness.

Step one.

Creating Blog today for Botany today. We are going to be watching stuff grow! Specifically plants. WOOT!!!! Go Vols.