Well, the aquarium looked a little sad when I looked at it.  All I could find was one rotifer, some dried up shells of once living things, and some nematodes.  I guess trying some of the haunted water wasn't so good after all.  Here's a couple pictures of the rotifer and the nematode:

Ref.  Free Living Freshwater Protozoa.  D.J. Patterson, 1996.  Fig.18

Ref:  Smith, Douglas Grant.  Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States.  2001.  Fig 7.3.

Smith, Douglas Grant.  Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States.  2001.  Fig 7.3.

So this week I wasn't actually able to visit my aquarium friends due to time constraints, but I'm sure you are happy to hear that they have been fed and I'm sure they will look happy when I visit them next week!  One "Atison's Betta Food" pellet was added this past week on October 21, 2011.  It was made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104.  The ingredients of the pellet are as follows:  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%. Hopefully all the little creatures will like this and I hope my aquarium becomes more active.

So my aquarium little by little is becoming more diverse and active.  I saw a new species which was really beautiful, a diatom.  They are made of silica, which is glass so that explains why it looks so pretty.

Ref.  How to Know the Freshwater Algae.  G.W. Prescott, Ph.D.  1964, Fig. 443

There was also another little guy swimming around the diatom which was an Anisonema sp.  It was a bit hard to identify, and I'm still not sure if it is right, but it is the closest thing we could find.

Ref.  Free Living Freshwater Protozoa.  D.J. Patterson, 1996.  Fig. 77

 I hope that the food pellet we add next week will help the organisms in the aquarium thrive.

The organisms still seem to be scared away by the haunted water, but I was able to see a few of them swimming around.  The Actinosphaerium sp. was very cool because, as you can see from the pictures, it was undergoing mitosis and dividing.  Also, you could see in the microscope a small bubble on the side of the orb-thing where it was capturing nutrients from the water.

Ref:  Patterson, D.J.  Free-living Freshwater Protozoa.  1996.  Fig 394, 395.

Ref:  Patterson, D.J.  Free-living Freshwater Protozoa.  1996.  Fig 394, 395.

It takes a while to divide though, so I started looking around from some for little organisms and stumbles upon this little guy, who turned out to be a rotifer (Philodina sp.).  The spinning rotifer on the top of it was going to fast for the camera to take a good picture of it, but it was contracting and expanding under the microscope.

Smith, Douglas Grant.  Pennak's Freshwater Invertebrates of the United States.  2001.  Fig 7.3.

First look at the aquarium

We set up the aquarium last Wednesday and I chose to fill it with water from the water pool below the spring at Lynnhurst Cemetery off Adair Dr. in Knoxville, TN (N36 01.357 W83 55.731 958 ft).  It has partial shade exposure and is a spring fed pond.  I added a little of the sediment in the bottom of the aquarium and then filled the rest of it with water from the surface, from the middle of the sample, and some water from right above the sediment.  Two aquatic plant samples were also added to the aquarium.  "Plant A" is Amblestegium sp. a moss collected from a natural spring at Carters Mill Park on Carter Mill Rd, Knoxville, TN (N36 01.168 W83 42.832) on 10/9/11.  "Plant B" is Utricularia gibba L., a flowering carniverous plant.  The original material was obtained from the south shore of Spain Lake (N 35o55 12.35" W088o20' 47.00), Camp Bella Air Rd. East of Sparta Tn. in White Co. and grown in water tanks outside of greenhouse at Hesler Biology Building. The University of Tennessee. Knox Co. Knoxville TN.  I don't know if the water is haunted or not, but there was not a lot of activity in the aquarium upon initial inspection.  I observed a small worm-like creature which appears to be chowing down on some plant material.  Later I observed a small roundish-oblong creature swimming along in the water.  I hope the ghosts have not scared away the bacteria!