Wednesday, October 26, 2011

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.








Wednesday, October 19, 2011

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!