First Day With The MicroAquarium

Water Source

My water source is the Pond at University of Tennessee Hospital.  It is located on Cherokee Trail in Knox County, Knoxville TN.  It is exposed to  Full sun and is a storm sewer sediment pond.  Its geographic location is N35 56.305 W83 56.717.  The pond stretches to 850 ft long as of 10/9/2011.  This pond contains the Chara species, which is in the Green alga Family Characeae.

Setting Up The MicroAquarium 

The first step was to choose our water source to make our MicroAquarium with.  Then we started to make our MicroAquarium.  We had a glass tank, a stand holder, and a lid.  We used color coordinated dots and our initials to label our tank by placing them on the left edge of the tank in a vertical column.  We then used a pipet to extract water from our water source, which was in one of the containers on the lab bench.  We extracted just enough water from the bottom of the container to fill the MicoAquarium tank 1/3 full.  Then we extracted the next 1/3 of water from the middle layer of the water source.  Then we filled the rest of the tank with water from the surface of our water source.  Then we put in "Plant A . Amblestegium sp. Moss. Collection from: Natural spring. at Carters Mill Park, Carter Mill Road, Knox Co. TN. Partial shade exposure. N36 01.168 W83 42.832. 10/9/2011a." (McFarland 2011) and "Plant B. Utricularia gibba L. Flowering plant. A carnivous plant. Original material from 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." (McFarland 2011)  Then we were done making our MicroAquarium and were able to observe it in the microscope by gently laying our tank flat on the microscope stage.

First Observation

In my first observation I was able to see several different forms of life.  Here is a list of some of the life my MicroAquarium contains.

Mayfly Nymph - is a insect that lives in freshwater, has 3 jointed tails, and has gills on its sides

Green Algae -  has spherical colonies, cells with 2 flagella

Crustacea - Ostracods - is a Arthropod and has a bean like shell

Ciliates - Suctoria - is a Protozoa and has sticky tentacles that capture prey

Ciliates - Strentor - is a Protozoa and has fixed shape cells with a fixed mouth

Bacteria - is single celled and looks like dots or strands