Week One

I observed my aquarium and decided that I did not have a lot of activity after one week. The water in my aquarium came from a natural spring in Fountain City Park. So Dr. McFarland added some water to my site from container 17. Mites and rotifers were present after the new water was added. The mites looked like small spiders, and were swimming around eating the Atison's Beta Food that was used to feed the organisms in our aquarium. There were a lot of rotifers swimming around the moss in the bottom of my aquarium. I also discovered one insect larva that, according to the Fresh Water Biology book, is a Chironomous larva. They are herbivorous and are important in furnishing foods for larger animals. The larva was also eating the beta food. The picture at the top is a picture of my aquarium. The picture on the bottom is of the Chironomous larva's head.

Setting Up My Aquarium

To start our experiment we obtained a glass tank, stand holder and lid. In the lab there were 15 bowls of water from various places. Each student was able to choose which bowl of water they wanted to use in their aquarium, and I chose 15. I filled the bottom third of my aquarium with water from the bottom of container 15. Next, I took water from the middle of the container and added it to the middle third of my aquarium. I then took water from the top layer of the container and added it to the top third of my aquarium. After my aquarium was filled with water, I added some moss and looked at it under a microscope to see what I had extracted from the water. Towards the bottom of my aquarium, I saw small parenchyma cells swimming in circles around the moss.