Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Observation #2

Betta Food Pellet

      On October 22, 2010, one pellet of fish food was added to each microaquarium. The fish food used was "Atison's Betta Food" made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104. Ingredients: 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%. 

Observation

      I viewed my tank 4 days after the food pellet was added, and a lot has changed since observation one. In the first observation, the most activity in my aquarium was in and around the sediment. Most of these organisms were flagellates, (which I incorrectly called ciliates in the last post.) This week, the amount of life in the habitat increased greatly, now flat, fast-moving, disk-like  ciliates are dominating the food pellet area, with most of the flagellates from last week being restrained to the other areas. I was not able to identify any dead organisms, nor could I locate the Carpenter's Ruler diatom colonies. I did, however, view many stationary diatoms, most of them perfectly square or rectangle, they look roughly like this : [][][] 
     As well as new plant growth, I viewed two snails, which are now some of the largest organisms in the aquarium, as well as some more of the large, clear, worm-like organisms, which I still have not identified. 
     Some of the "new" organisms this week were small, amorphous organisms which did not seem to have cilia or flagella, but rather moved by stretching (usually short-worm shaped), and small oval-shaped organisms which are only a fraction the size of most of the ciliates and flagellates. I hypothesize that these may be immature bodies of some of the same organisms, but they are mostly the same size, and I don't see an even stratification in size, (that is, the biggest ones are still only about a quarter the size of most other organisms present.) 

     I have a lot of organisms to classify now, I will be researching and posting results soon.






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