***Microaquarium was fed this week:
"On Thursday October 25, 2007 one pellet of "Atison's Betta Food" was added to each Micro Aquaria. It is 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%."
1: COPEPOD CYCLOPS:
I viewed several (8-10?) copepods in my Microaquarium. They seem to be replacing the smaller rotifers, I did not find many rotifers at all today, only about two. These cyclops were concentrated at the BOTTOM of the aquarium, darting busily from place to place, feeding on the debris (I could actually see the material enter through the "mouth" and travel all the way through the organism's body and out its "anal" end!) They were translucent, clear around the edges and having a tan tint towards the stomach area. They have a single bright red dot on their forehead area, and two large antennae protruding from either side of the head. They are multicellular crustaceans of the phylum arthropoda.
I saw males (with no egg sac) and females (carrying egg sacs), like the one in the photo below.
(http://www.micrographia.com/specbiol/crustac/copepo/cope0100.htm)
2: VORTICELLA:
I saw many, many non-green, translucent vorticella attached to the moss of the aquarium this week. They look like "stalked inverted bell-shaped ciliates" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vorticella). They anchor themselves on the green moss (bottom/middle area) and drift slightly with the water. Vorticella can coil the stalk up as a adaptive mechanism, to shield from things like rough waters, and also to help gather food. They are heterotrophic and feed on bacteria. Utilizing the cilia around the "mouth" opening, vorticella can create a "vortex" to bring food sources in.
(http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Vorticella)
3: STENTOR:
A third new organism, the Stentor, took up residence in my microaquarium. Similar to the Vorticella in that it too, attached itself to the moss, the trumpet-shaped Stentor is larger and perhaps more complex than the Vorticella. They are one of the largest types of aquatic protozoans. They are non-green (light brown in color), multi-celled, and stationary on the moss, but motile in the sense that they can drift about and contract to catch food such as bacteria, other protozoans, and sometimes even little rotifers!
(http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Stentor)
No comments:
Post a Comment