Observations week 3

 The following are abservations I made on October 26, 2010.
I saw a Midge, which is an insect larvae, crawling on the soil bed of my microaquarium. I have seen this organism before but thought it was a worm. It defenitely looked like a worm. It had a long body with ywo tiny arms near it's head.

I also noticed a Nymphilis, which is the juenille stage of a cyclops. This organism was stationary at first, but when i tried to take a photo of it; the organism moved away quickly.

Images made with:
 Sony Handycam (still imaging and video recording) HDR-HC9 or HDR-XR500v cameras with a Martin Microscope MM99 Adapter S/N: 4310 adapter to attach to microscope trinocular head.

Microscopes: Olympus CH30 or Leitz Laborlux 11 or Leitz Laborlux D with trinocular heads. Images were made at 40X, 100X and 400X.

Computers: Dell Optiplex 755 or Optiplex 960

Software: Images were processed with Adobe Photoshop Elements 7. Videos were processed using Pinnacle Studio 12.

Observations week 2

Today i was able to put my microaquarium onto the high power microscope and have my images displayed onto a computer screen. I did not have time to take digital images of what I observed, so I will account for it writing.

1. I noticed a worm like creature staying near in the soil bed. It burrowed into the soil after poking its head out. I did not have time to identify this organism.
2. I also saw a "shrimp" looking organism called a Cyclops. I was able to identify this organism with a book supplied to us in the lab. This organism had antenna poking out of it's body. On it's end there were two bulbous objects on either side. Lastly, it had a tail.
3. I noticed there were bubbles forming on both plants.
4. I also located a Rodifer, perhaps one of the same two I saw on day one.

Day 1/ Setup

10. Water pool below spring. Lynnhurst Cemetery off of Adair Drive. Knox Co. Knoxville TN. Partial shade exposure Spring Feed Pond N36 01.357 W83 55.731 958 ft 10/10/2010
STEPS FOR MSKING MICROAQUARIUM:
1. Take a microaquarium and go to a bowl of your choice and with a pipet retrieve the following:
         a. soil from bottom
         b. water from the middle of bowl
         c. water from surface
     and place this all inside the microaquarium
2. Next pull off a piece of plants A and B and place inside the microaquarium
3. Place on microscope and make intial observations
4. Take off microscope and place microaquarium into a base and place a lid on top. Grab sticky puddy to keep top on.
5. Lastly, use stickers to indicate table, section, and seat. Initial all stickers.

INITIAL OBSERVATIONS
1. I saw two Rodifers swimming in my microaquarium. I was able to identify these organisms with the help of Dr. McFarland. These organisms looked like a crown. They use flagella to push water through its body; and it appears to be spinning when it moves. There is a single red dot which acts like an eye that detects light.