FOOD PELLET INFORMATION:"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%.(McFarland)
This week, on November 15th I observed three new organisms in my aquarium. Almost every organism I observed last week has flagella, making it a moving organism. Most were very fast, and others were pretty slow.
The first one I came across was the Cyclidium sp. He was not as fast as the others, but still on the go.
As one can easily conclude, this organism has flagella surrounding its entire body. It also has a tail flagella which is difficult to see in this picture as it is very poor quality. Its body is ovular, as you can see, and is multi-cellular. One can also observe that this organism contains chlorophyll as the green pigment hints. This organism tends to stay in the middle-range of my aquarium; I did not find any in any other location. This is the only organism of its kind that I observed in my aquarium.
The next organism I found was a Euchlanis sp. This was the most interesting to me as the body of this organism is very unique.
The first thing one notices is the one flagella located at the rear of the organism. This accounts for why it is not a very fast organism. I had no trouble keeping up with this little guy. He was also very photogenic as this is the best picture I got this week. He also seems to have a green pigment on him which suggests he contains chlorophyll. The way this organism is easily identified is its unique body shape. It has a body that looks like two balloons being pushed together with a tail hanging off and a mouth on the opposite end. This organism was not very common in my observation of the micro aquarium. This was the only one I observed of its kind.
The third organism I encountered was an Actinophrys sp.
As one can observe from the images above, the Actinophrys sp. is round in shape and just like the Euchlanis, it has flagella surrounding its body to propel it and give it mobility. This organism is very fast and actually has a very interesting and different mode of transportation. As it is propelled, the shape of the organisms quickly changes to a star-shaped structure; you can almost see this forming in the first picture above. This organism also appears to contain chlorophyll due to its green pigmentation. This organism is very abundant in my aquarium. In fact, on a much lower lens, you can observe many of them at a single time as little dots swimming around.
The other organisms previously seen in my tank are still present, however not much progress or change has occurred among many of those species. I observed the cyclops sitting still this week and feeding, not moving or anything, and he did not seem any bigger than the last time I observed him.
The only other observation I made was that the snail population had greatly decreased. I believe this is due to my accident the week previous to this one, in which I spilled out much of the material and water in my aquarium. I am not sure if the organisms found this week came from the changes in the aquarium, or if I had just missed them in previous lab observations.
And, lastly, the smaller Annelid I had observed last week has grown (although not as much as the larger one), and is now feeding as the other one did. However, the larger Annelid I previously observed seems to have died and decomposed.
It has been very interesting to see how things have changed in just four weeks in such a small habitat.
So, this week I observed:
- 3 new organisms~
1) Cyclidium
2) Euchlanis
3) Actinophrys
- Snail population decrease
- Decrease in organism movement
- Dead and bigger Annelids
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