Observation 5

These are close ups of plant A and shows the remnants of the eggs that I discussed in last week's blog post.

The shot below(on the far left) is a shot of the area at the bottom of the tank. The area is littered with filamentous organisms and a worm that was swimming amidst it all.

These are pictures of the organisms attached to plant B that I refer to later in the blog. They are bladders that trap food for the plant.

The most interesting development in my aquarium over the past week is the effects of MicroAquarium life on plant B. It has gone from green, lush and leafy to a smaller, browner plant. It has lost color, mass and the organisms that once lived around it have changed. It is now surrounded more by excess free-floating matter in the aquarium with only a few of the dandilion-like organisms observed last week. Also, there are a few filamentous organisms and some very small rotifers.

It has, however, developed interesting growths that look pear-shaped and hollow with long, stringy, attachments off the smaller end. I originally thought they might be organisms living on the plant, but I think they may be part of the plant that it has developed over the past few weeks. I then found out that they are bladders that trap food for the plant to feed on. The bladders are green and translucent and grow within close proximity with each other.

As the water levels in my aquarium continue to get lower, over all i'm noticing that plants A and B look a bit more shriveled and less green than they started out. Especially Plant B which has lost almost all of its color and mass.

Starting by looking at plant A I noticed it appears darker and less leafy. The MicroAquarium has an abundance of rotifers which are completely covering Plant A and all the area around it. Included in the area around plant A is a lot of debris that I cannot identify the source of. The biggest question I have is- Do rotifers reproduce and if so, is the debris i'm seeing eggs or a byproduct of the reproduction? I ask this because that is how it appears and I also see many even smaller organisms moving around that do not have a distinct, identifiable shape.

Most rotifers are female and reproduce asexually by laying eggs. This is rather unusual considering that rotifers are considered animals, and it is unusual for animals to reproduce in such ways.

I can conclude from this information that indeed, my rotifers have been reproducing which is the reason for the debris and many baby rotifers now inhabiting my MicroAquarium.

(My information on rotifer reproduction was found at: www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/phyla/rotifera/rotifera.html)

In contrast to last week I was only able to observe on tachysoma in the MicroAquarium this week. I'm sure there were more that I couldn't observe but the abundance of rotifers definately made the tachysoma less obvious and less easy to spot.

In plant B I observed a few organisms that I could not identify although they looked like dandilions and had a similar look as the actinosphaerium. They were white in color and immobile and sitting amidst the plant making it inconspicuous and hard to spot.