Day 2: Surprises in the Tank

Tuesday October 23 turned out to be very interesting! After almost three hours in the lab I discovered many different organisms and named a couple.  The outward appearance of the tank did change a little bit.  The dirt in the bottom made a little cloud mass right above the bottom and when I moved the water around it didn't shift.  So I decided to take a closer look and discovered that it appeared to be like a small root system.  I didn't identify it, but that is what it looks like.  

The next thing I did was scan the tank under the microscope.  One of the first organisms I ran across was the Vorticella sp. (Patterson, 2003).

Protozoa, Peritrichs: Oligohymenophora (Patterson, 2003)

 You can see the cilia on the bell, and they are blurry cause they're moving so fast.  If I tapped the glass of the tank it would contract at the stalk back into itself and the dirt. Vorticella sp. are single cell organsims, and their common, filter feeders that eat bacteria (Patterson, 2003). They have weath-like cilia around the broad part of the cell, or the "bell shape" (Patterson, 2003).

The next thing I found was a Spirogyra floating around in the water.  The colors here are very vivid green, which make it a green alga, and obviously the spirals are very distinct (McFarland, 2012).  Just another good find for me!   

Spirogyra

But the best thing I've discovered so far is my mystery organism.  The reason I say mystery is because I have yet to find something that will classify it.  

 It is very much alive, and when we disrupted the tank he retracted all the way inside his body.  Upon first glance we came to the conclusion it was a rotifer just a different type. (Stremberger, 1979)  But when I went back in the lab, I decided to continue trying to identify it and leave it as a mystery for now.  
More to come!
p.s (nov. 21, 2012) I think we decided it was a Hydra sp.  I wish I could have been able to further investigate it but I never could find it again!