Day 3

This weeks lab time was not very eventful.  Though we did add Atison's Betta Foodsome to our tanks it did not seem to change much. The food is made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas, in Salt Lake City, UT. The ingredients include: 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, 2012)  

There were many little organisms floating around this time, which came from the added food.  They were swimming very fast and there were probably thousands of them.  One of the bigger things I saw was a Cyclops. It is a micro invertebrate and is shaped kind of like a little lobster.  Another interesting thing I noticed was the fact that the Vorticella sp.  had tripled in number throughout the tank. (Patterson, 2003) Seemingly smaller than before but I also was not as close as I was before.  Probably the most interesting creature I found was the Midge.  It was very large and I could actually see it with my own eyes, and then once I looked through the microscope I could see inside of it.  It is segmented, and is considered an insect larvae.  It would go through the dirt and come up to feed on the Amblestegium sp. plant and the organisms formed on the plant.  It was so interesting to watch it feed, since it had a mouth and appeared to be chomping on the branches and it's "chin" has little hairs or cilia on it.  It kind of reminded me of a muppet, although it is very different!  Other than that, my tank was not as interesting and also I could not find my mystery creature.  But I will try again and hopefully get to identify it.