Week 1: Setting Up My MicroAquarium (10/11/11)

Hello!


This past week in lab, we began our MicroAquarium project.  I will now outline the procedure I followed to set up the aquarium.


First, I obtained a glass tank, stand holder, and lid.  Then I put color dots to mark the tank as mine (dark blue, yellow, and green with my initials written on them).  I placed these dots in the top left hand corner.


Using a pipet, I extracted water from sample number 8, which contained water from the Tennessee River at the boat ramp across from the Knoxville sewer plant (Neyland Dr. Knox Co. Knoxville TN. Full sun exposure. French Broad and Holston Rivers water Sheds N35 56.722 W83 55.587 813 ft 10/9/2011).  I extracted enough water from the bottom of the container to fill the MicroAquarium until it was about 1/3 full, the next 1/3 of the water I extracted from the middle layer of the water, and I filled the rest of the MicroAquarium tank with water from the surface of the water.  Then I placed it in the stand and inserted two types of plants.  The first plant was Plant A or Amblestegium sp. Moss collected from a natural spring at Carters Mill Park (Carter Mill Road, Knox County, TN N36 01.168 W83.42.832) in partial shade exposure obtained on 10/9/2011.  The next plant I added was Plant B or Utricularia gibba L. flowering plant (a carnivorous plant) whose original material was from south shore of Spain Lake (N 35degrees55 12.35" W08degrees20' 47.00), Camp Bella Air Rd East of Sparta Tennessee in White County and grown in water tanks outside of greenhouse at Hesler Biology Building (The University of Tennessee, Knox County, Knoxville, TN).


After setting all of this up, I observed the contents of the MicroAquarium under the microscope for the first time.  I did not see any moving organisms.  The plants were chlorophyll green.  Organisms had not yet settled well enough after the move to be able to ascertain which layered they preferred (top, middle, or bottom). 


I plan to observe my MicroAquarium for the second time on Thursday, October 20th and will update with more information then.