Update 4

The final week of observations:

 Even though our observations of the project is
wrapping up, I continue to find more unique individual organisms that I had not seen before.
As with the cyanobacteria that I posted last week,
I did not recognize many of the smaller organisms
in my micro aquarium as living cells instead of
assuming they were from internal contents of
other cells.

This week I found a nice example of
Closterium sp. [upper right]
(Ward and Whipple,1918). This is a small
micro algae.

When I looked along the side of my aquarium,
I could see a worm-like creature moving along
the seal. It was a segmented worm,
Aeoleosoma sp. [bottom right]
(Ward and Whipple, 1918), a member of the
phylum Annelida. It was easy to see its internal organs when it was not obscured
by some of the soil clumps that were nearby.
The yellow spots that you can see on the head and down the body are pigment clusters common to this organism.

Update 3

 After the the food pellet from the last week
was completely used up by all the microorganisms in the micro aquarium, things started to settle back down.

 It was much more difficult to find organisms
in the aquarium except for around some of the major features such as the plants, sides, and
surface of the water. I managed to get a few good pictures of some Amoebas (Top and Middle). I managed to capture one of them just as it had captured a cyanobacteria (Middle). 



As I looked around, I found a large grouping
of an unidentified cyanobactira (Bottom).
Dr. McFarland and I searched for a very long time, but could not come to a satisfactory conclusion. The closest comparison we came to was an Oscillatoria (Smith, 1933) of some kind, but it did not match any of them close enough.

 Though we could not figure out what type of

cyanobacteria it was. I would assume it is of

the many types that have at least been seen

by other scientists, but because of how diverse

nature really is, it may even be an unclassified

type of cyanobacteria.

Bibliography

This post will include all of the material cited in my blog

McFarland, Kenneth [Internet] Botany 111 Fall 2013. [cited 10-23]. Available from http://botany1112013.blogspot.com/

Smith, G. 1933 The Fresh-Water Algae of The United States. 2nd ed. New York (NY):
McGraw-Hill Book Company.

Ward H.B., Whipple G.C. 1918. Fresh-Water Biology. Boston (MA): Stanhope Press.

Update 2

 In order to promote change in the ecosystem of the aquarium, 

a pellet of Beta fish food was added to the water. The organisms 

reacted by swarming around the pellet where i found much more

diversity than in the surrounding waters.

 Around the pellet  there appeared to be a halo when viewed

with the naked eye. Under the microscope, you can see that it is

actually swarms of Colpidium (Ward and Whipple, 1918) feeding

on the edges of what appears to be the mycelia of a water mold or fungus. 

Also feedingin this area were many Philodium (Ward and Whipple, 1918), 

a rotifer, and many amoeba. I actually managed to witness an amoeba 

consume a Colpidium that was about half its size.

Back over on the leaves of the Lindberg moss i also found an Epistylis

(Ward and Whipple, 1918). It was attached to the plant from it's 

long base and was filtering the water into its mouth for even smaller

particles that I could not see. I only saw one Cyclops like I did the first 2 weeks

and i found what appeared to be another, or the same, exo-skeleton

of one at the bottom of my aquarium.

Update 1

 This is the first check up after fall break, and everything was
doing ok. There were many microorganisms with cilia moving 
about. There were several amoebas that I saw.

 On the Utricularia I saw what appeared to be an insect larva 

feeding on the stem of the plant. I managed to catch a few pictures

and video of a Cyclops sp. (Ward and Whipple, 1918) swimming around. 

You can see the internal organs moving in the video. In the bottom 

corner of the aquarium there appeared to be remains of another

that was being picked clean by many single celled organisms. I
will add in a picture when I can fix the file.

All classifying was confirmed with the help of Dr. McFarland.

First Look

Everything is set up! My water sample came from the Spring Creek in UT's Dean's Woods property just off Alcoa Highway.

Spring Creek off Woodson Dr runing throught Dean's Woods Road frontage., Knox Co. Tennessee. Partial shade exposure. Tennessee River water Shed N35 55.274 W083 56.888 848 ft 10/13/2013 Fissidens fontanus moss in stream (McFarland, 2013).

After I put my water and debris samples into the micro aquarium, I added in a moss and a carnivorous plant (Right:Utricularia gibba, and Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg) to provide oxygen for all the organisms in my sample.

Speaking of organisms, in my first observations I saw a small crustacean and several nematodes moving around in my aquarium. I hope to identify these and more creatures in my future updates.