Week 2 in Atlantis

Ladies and gentlemen, the time has arrived. Week 2 is officially over, and the blog has commenced. After a good long week I went back and observed my Microaquarium (which will now be referred to as Atlantis because it's that cool) on Wednesday October 23, 2013. My Microaquarium contains water from the Tennessee River and two mosses, you can find the contents in more detail in my first post. I took Atlantis from my section's bin, and put it under the microscope expecting to see it bursting with life. I was wrong. I couldn't see anything, and a wave of panic rushed over me. I thought for sure I had killed my aquarium. Frantically, I searched it under the microscope and finally caught a glimpse of something moving. I couldn't quite make out what it was until I adjusted the microscope to look past the vegetation. After that adjustment, I could see everything. It was like I had stumbled into a whole new world. I could see brown diatoms, which are algae (Pennak. 1953). They were everywhere; moving at a very slow pace, to and from the plants.

What else was I going to see? I was so excited. I decided to check down towards the dirt at the bottom. I immediately saw many Euchlanis sp. (Pennak. 1953) swimming around.

They swim really fast, and it was hard to get a picture of one. As this one was moving by the moss, the moss and dirt began to move. It was like a giant earthquake was happening in Atlantis. I tried to see what was making it move but it was inside the dirt. I upped the intensity of the microscope, and I could faintly see something in the dirt moving. I waited and waited and finally it reared its ugly head, and yes it was indeed ugly. It was a ringworm (Pennak. 1953). It was huge! Turns out the ringworm was eating the dirt. I could see him eating it and it going through his body. I couldn't get a clear picture of it though. Sorry guys.

As I was moving on up one of the mosses I spotted another creature that looked like a worm. This one, however, was a midge (Pennak. 1953).

This picture had to be put together with photoshop because it was so long. This shows the tail, on the left, and the head, on the right. The midge wasn't moving very fast or really doing much at all. But it looked cool to me so congrats midge! You made it in the blog.

I started to get a little curious after the midge. I upped the power of the microscope even more. Now I was getting into some really basic creatures. Nothing seemed to be moving though. I couldn't tell what was what. At least until... THIS!

This is called an Actinosphaerium sp. (Pennak. 1953). It looks like the Sun to me. It has many fibers on the outside, which, according to Pennak, are attached to another sphere inside of it. They aren't supposed to move, but this one seemed to have been drifting into the moss.

Last but not least, as I was getting ready to leave, I saw perhaps the coolest thing I had seen all day.. Behold the Cyclops sp.(Pennak. 1953). And yes, that is its real name.

It gets the name cyclops for the single I it has in the middle of its head. It's the red dot. This guy looks really intimidating. With its antennae that look like horns, its humongous stature, and the fact that it looks like a monster, he looks like he could be the king of Atlantis in no time.

That's all I've got for this week. In my next blog, I will be observing Atlantis after food pellets have been added. My bibliography will be in a separate post. I used Pennak because it was the only book I could get a hold of. 

See you all next week!