Third Observation

I observed my MicroAquarium November 4th and it was teaming with action.  The organisms are moving around quite a bit at the top, feeding from the plant parts and mosses, and collecting organic matter.  There are many stationary organisms as well around the middle and bottom of the aquarium. The number of organisms have increased many times over, and I've found a few new organisms roaming around.

Here is a picture of a Vorticella, they are small unicellular protists that move around using a long hair like cilia (Patterson 1996).  These were hanging out around the bottom of the aquarium and collecting bits of organic matter.

I only found a couple of these Arcella around the bottom of the aquarium.  Arcella are a type of amoeba that move around with finger like structures called pseudopods and feed on unicellular green algae or small protozoa (Patterson 1996).  I actually saw one munching on a diatom but couldn't get a good picture of it.

Here's a picture of a Diatom, There were several of these unicellular organisms all throughout the aquarium.  They are non-motile, and Diatoms have chlorophyll which use energy to make food for themselves (Patterson 1996).