Observations 11/5/14

During my observations on 11/5/14, I noticed that the activity of the smaller living organisms was up from last week. Most of these organisms were in the lower middle section of the aquarium around the plant material. There also appeared to be quite a few large, dead organisms. As you can see  in the video below, there was a feeding frenzy on one of them. We were unable to determine whether or not it was bacteria feeding on this organism.

In addition to what we believe was a dead or dying Euchlanis Rotifer being consumed, I also observed several smaller rotifers in the aquarium.
I did get to observe two new microorganisms I had not seen before. One of which was a Difflugia (Patterson 1996). This is an amoeba. It's pseudopodia will extend and contract, and it will also move with one extended. These use these to capture prey. Most are heterotrophs.





The second new organism I observed was a Synedra Diatom (Heurck 1962). These diatoms are "linear to lanceolate with rounded to capitate ends" (IDUS 2014). They are a part of the Fragilariaceae family. Unfortunately it has proven to be very difficult to find information about this specific diatom due to it being "a rather obscure and seldom documented diatom" (BN 2014).