Week 1 observations

For this first week I set up my microaquarium and made initial observations of the environment.

To set up the microaquarium, I used a pipet to first extract mud from the bottom of my sample environment and form a base of my microaquarium. Next, I transferred water from the top and middle of the container via pipet to fill the tank 3/4s of the way. Finally, I added in plant life so that my microaquarium can thrive. These plants included:
Utricularia gibba which is a carnivous, flowering plant. Originally from Spain, this was taken from a greenhouse at the University of Tennessee. It is light green, stringy, and held many black spored throughout the mass of plant.
Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg is a moss that was taken from a natural spring at Caters Mill Park  in Tennessee. This moss had long stems with small, hairlike leaves coming off and was dark and light green.
Fontinalis sp. which is another moss but from the Holston River. This appeared much like the previous moss, but much darker in color and almost black in sections of the plant.
All of these plants were collected on 10/13/2013 and added to the microaquarium on 10/16/2013 (McFarland 2013).

The environment my microaquarium was taken from container #9-Pond at Sterchi Hills Greenway Trail found in Knoxville, TN, also extracted from the environment on 10/13/2013 (McFarland 2013).

Upon initial viewing of the microaquarium, few microorganisms were visible. There were small dots that would move around, but nothing at a stage that could be identified. As the food is added and the organisms have time to adjust to the new environment, I'm sure much more life will start to appear