With this post I am going to be a little more informal and use first person. It is much easier to explain the days in the lab in this way than it is to use 3rd person. We will see how it goes, if I feel it is not professional enough I will go back to 3rd person.
On October 23rd was the day I decided on visiting my microaquarium for the first time. The first thing I had to do when I got there was sign in. After signing in I picked up my aquarium and used a standard microscope to begin looking for organisms while I waited for my turn to use a recording microscope. While using the standard microscope, I found some organisms and noted their locations in the aquarium, to make them easy to find when I moved to the recording microscope. After a short wait it was my turn. The first organism I found was the rotifer Limnias, which was confirmed by Dr. McFarland, who cross referenced his book to confirm it. I also found several other organisms, such as diatoms, a flatworm, and cyanobacteria. But those are for another day. The following is the picture I snapped of the rotifer Limnias. It was easy to see why they were named rotifers, since they were spinning and sucking in things in like a vacuum cleaner.
After the pictures were taken, Dr. McFarland helped me edit my pictures and send them to a file he created for them. Then I placed the microaquarium back in the bin and called it a day. Overall, it was a long, but interesting day looking at the microaquarium, and it will be cool to see the progression over the next few weeks.
Works Cited
Patterson, David J., and Stuart Hedley. Free Living Freshwater Protozoa: A Colour Guide. London: Wolfe, 1992. Print.
