Week 3: The saga continues

On Friday, the 25th of November, Dr. McFarland added one "Atison's Betta Food" pellet to my micro aquarium. This pellet was made by Ocean Nutrition, Aqua Pet Americas at 3528 West 500 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104. The ingredients in this bellet included fish meal, wheat flower, soy meal, krill meal, minerals, vitamins, and preservatives. Each pellet is 36% protein, 4.5% fat, 3.5% fiber, 8% moisture, and 15% ash. Overall, I thought my microaquarium showed more life and movement this week than last. I ran into a couple new species as well as some I've seen previously. The first new species I noticed was a giant blob with no real distinguishable shape moving in a similar fashion to a pile of molasses with a mind of its own. As you can see in figure 1, this blob was translucent and filled with what looked like little green balls. This blob is actually an amoeba sp. (Jahn and Bovee 1944).

I saw two other amoebas extremely similar to this one around the middle of the aquarium near where I spotted the first one. While examining the amoeba, I noticed another greenish, translucent blob. However, this blob was moving faster, possessed one wildly whipping flagella, and was shaped similarly to a Hershey's kiss. This organism is an Anisomena (Patterson 2003). The Anisomena is much smaller than the amoeba, but moves faster and more deliberately. I also found the diptera larva once again (Pennak 1989). The larva is still eating, growing, and wriggling around. I noticed no real changes in body or movement.