October 22, 2010

The trapping bladders on Plant B (Utricularia gibba L.) now contain many of the small, round organisms that were in the aquarium last week.  I believe that the round green, stationary organisms that I observed last week were actually these bladders before they had fully matured.  There are also many cyclops organisms which are classified as free-living copepods.  They are very common, found in soils and sands of quiet waters, about 1 to 2 mm, and greyish brown in color.  These are found throughout the aquarium.  At the bottom of the tank I observed several dead organism which is not surprising since the number of organisms in the aquarium seems to have to decreased dramatically from my last observation.  One of these dead organisms was surrounded by small, green, single-celled organisms.  While looking for organisms in and around the soil at the bottom of the tank I also saw what appeared to be some sort of a large worm occasionally stick its head out of the soil to feed on the remains of the organisms that had gathered in the soil.  I never really had the chance to have a good enough view of it to identify it, however, since it kept retreating back into the soil.