Observations Week 5

A great tragedy happened when I went to check my aquarium for the last week. Almost all of the water except for a small portion had evaporated out of the tank. When I observed the tank under the microscope, it appeared that the loss of water had severely changed the progress of the ecosystem. Life was booming inside the tank, but now only the plants and a few sparing organisms are alive. I observed two types of worms this week. One was quite larger than the other and moved rather slowly and I believe was a flatworm, Plenaria sp. The other type of worm had a small, thin body and moved very fast and whip-like. It seamed to "wiggle" its way around. This organism I believe to be a nematode. I was also able to give a name to the triangular shaped photosynthetic organisms I first observed last week. This organism is the structure known as a desmid of the algae species Closterium sp. I wish such a tragedy had not happened during the last week because I will never know the potential of the Microaquarium.