first week

10-22-2008 Wednesday
I drew water from the dish that was provided to us by our instructor. Mine was from a fresh water pond and I put in some green vegetation to provide food for my organisms. It was interesting because when I looked into my aquarium I was able to see some organisms already.
Some of the organisms were:

Unknown (Desmid class)
This is a long, green cigar-shaped organism.
It moves very slowly.
It has a single flagella. There appears to be a small head.
There were many of them, in the middle of the aquarium.

Spirostomum
This is a large, cigar-shaped organism.
It moves at a medium speed.
There were no flagella seen.
I only saw it once, near the bottom.

Actinosphaerium (cilia group)
This looks like an exploding star.
It was spherical with things that looked like spikes all around it.
It was stationary and the spikes didn't move.
I saw two, in the middle of the aquarium.

Nematode (Kingdom animalia)
This is long and spiral shaped.
This is a multi-celled organism.
It moves very fast.
It was found all over the aquarium, but it moves so fast it was hard to tell if it was the same one.

Epistylis (cilia group)
This looks like a cone with a rounded "head" at the top.
It has a single flagella at the thin end.
It was stationary.
I only saw one, in the middle.

Rotifer (unknown type)
This is bottle-shaped.
I only saw it once.
It moves, but within a limited area.