Setup and First Observations

The water source I chose for the MicroAquarium came from water sample "8"This sample came from the Tennessee River at boat ramp across from Knoxville sewer plant on Neyland Dr. in Knox County, TN. This water source is subject to full sun exposure and get fed by the French Broad and Holston Rivers water sheds. The coordinates for the site where this sample was taken from is N35 56.722 W83 55.587 at 813 ft elevation on 10/12/2014 (McFarland, 2014).

To begin the set up for this, we gathered the aquarium, stand holder, and lid. We then placed colorcoded stickers on our aquariums representing section, table, and seat number so we would be able to identify our aquariums. Next we used pipette and sucked up some of the dirt/mud that was at the bottom of the sample pan and placed it in the MicroAquarium. We then took some water from around the plants that were in the sample and also some water that was just below the surface layer, then put the water we collected in the MicroAquarium. After filling the MicroAquarium with the mud and water, we put two different species of plants into the MicroAquarium: Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg Moss and Utricularia gibba. 

My first observations of the MicroAquarium under the mircoscope was really interesting. We could see the cell makeup of the plants that had been put into MicroAquarium along with seeing many things moving around inside. Some of the organisms looked like worms and others looked like flies that seemed to want to "run" away from the light of the micropscope.