Micro-Aquarium Setup

In this initial blog post for my 2014 Botany 111 Term project I will primarily be discussing three things: The source of the water I chose to use, the other objects included, and a description of the steps I took in setting up my micro-aquarium on October 15, 2014. 

Water Source

The water I have chosen for my micro-aquarium comes from a water pool below a spring in the vicinity of Lynnhurst Cemetery.  The water source is located off of Adair Drive in Knox County Tennessee at N 36 01.357 W 83 55.731 958 ft.  The source is a partial shade exposure spring feed pond.  The water from this source was collected by Dr. Kenneth McFarland on October 12, 2014.  I chose this source for my micro-aquarium because I am interested to see if the organisms found will differ from other sources.  I also hope to explore any effects the close vicinity of the cemetery to the water source might have on the ecosystem of my micro-aquarium.

Objects Included

The first additional object I added to my micro-aquarium was a piece of Amblestegium Varium (Hedwig) Lindberg collected from a natural spring at Carters Mill Park, Carter Mill Road, Knox Co. TN.  N36 01.168 W83 42.832.  This is a moss and for the purpose of this blog will be referred to as moss.  The moss can be seen on the left side of the micro-aquarium in the picture below.  The second additional object I added was a piece of Utricolaria gibba L which was originally collected from the south shore of Spain Lake (N 35o55 12.35" W088o20' 47.00), Camp Bella Air Road, east of Sparta TN in White County and grown in water tanks outside of the greenhouse at Hesler Biology Building at The University of Tennessee, Knox County, Knoxville TN.  Utricolaria gibba L is a flowering plant that may be better known as humped bladderwort (USDA 2014).  I will refer to it as bladderwort and it can be seen in the right side of my micro-aquarium pictured below. 

Description of Setup

The first step to setting up my micro-aquarium was to collect and assemble the glass tank, stand and lid.  I then coded it for identification among the other micro-aquariums.  You can view this in the blue and green stickers on the micro-aquarium pictured above.  The next step was to choose the source of the water as I described in the first section of this post.  Then, with a pipet, I extracted and added to the micro-aquarium a small amount of soil from the bottom of the water source, followed by water just above the soil, then off the tops of the leaves and finally at the surface of the water.  Once the soil was settled to the bottom of the micro-aquarium I proceeded to decorate it with the Moss and bladderwort as described in the second section of this post. 

Further Thoughts

Upon first glances at this micro-aquarium I have already observed several moving organisms and will be utilizing this blog to record detailed observations of the different organisms I find, their habits and changes over the next month.