Hi guys, this is Alison Dyke. This blog has been set up for my Biology 111 course, General Botany, but if you're here looking for references or something like that, feel free to cite me if you think I'm accurate enough!
A small note about the title of my blog: S.H.I.E.L.D. is an organization from the Marvel Comics universe. The letters are an acronym for Strategic Homeland (some say Hazard) Intervention and Enforcement Logistics Division. Lately, it has been popularized by ABC's Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which an awesome show, but that is beside the point!) Basically, it's the product of a late night, caffeine, and a 3 hour marathon of aforementioned TV show. So, there's that.
Anyways, this here little blog is all about my Botany Microaquarium term project. This is the first week, so there won't be much yet, but I'll be posting each week and updating the progress of my little project. So, let's get started!
I only have a few pictures for this first post, but I'll go on and put them up anyways if I can get them off my phone.
Okay, so here are a few basics about my project:
How Did I Set Up My Aquarium?
I started out with a little glass or plastic enclosure. This basically consists of two glass (or plastic, I can't remember which it was) slides glues together on three sides. This was slid into a base so it will stay upright. There's a top that goes on it too, but in this picture it's sitting off to the side.
When my little aquarium was put together, it was time to choose my water. The water in my aquarium came from Carter Mill Park at the spring source. As I have never actually been to the spring source myself, I have to trust my lab instructor, Dr. Kenneth McFarland, in what he says about this place. He said its pretty much fresh out of the ground here, so there hopefully aren't that many pollutants in it yet.
Here's all the info that was on the paper we were given.
This gives the exact location (GPS coordinates) of the source and when it was collected (10/9/2011) and also the amount of light the water receives. Here it is also important to note that the water is clean enough to have several snails living in it. (They were kinda cute "snailing" around in the water!)
So, I filled my little aquarium up with some mud that had settled in the bottom of the dish (about 1/8 or so of the total amount), then filled the rest up with water taken from both the middle and top layers of water. I then added some plants:
-Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg. Moss. Collection from: Natural spring. at Carters Mill Park, Carter Mill Road, Knox Co. TN. Partial shade exposure. N36 01.168 W83 42.832. 10/13/2013 (I thought it would be cool to have a plant from the same area.)
And I have to find out the other plant tomorrow, hopefully. I know, I know. I'm not being a good scientist by not recording what plant I put in my microaquarium. Well I'm sorry. I was a little busy being excited about the microaquarium.
Okay, don't chase rabbit trails...
When I had it all together, I was finally able to put my microaquarium under the microscope and...
What? Did you think I actually took a picture of what was going on inside? Nope. Sorry, that will come a bit later. But there's what it looked like when I got it under the microscope.
What Did I See?
It was actually pretty cool even though there wasn't much going on in there yet. There were a lot of little Protists running around, zipping to and fro. At first, everybody else was talking about these little worm-like creatures they had squirming around in their aquariums. I was actually pretty upset because I didn't have one.
And then I saw him.
I know. How do I know its a him? I'm just assuming. Anyways, his name is DiNozzio (named after one of my favorite TV characters, Anthony DiNozzio from NCIS). I watched him for a bit, and then in an attempt to find more of his kind, moved about to see what I could see. And when I went back? He was gone!
But I know he's still in there somewhere, wiggling around in the mud. I'll find him again soon, as hopefully he'll have a friend by then! And then I can figure out what they are! That's my next part of the project: identifying the organisms I see in my aquarium. I'll try to get some sketches up in the next post, along with some more pictures. Maybe I can ever get a picture or video of my little Protists as they run around.
With much appreciation for anybody who looks at this (including my teachers and classmates, and especially for anybody else), this has been the first post of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Botany Experiment Blog. Now I'm going to sign off and go watch some Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.!
Alison Dyke, signing off!
P.S. I absolutely adore comments! Please feel free to leave a comment about whether anything in this blog helped you with something, what you like/don't like about my blog, etc. Thanks!
