The Second Look

It's been a week and two days since the creation of the Micro Aquariums and I am very pleased to say that there has been plenty of development in my tiny ecosystem. For instance, I thought I had seen a few nematodes swirling around, and with this new observation, there were about fifteen, which completely surpassed my expectations. Following one particularly large nematode and observing it's snacking habits, I focused the lens strangely and saw something shaped like a bugle. The chip. One end was opened and the other closed down and attached to the leaves of this plant. The opened wide end seemed to wave cilia around in the water to suck other organisms or plant matter into them, and then it would collapse onto the plant for a fraction of a second and open back up. It also compresses in this matter when it is messed with, shown to me when the nematode I was watching had poked at it. This organism is a Stentor, and there were a TON of them- I'd say there was one on every third leaf in the aquarium.  

Stentor (Pennak, 67 figure 3)

Sticking with the organisms stuck on the plants, I found another one that I can only describe the shape of as a set of gears. From what I could tell, the two sides worked by spinning inward to catch matter in them, and occasionally envelope into itself and open back out. (As shown in the video) This organism is Limnias sp and I counted around seven in the aquarium.

Limnias sp (Pennak, 118 figure 42-J)

There didn't appear to be any growth in other areas of the MicroAquarium, other than the aforementioned surge of Caenorhabditis Elegan populous.