Observation 3: October 30, 2013

On the third observation I continued to see more diatoms. I still saw the long, yellow and clear banana-shaped diatoms, but also saw a very different looking diatom as well. It is much wider and oblong than the previous diatoms. It was ribbed around the edges and moved somewhat slow. It is a yellowish-green color and is single-celled. Inside the organism looked like smaller organisms moving inside of it, though I am not sure if they were actually other organisms or just part of the diatom. The diatom is called Surirella sp. (Carter-Lund and Lund, 1995).

Another banana-shaped diatom identified as well. This one is called Gyrosigna sp. (Lund and Lund, 1995). It looks extremely similar to the other banana-shaped diatoms and they are very difficult to tell apart.

The last organism identified is something that I had not yet seen before. It is called Cyclidium sp. (Patterson, 1964). The organism was feeding at the time of observation by using it's cilia to pull the water in, thus pulling in food. While observing, it did not move other than using it's cilia, however when it was done, it moved away very quickly by a flagellum. 

Other activity worth noting was around the beta food pellet. There were swarms of organisms feeding off the pellet. The pellet was up near the top of the tank, where usually less organisms are observed, but since the food pellet was stationed up top, the organisms moved there too.