Part 1 MicroAquarium Setup

First of all, the most important element of MicroAquariums are definitely the water source. Among several area water sources to choose from I chose the one I spend a lot of time at, Meads Quarry next to Ijams Nature Center. This quarry is an old rock mining place and is known for being somewhat polluted so I thought that would make for many interesting organisms. So we received our aquariums, a tiny space in between to pieces of plastic, that had a slit at the top and a slide on lid to perserve the environment. I dropped several droppers full of the quarry water into my aquarium until it was about 3/4 of the way to the top. While extracting the water, it was important to try and get as much dirt as possible for a diverse habitat. After that, I added a small amount of each plant given to us. They were: Amblestegium varium (Hedwig) Lindberg from the natural spring near Carters Mill Pike, Fontinalis (Moss) collected from the Holston River, and Utricularia gibba (a flowering plant) from the water tanks outside of Hesler Biology building at the University of Tennessee.  These plants were added to create oxygen flow in the water for the organisms to properly thrive. The MicroAquariums were marked and examined after setup under microscopes. From only a small observation I could tell there were a lot of organisms and bacteria in my environment. I identified one creature as a small single-celled worm, and also saw many Cyanobacteria near the bottom of my aquarium hugging to the dirt globs. After little examination the systems were put in a container and will be re-examined for organism activity and growth weekly.